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Reproductive rights groups are cheering President Obama's intention to rescind a "midnight regulation" issued in the waning days of the Bush administration that blocks federal funding of healthcare facilities that don’t allow their employees to bow out of medical procedures, such as abortion, to which they have moral objections. Advocacy groups last month sued the government over the so-called "right to conscience" rule, charging that it's unlawful.

The administration will publish a notice in the Federal Register next week announcing that it's planning to change the rule, the Associated Press reports. 

"We've been concerned that the way the Bush rule is written it could make it harder for women to get the care they need," an unidentified Department of Health and Human Services official told the Washington Post. "It is worded so vaguely that some have argued it could limit family planning counseling and even potentially blood transfusions and end-of-life care."

Federal law bars discriminating against healthcare workers who refuse to provide abortions or abortion referrals to patients, but the Bush reg change requires federally funded facilities to certify that they're complying with it – and both proponents and critics of the new rule agree that the way it's worded could be broadly interpreted to allow workers to also block access to other medical treatments, such as contraception and artificial insemination.
 
The Center for Reproductive Rights praised the move. “Any time, any worker at a healthcare facility can prevent a woman seeking reproductive services from getting care, information and even, a referral—and the government sanctions such conduct—it’s time for a regulatory 'do-over,'" said said Nancy Northup, the group's president. "The Bush administration claimed that this policy protects healthcare providers against discrimination, but in truth, it leaves patients unprotected and seriously violates their rights and medical needs.”

Obama on Jan. 23 reversed Bush's controversial "Global Gag rule," which cut off federal funding for international-aid groups that perform or provide information about abortions. The regulation, also known as the Mexico City Policy, had been in effect on and off since 1984.

Image of Barack Obama/Obama-Biden Transition Project via Wikimedia Commons

12 Comments

1. 1. KennethC 03:35 PM 2/27/09

   This is wrong!
   
   http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://intercessor.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/prolife2.png&imgrefurl=http://iclipmytoenailswithashotgun.blogspot.com/&h=421&w=349&sz=182&tbnid=1ZXSAGLFpnrCKM::&tbnh=125&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dpro%2Blife&hl=en&usg=__XQ3q192PDwsqMeRpKjz7QGHjdTI=&ei=W06oSa6rKpDQnQfquKTnDw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=6&ct=image&cd=1

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2. 2. Ben_Lawson 04:14 PM 2/27/09

   Unwinding this is quite just.
   
   Bush's ill-conceived (that's almost a joke, isn't it?) midnight regulation would have the effect of blocking legitimate medical services just because of the personal morality of the healthcare professional the patient happens to encounter.
   
   We can debate the issue of abortion until long after the cows have come home and undoubtably will, but a doctor's responsibility is to provide, or facilitate, all necessary care to their patient. Pacifists don't get to refuse to assemble rifles if they accept employment in a munitions factory, do they?

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3. 3. rdholland 08:20 PM 2/27/09

   So we cannot say the pledge of allegience, and nativity scenes and moments of silence are litigated against because we are concerned someone might be offended. But a Catholic doctor who believes abortion is a sin will be forced by the government to kill babies?
   
   And Ben Lawson, your analogy is misconceived. Pacifists did get to opt out of compulsory military duty (when we had a draft). Plus you forget the first rule a doctor learns "Do no harm". Some doctors just happen to think that killing an otherwise healthy baby in utero is doing grave harm to the baby. That Catholic doctor a "conscientious objector" when it comes to killing.

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4. 4. scientific earthling in reply to rdholland 01:57 AM 2/28/09

   rdholland: A religious person should not be involved in science. The two are incompatible.
   
   A religious person should not be a doctor. As he/she is intervening in his/her gods decision to inflict illness.
   
   Ben_Lawson is right. Read history, very intelligent conscientious objectors to war were put in prison, but if you claimed to be part of a religious group that had anti war beliefs, you were exempt from conscription, even if you were as dumb as a doorknob. (Essential attribute for a very good soldier)

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5. 5. zimm 07:23 PM 2/28/09

   You're not allowed to serve on a jury in a death penalty case if you refuse to consider it as a sentencing option. (And it's not just about an great way to get off a jury with the death penalty trial, but if our legal system endorses the option, you should be willing to enforce it.) Basically, if you are a doctor, you should not withhold (or force your own ethics to counsel against) any available medical options approved by the government. You should not be counseling patients in your own interests, rather in theirs.

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6. 6. rightly 06:35 PM 3/2/09

   Conscience, the recognition of right and wrong based on one's own sense of proper conduct or conformity to a belief system, is not subject to reason but places an individual in a position to allow irrational ideas to interfere with the behavior of others.
   Equality requires the right to privacy in matters of belief. The only authority recognized in law is the power of the people to protect their inalienable rights from political interference. The only protection of prejudice and bigotry is to keep it private.

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7. 7. abarel 10:40 AM 3/3/09

   I have an idea for all the religious people who object to our modern society: go away. If you have such a big problem with the way our society is running, leave. No one wants you to interfere: i. e. when a husband wants to pull the plug on his energy-draining wife who will never get better and is slowly killing him inside to see her in such pain and misery, or any other case where the religious "conscious" decided to play its hand. You'll protect pedophile priests but the right of a woman to decide that she'd rather not bear the child of her rapist and possibly produce another rapist, that can't be allowed. As a very proud dad, I couldn't imaging wanting my child dead in the womb, but I do not feel that I have the right to dictate to anyone else what they should do with their body. Smoke pot, drink yourself to an early grave, it's not my right to tell them what they can and can't do with their own body. Their interaction with society on the other hand can be dictated: don't drink and drive, etc. So if you seriously can't stand the way this country lives: leave. And while it's a religious issue: you're commandments may have formed the basis for our laws but they were helped by Hammurabi and thousands of Greek, Roman, Celtic, and many other codes of behavior. Remember, freedom of religion means that I don't have to listen to your religious rant just as you don't have to listen to mine. Christians, and I'm including all denominations and cults, believe that they have the right to practice their beliefs and destroy all others, they are incompatible with a society that believes in religious equality. Why do we let them in? Because we have to. For me to practice my beliefs freely, I have to accept the same from others. Just as I don't shove my beliefs down people's throats, I expect the same from others (I don't get the same treatment but I still expect it).

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8. 8. cleo4474 in reply to abarel 02:47 PM 3/3/09

   So let me get this straight...you believe that "Smoke pot, drink yourself to an early grave, it's not my right to tell them what they can and can't do with their own body" but it is OK for you to tell a health care professional to perform medical procedures they believe are immoral (something, by the way, they have to do "with their own body"). Recinding the "conscience rule" doesn't just mean that a medical professional has to give a patient options, it means that a medical professional can be fired for not performing a procedure they find morally abjectionable. And just because a medical treatment is currently approved by the government doesn't mean that it is moral or even medically sound: electroshock therapy and lobotomies with ice picks used to be acceptable "treatments" for "unruly" patients. Let's be honest about the real issue here...it isn't about protecting freedom of choice, it is about trying to force the people who are vocal about being true to their own beliefs to give in to the people who believe equality only comes when everyone thinks like they do.

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9. 9. cleo4474 in reply to scientific earthling 03:34 PM 3/3/09

   "A religious person should not be a doctor. As he/she is intervening in his/her gods decision to inflict illness"
   
   So only an atheist is capable of being logical? You have a very interesting and narrow opinion on what a "religious" person can believe. A person can be religious and not think that God is out there "inflicting" disease and accidents on people. Haven't you ever heard of free will? If I chose to go out there and smoke, it isn't God giving me lung cancer. If I overeat and don't exercise, it isn't God giving me diabetes. There may be some religious people out there who believe that, but not all of us do. Please stop generalizing about me when you don't actually know what I (and many other people out there who consider themselves to be religious) believe.

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10. 10. revueltos67 10:02 PM 3/5/09

    abarel: so it's secularism, love it or leave it?
    
    I've got an idea for you. Search your "conscious" and imaging what it's like to live in a democracy.
    
    

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11. 11. scientific earthling in reply to cleo4474 03:39 AM 3/6/09

    cleo4474: God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Everything that has happened, is happening and will happen god is aware of. He can do anything, no matter how impossible it might seem. This in essence is what I am told is god.
    
    How can you have free will if everything you do is predestined to happen?
    Its like the guy who goes to see a movie every day, finally the ticket collector asks him why. You know the scene where the star is taking off her clothes, at the last minute a train rushes past, one day I am sure the train will be late.
    
    Please tell me what you believe.

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12. 12. sunkissedgirl909 in reply to abarel 10:23 PM 4/6/09

    When doctors goto school for more than eight years, I think they are capable of making their own decisions.

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