Issue date: 4/16/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Evan Andrews [Click to enlarge]

The medical field has its fair share of moral debates. Stem cell research, living wills and sex education have been debated at length many times over the past decade. Yet these all have taken the sidelines as the current debate of the month is none of the above. The topic on everyone's tongues now is about a little-publicized rule known as the "conscience clause."

The conscience clause allows workers in health care settings, anybody from janitors to doctors, to refuse to provide services, information or advice on ambiguous religious or moral grounds. The services that can be denied to a patient on moral grounds include contraceptives, blood transfusions, vaccine counseling and many more. Even the morning-after pill can be denied to rape victims under the clause.

The rule was amended to a previous conscience clause law created after Roe v. Wade. The law allows doctors at any institution that receives federal money to refuse to provide abortions.

This amended law is one of many pieces of midnight legislation passed by former President George W. Bush before leaving office. First proposed August, it took effect Jan. 20, President Obama's first day in office.

A simple glance at the timing of this clause reveals its true intent: to serve as a political torpedo dropped in the water, aimed at a new administration. If it was an issue the Bush Administration really cared about, they would have had it enacted before the first day of Obama's tenure as president. Now, two months into his administration, Obama is facing the problem of what to do with this political missile.

When I go to a doctor, I want them to be honest about my options - all of my options. The patient should be the one making the moral decisions about treatment, not the doctor. Once you open the door to doctors making medical decisions based on their own morals, without any concern of the needs of the patient, you enter a scary place. Could a racist doctor refuse treatment of minorities based on his feelings of moral superiority of his own race? What about a doctor who refuses to arrange a vital blood transfusion because the patient and the donor are of different religion or race? This kind of treatment is possible with this law, and it's abhorrent.

Continued...

Page 1 of 2 next >

Article Tools