[Vision2020] Obama to Rescind Conscience Rule

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (February 27, 2009) Spokesman Review.

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Obama to rescind ‘conscience rule’
Bush policy let medical workers deny drugs, services

The "Conscience Rule"
http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2008/E8-30134.htm
 
WASHINGTON – Taking another step into the abortion debate, President 
Barack Obama’s administration today will move to rescind a controversial 
rule that allows health care workers to deny abortion counseling or other 
family planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, 
according to administration officials.

The rollback of the so-called “conscience rule” comes just two months 
after George W. Bush’s administration announced it late last year in one 
of its final policy initiatives.

The new administration’s action seems certain to stoke ideological battles 
between supporters and opponents of abortion rights over the 
responsibilities of doctors, nurses and other medical workers to their 
patients.

Seven states, including California, Illinois and Connecticut, as well as 
two family planning groups, have filed lawsuits challenging the Bush rule. 
They argue that it sacrifices the health of patients to religious beliefs 
of medical providers.

The American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has reported cases, such 
as that of a Virginia mother of two who became pregnant because she was 
denied emergency contraception. In Texas, according to the group, a rape 
victim found her prescription for emergency contraception rejected by a 
pharmacist.

Supporters of the rule say it protects doctors who should not be forced to 
prescribe treatments like birth control pills or the so-called morning-
after pill.

Obama – a longtime supporter of abortion rights – has been expected to 
reverse a number of Bush’s policies restricting access to family planning 
services.

But the new president also has been very sensitive to the explosiveness of 
the reproductive rights issue.

Last month, Obama quietly overturned a controversial ban on U.S. funding 
for international aid groups that provide abortion services.

The move by his Department of Health and Human Services to throw out the 
conscience rule is being made equally quietly as most lawmakers focus on 
Obama’s blockbuster budget plan.

On Thursday officials stressed that the administration is looking for 
input from people across the ideological spectrum before it finalizes the 
roll-back after the standard 30-day comment period.

“We believe that this is a complex issue that requires a thoughtful 
process where all voices can be heard,” said one official, who was not 
authorized to speak on the record about the policy change.

The officials said the administration will consider drafting a new rule to 
clarify what health care workers can reasonably refuse to do for their 
patients.

In promulgating the rule last year, Health and Human Services Secretary 
Mike Leavitt said it was necessary to address discrimination in the 
medical field.

But critics complained the language of the rule is overly broad, covering 
any “activity related in any way to providing medicine, health care and 
other service relative to health and welfare.”

Obama officials said the administration’s goal is to make the rule clearer 
rather than force doctors to provide abortions.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
"For a lapsed Lutheran born-again Buddhist pan-Humanist Universalist 
Unitarian Wiccan Agnostic like myself there's really no reason ever to go 
to work."

- Roy Zimmerman


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