Lawsuit Launched to Quash Freedom of Conscience

Lawsuit Launched to Quash Bush Administration's Freedom of Conscience Regulation

An attempt to create protections for the conscience of physicians who object to abortion or other controversial procedures is being attacked by a lawsuit launched by the Attorney General's office of Connecticut. Seven states (California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island) are participating in the suit to block the Bush Administration's Provider Conscience Rule. 

The suit is being supported by the abortion lobby group National Family Planning & Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA), represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The office of Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Attorney General, said the suit is meant "to block an impending federal rule that gravely jeopardizes women's access to vital medical services, including birth control."

The regulation is the last to be issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under George Bush's administration and is set to come into effect January 20, the day of the inauguration of President Elect Barack Obama. The rule states that recipients of certain HHS funds must certify their compliance with already existing laws protecting provider conscience rights, or else risk losing their funding.

"Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience," HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said about the rule. "This rule protects the right of medical providers to care for their patients in accord with their conscience."

However, Mary Jane Gallagher, NFPRHA President, charged that, "The Bush administration pushed through this rule as its parting shot against women's health."

Judy Tabar, President and CEO of Planned Parenthood of Connecticut supported the move, saying that her organisation was proud to be "at the heart of events" in the abortion movement, "like the filing of today's litigation."

Tabar added, "We are grateful for the friendship and vision of leaders like Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who never fails to remind us of Connecticut's special role in the history of the reproductive justice movement, and of the importance of acting swiftly to repel wrongheaded, hurtful public policy."

But the Executive Director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person said the rule does "nothing more than to give force to the previous rules that were already on the books." Father Thomas Berg pointed out that the regulation only enforces regulations that should already have been enforced. "Unfortunately, our culture coaxes us into a practice of not honoring the right to exercise conscience in health care."

"We are being coaxed into a culture that allows new pressures on Catholic health care workers to comply with practices and services that are contrary to their conscience," he said.

"The right to conscience, the right to follow conscience in healthcare is a bedrock, a foundational issue in the practice of medicine. Healthcare professionals must exercise fidelity to their conscience's determination every day," Fr. Berg told Catholic News Agency.

To contact the Office of the Attorney General of Connecticut:
55 Elm Street
Hartford, Connecticut
06106
Phone:(860) 808-5318
Fax: (860) 808-5387

Contact: Hilary White
Source: LifeSiteNews.com
Source URL: http://www.lifesitenews.com
Publish Date: January 19, 2009
Link to this article:
http://www.ifrl.org/ifrl/news/090120_6.htm