{"id":282511,"date":"2022-12-30T16:27:13","date_gmt":"2022-12-30T22:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=282511"},"modified":"2022-12-31T19:23:10","modified_gmt":"2023-01-01T01:23:10","slug":"biden-administration-proposes-striping-medical-workers-conscience-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/biden-administration-proposes-striping-medical-workers-conscience-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden administration seeks to strip medical professionals of conscience rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Less than three months after the World Medical Association (WMN)\u00a0voted<\/a> to protect<\/em> conscience rights for medical professionals, the Biden administration has put forth a proposal<\/a> aimed at stripping away those protections in the U.S.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the proposal on Thursday. It would partially repeal a 2019 Trump Administration rule \u2014 one that never officially took effect<\/a> \u2014 that said any health facility that denied conscience rights to staff would lose federal funding. While noting that doctors and medical personnel have a right to object to participating in certain procedures such as abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia, HHS claimed that the patient’s rights to such procedures are of the utmost importance.<\/p>\n

Conscience protections for healthcare workers have been in place for decades and can be found within a number<\/a> of federal laws including Title VII<\/a> of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Church Amendments<\/a> of the 1970s, and both Section 1303(b)(4)<\/a> and Section 1553<\/a> of the Affordable Care Act.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSome doctors, nurses, and hospitals, for example, object for religious or moral reasons to providing or referring for abortions or assisted suicide, among other procedures. Respecting such objections honors liberty and human dignity. It also redounds to the benefit of the medical profession,\u201d the Biden administration proposal states, adding,\u00a0\u201c[but] patients also have autonomy, rights, and moral and religious convictions. And they have health needs, sometime[s] urgent ones. Our health care systems must effectively deliver services to all who need them in order to protect patients\u2019 health and dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, induced abortion and physician-assisted death are both examples of procedures that are unnecessary, not health care, and not “urgent”. Each of these procedures involves the intentional killing a human being.<\/p>\n