HHS Proposal: Protecting the Freedom of Conscience

The Gospel according to Sekulow! God speaks to Sekulow, and Sekulow tells the world! Sekulow, Sekulow, Sekulow, Almighty!

Lost Left Coaster,

You consider someone seeking out an abortion as one seeking out medical care. Medical care is defined as "professional treatment for illness or injury." An abortion neither treats an illness or injury. Except in the case of a mothers life, abortion is the termination of life. It isn't a treatment of an illness or injury.

It's also not in violation to the Hippocratic oath that doctors undergo. Health professionals are required to save life, but should never be required to end life.

The examples you gave of being gay or having hepatitis having nothing to do with intentionally taking life.

There should be enough freedom of conscience to be able to refrain from killing life. Medical professionals should be obligated to preserve life regardless of their religious or moral positions, however they should never be obligated to end life. They should have the freedom of conscience there don't you think.

“Except in the case of a mother’s life, abortion is the termination of life.”

I disagree and I think a woman’s right to decide what she does with her reproductive organs is hers and hers alone. And I think that concrete reality is more important than someone else’s values or opinions about what she should do with her reproductive organs.

Doctors and health care providers are people who have power over their patients’ bodies and overall well being and I think it’s appropriate for the government to protect the individual rights of patients when it comes to their health care choices, more important than protecting the conscience of someone who stepped into a profession out of choice.

I did acknowledge that a doctor shouldn't be obligated to perform an abortion. As a matter of fact, doctors are not now obligated to perform abortions. Or am I mistaken? New regulations to protect that are not necessary. I'm not advocating that all doctors must perform abortions. I would neither advocate that all doctors should perform plastic surgery or heart transplants.

What we're talking about is expanding the definition of "following one's conscience" in the health care community to include much more, and just how much more, we do not know, because the HHS language is so broad. Therefore, it could conceivably be a "matter of conscience" whether or not a doctor accepts a gay patient or a disease acquired in a particular manner. Is that not the case? Please point me to language in the new HHS regulations that ensures that this is not the case.

Also, I agree with Argon; I have read the regulations and also cannot find exactly how patient health and safety is protected in light of care providers that may refuse treatment as a matter of conscience. I would appreciate if anyone could cite the appropriate sections that support what Mr. Sekulow states.

On the matter of reproductive health and conscience, I highly recommend that people look at what the actual professionals that deal with these matters have to say, a voice that seems to be lacking in the debate, both here and at large. That is, here is a statement from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in PDF form, entitled "The Limits of Conscientious Refusal in Reproductive Medicine."
http://www.acog.org/from_home/publications/ethics/co385.pdf

A discussion and summary of this statement and the HHS regulations can be found at the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum:
http://www.thehastingscenter.org/Bioethicsforum/Post.aspx?id=2084

"I disagree and I think a woman’s right to decide what she does with her reproductive organs is hers and hers alone. And I think that concrete reality is more important than someone else’s values or opinions about what she should do with her reproductive organs."

Here you equate a human life to reproductive organs. This position is manifestly false. Whether you will be intellectually honest enough to admit it or not, the product of conception is offspring. The level of development of the offspring is irrelevant for this argument. It remains and independent entity. As an independent entity, replete with its unique DNA, not to mention reproductive organs of its own, it cannot with any intellectual integrity be classified as merely a woman's reproductive organs. Such argumentation is fraught with problems and has no scientific support.

Go ahead and think it mere reproductive organs, but reality is disgustingly indifferent to what you think. To regard it as mere reproductive organs is reminiscent of slave owners regarding slaves as property. Just because the social consensus was that slaves were property, that didn't validate the slave owner position. The claim that a pregnant woman's developing offspring is merely a reproductive organ is incredibly incoherent and deliberately misleading.

Abortion ends a life and there is no way to change that fact. You argue about the right of the mother to have an abortion what about the right of the unborn child to have a life. The mother made her choice, she chose to partake in a mature act. Don't make the unborn child die because you want to protect the mother's right. We are supposed to protect those that can't protect themselves! Who needs more protection then an unborn child.

People who claim an unborn fetus is not alive or a child have lost their way. Since when have we become not responsible for our own actions. Please stop the insanity of abortions on demand.