“Conscience” Rule May Be On the Way Out
Noam N. Levey reports in the LA Times and the Chicago Tribune that the Obama administration may soon open a 30-day comment period before rolling back the Health and Human Services “conscience” rule finalized at the tail end of the Bush term. The rule, as Jessica Arons explained here on SP, “expands the right of health care workers to refuse to provide medical care, counseling, referrals, and even information to an unprecedented level.”
While she wrote about the likely withdrawal of the rule, she also pointed out that its original implementation relied on some dangerous concepts. Some things conservative officials neglected when implementing the rule:
1) Requiring a health care provider to do his or her job is not discrimination.
2) Providing a referral for a service is not morally equivalent to providing that service yourself.
3) A refusal to provide care can harm patients.
More from Arons here.
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