News Releases: 2010
The Becket Fund
for Religious Liberty
20 August, 2010
In a
letter on Thursday, August 19, 2010, The Becket Fund for Religious
Liberty threatened to sue the Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) if it tried to force religiously affiliated hospitals to perform
abortions against the conscientious objections of their doctors and
nurses. The Becket Fund wrote to HHS in response to an ACLU
letter which pressures HHS into forcing religiously affiliated
hospitals across this country to perform abortions. After sending
the letter, the ACLU called on its multi-thousand membership to mount a
letter campaign to demand abortion services at Catholic hospitals.
"We will represent, pro bono, any religious hospital or its personnel
that HHS threatens because of their conscientious objection to
abortion," said Kevin "Seamus" Hasson, President of the Becket Fund.
"And we will, if necessary, sue to block any such proposed policy."
The letter pointed out that conscience has been protected in the
medical profession in this country since Roe v. Wade. It further argued
that the ACLU misinterprets the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active
Labor Act ("EMTALA"), a law initially designed in part to protect the
conscience rights of healthcare workers, and in doing so, overturns 25
years of caselaw.
"The ACLU has no business radically re-defining the meaning of
'emergency health care,'" writes Becket Fund President Kevin "Seamus"
Hasson. "Just as it has no business demanding that religious
doctors and nurses violate their faith by performing a procedure they
believe is tantamount to murder. Forcing religious hospitals to perform
abortions not only undermines this nation's integral commitment to
conscience rights, it violates the numerous federal laws that recognize
and protect those rights."
Forcing Catholic or any religiously-affiliated hospital to perform
abortions will only result in nationwide closures, thereby reducing
access to healthcare for everyone, a blow the healthcare system could
not weather. Legally forcing doctors and nurses to perform abortions in
violation of their consciences would constitute a large step backwards
for religious freedom and would turn this nation's foundational
commitment to conscience rights on its head.
For more information or to arrange an interview, please contact
Montserrat Alvarado at malvarado@becketfund.org or call 202.590.6966.
The Becket Fund
for Religious Liberty is a non-profit public interest law firm
headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Becket Fund defends religious
freedom for people of all faiths. Its clients have included Buddhists,
Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians. Becket Fund
attorneys are recognized as experts in the field of church-state law.
ADF-allied attorneys secure stay after state agrees to reverse
course, act in best interests of both patients and pharmacists
Alliance Defence Fund
For immediate release
14 July, 2010
TACOMA, Wash. - Attorneys allied with the Alliance Defense
Fund secured a
stay order from a federal court Monday that halts legal
proceedings against pharmacists on trial for their conscience. The
court issued the stay after the state pharmacy board agreed to
propose revisions to its rules to allow what the pharmacists have
sought from the beginning: to be allowed to refer patients seeking
drugs that risk taking human life to other pharmacies. For three
years, the Washington State Department of Health has been attempting
to force pharmacists to sell such drugs against their conscience.
ADF and allied attorneys filed the lawsuit in 2007 to safeguard the
rights of pharmacists and pharmacies against state regulations that
forced them to stock or distribute the drugs. The new regulations
will protect conscience rights while also benefitting patients by
mandating that all referrals are "facilitated," which means, in
part, that pharmacies will help patients find a provider that stocks
and dispenses the drug they are seeking.
"Pharmacists and other healthcare workers shouldn't be punished for
looking out for their patients' health--and for abiding by their
beliefs," said ADF Senior Legal Counsel Steven H. Aden. "The
pharmacy board was right in determining that facilitated referrals
work to protect the patients' best interests and that, at the same
time, pro-life pharmacists shouldn't be forced to violate their
conscience. This is a win-win situation."
"Patients are true winners here," said Kristen Waggoner of the
Seattle-based law firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry, PLLC, and one of
nearly 1,800 attorneys in the ADF alliance. "The new rules should
ensure that customers receive prescribed drugs in the most efficient
manner possible while at the same time respecting the conscience
rights of pharmacists, who should never be forced to participate in
the risk of destroying human life just to be able to preserve their
professional licenses."
In a
stipulation, the state attorney general told the court that the
pharmacy board intends to create new rules that respect conscience
rights and also noted "that facilitated referrals are often in the
best interest of patients, pharmacies, and pharmacists" because they
"help assure timely access to lawfully prescribed medications."
In 2007, ADF and allied attorneys filed the suit
Stormans v.
Selecky with the U.S. District Court for the Western District of
Washington, which later issued a preliminary injunction against the
state regulations.
Washington State Department of Health officials
of the injunction, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
set it aside even though the State Board of Pharmacy itself had
determined that no evidence existed to show that anyone in the state
had been denied access to the "Plan B" drug (or any other
time-sensitive medication) due to religious conscience concerns.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and like-minded
organizations defending the right of people to freely live out their
faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of
faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique combination of
strategy,
training, funding, and litigation to protect and preserve
religious liberty, the sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.
The Becket Fund
for Religious Liberty
7 July,2010
This afternoon, less than two weeks before the start of a civil rights
trial in Tacoma federal court, attorneys for the State of Washington
told a federal judge that the State would seek to create new rules
for pharmacists with conscientious objections. The new regulations would
give the plaintiffs in the lawsuit--the owners of Ralph's Thriftway
pharmacy and two pharmacists--what they've wanted all along: the right
to refuse to stock or dispense Plan B (the so-called "morning after
pill") based on their conscientious objection.
This is an enormous about-face for the State, which has for several
years maintained that it had to restrict the religious freedoms of
pharmacies and pharmacists in order to ensure patient access to the
morning after pill. In its filing today, however, the State concedes
that allowing pharmacists with conscientious objections to refer
patients to other pharmacies "is a time-honored pharmacy practice" that
is "often in the best interest of patients, pharmacies, and pharmacists"
and "do[es] not pose a threat to timely access to lawfully prescribed
medications." Based on the State's representations, the Plaintiffs have
agreed to allow the trial to be postponed while the Washington State
Board of Pharmacy undertakes its rule-making process. Washington State
is capitulating less than a month after
The Becket Fund for Religious
Liberty helped Plaintiffs defeat Washington's motion for summary
judgment.
"This sends a clear signal to Governor Christine Gregoire that her
bullying tactics are not acceptable. First she threatened to fire the
members of the State Board of Pharmacy if they did not agree with her;
then, she tried to pressure the pharmacy by joining a boycott against
Ralph's Thriftway," said Eric Rassbach, National Director of Litigation
for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. "It may come as a surprise to
her, but conscientious and principled people like the owners and
pharmacists of Ralph's Thriftway are the backbone of this country."
The controversy began in 2006 when the State Board of Pharmacy
unanimously supported a rule protecting conscience for pharmacy workers.
The Board voted in favor of a regulation allowing pharmacists with
religious objections to refrain from dispensing Plan B and to refer
patients to nearby suppliers. Governor Gregoire soon learned about the
protection, publicly threatened to fire the Board's members, and even
called them late at night to lobby them. Matters escalated when the
State's Human Rights Commission insinuated that Board members could be
held personally liable under gender discrimination laws if they
supported the regulation.
Buckling under these pressures, the Board decided to reconsider the
issue and instead adopted new language mandating pharmacies to stock and
dispense the medication even when doing so violates their conscience.
The Board adopted this regulation even though it admitted it found no
evidence that anyone in the state had ever been unable to obtain Plan B
(or any other time-sensitive medication) due to religious objections.
The Becket Fund's clients, a family owned pharmacy and two individual
pharmacists, filed suit to prevent the new regulation from forcing them
out of their profession.
"Americans should not be forced out of their professions solely because
of their religious beliefs--but that is exactly what Washington State
sought to do," said Luke Goodrich, legal counsel at The Becket Fund.
"The government should accommodate and protect the fundamental rights of
all members of the medical profession, not punish some members because
of their religious beliefs."
Legal Voice, a group that intervened in the case to defend the
regulations, has already decried Washington's change, calling it an
"outrage."
The Becket Fund represents the plaintiffs along with Kristin Waggoner
and Steven O'Ban of the Seattle firm Ellis, Li & McKinstry, PLLC.
Based in Washington, D.C., The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a nonpartisan public-interest law firm dedicated to
protecting the free expression of all religious traditions.
For more information or to arrange an interview with one of the
attorneys, email
Kristina Arriaga, at or call cell 703.582.8962
The Becket Fund is also fighting for
healthcare workers' conscience rights at the federal level, opposing an
Obama Administration proposal to
eliminate a regulation that protects those conscience rights. The regulation,
which went into effect on January 20, 2009, protects health care workers who
want to opt out of performing procedures or dispensing medications that
would violate the ir conscience. On April 8, 2009, The Becket Fund submitted
a
response that provides a detailed history of conscientious objection and
the legal and historical support for the right of conscience in the health
care profession. The Becket Fund also wrote an op-ed for
the Washington Times on conscience clauses, authored by Founder Seamus
Hasson and Legal Counsel Luke Goodrich.
The Becket Fund
for Religious Liberty is a non-profit public interest law firm
headquartered in Washington, D.C. The Becket Fund defends religious
freedom for people of all faiths. Its clients have included Buddhists,
Christians, Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Sikhs, and Zoroastrians. Becket Fund
attorneys are recognized as experts in the field of church-state law.
ADF attorneys file state lawsuit alongside ongoing federal suit
ADF Media Relations | 480-444-0020
Thursday, April 29, 2010, 12:00 AM (MST)
NEW YORK - Alliance Defense Fund attorneys filed a
lawsuit Friday against Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York state
court on behalf of a nurse forced to participate in a late-term
abortion procedure under threat of disciplinary action, including
possible termination and loss of her license. The state suit was
filed in addition to pro-life nurse Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo's federal
lawsuit, which is on appeal, because her rights of conscience are
also protected by New York law.
"Pro-life nurses shouldn't be forced to assist in abortions against
their beliefs," said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "It is illegal,
unethical, and a violation of Cathy's rights of conscience as a
devout Catholic to require her to participate in terminating the
life of a 22-week pre-born child. It was not only wrong, it was
needless."
Administrators at Mt. Sinai Hospital threatened DeCarlo with
disciplinary measures in May 2009 if she did not honor a last-minute
summons to assist in a scheduled late-term abortion. Despite the
fact that the patient was apparently not in crisis at the time of
the surgery, the hospital insisted on her participation in the
procedure on the grounds that it was an "emergency," even though the
procedure was not classified by the hospital as such. The hospital
has known of the Catholic nurse's religious objections to abortion
since 2004.
In the newly filed
state suit, ADF attorneys allege that Mt. Sinai is violating
state conscience laws, as well as state laws against religious
employment discrimination and intentionally inflicting emotional
distress on an individual-along with five other claims based on
DeCarlo's coerced participation in the abortion.
"An individual's conscience is often what brings health care workers
into the medical field," said lead counsel Joseph Ruta, one of more
than 1,600 attorneys in the ADF alliance. "Denying or coercing their
conscience will likely drive them right out."
ADF attorneys filed the state lawsuit
Cenzon-DeCarlo v. Mt.
Sinai Hospital with the Kings County Supreme Court.
ADF attorneys filed the federal suit in July 2009, claiming Mt.
Sinai ignored federal laws prohibiting such coercion while receiving
hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding.
Mt. Sinai responded by saying Cenzon-DeCarlo had no right to
sue. ADF attorneys also sent a
letter in March urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services to take action against the hospital for its unlawful
coercive treatment of DeCarlo.
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and
like-minded organizations defending the right of people to freely
live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF employs a unique
combination of
strategy, training, funding, and litigation
to protect and preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life,
marriage, and the family.
Advocates
International
22 March, 2010
HARTFORD, Conn., March 22 /Christian
Newswire/ -- Representing Concerned Women for America,
America's largest women's advocacy group and four other groups
of pro-life medical professionals, attorneys with Advocates
International filed a
joint motion to lift stay and at last permit their
intervention in three lawsuits commenced on January 15, 2009
that seek to invalidate a
final federal regulation protecting medical professionals
from discrimination because they refuse to participate in
abortions. Advocates International is seeking to defend the law
against challenges by some state officials, Planned Parenthood,
and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health
Association, represented by the American Civil Liberties
Union. A stay of the action was issued last year by the Court
when the pro-abortion Obama Administration issued its
notice of rulemaking to rescind that regulation year ago and
also asked the court for time to consider whether it shouldn't
rescind the challenged regulation that denies federal funding to
any federal grantee who discriminates against any health care
providers for exercising their constitutionally and statutorily
protected rights of conscience.
"As we face the most pro-abortion Congress and administration in
American history seeking to fund abortion in healthcare, medical
professionals can no longer depend on government to protect
their rights not to be forced to perform abortions against their
conscience. Despite the well-established laws protecting the
health care right of conscience, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU,
and their pro-abortion allies are now receiving the cooperation
of the Obama administration as they again seek to punish
pro-life medical professionals for their beliefs," said Samuel
B. Casey, General Counsel of Advocates International's Law of
Life Project. "Our clients are opposing these lawsuits because
they wrongfully seek to compel health care workers to perform
abortions against their ethical and professional judgment or
face dire consequences."
"For over three decades, federal law has prohibited recipients
of federal grants from forcing medical professionals to
participate in abortions. The arguments in the lawsuits
themselves demonstrate lack of compliance with these laws and
the necessity of the fair non-discrimination Health and Human
Services (HHS) regulations these pro-abortion groups are
challenging," said attorney Howard Wood, of Manchester who is
assisting as Advocates International's lead local counsel in the
case.
On behalf of Concerned Woman for America (CWA), Christian
Pharmacists Fellowship International, Care Net, Heartbeat
International and the New Jersey Physicians Resource Council,
Advocates International attorneys, are asking to be allowed to
intervene and defend the law, 45 CFR Part 88, enacted in
December 2008 by the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services. Noting a pattern of grant recipients unaware of or
flouting existing laws protecting medical professionals' rights
of conscience, HHS enacted the new law to require grantees to
certify compliance with them in order to receive funds. The
three long-standing statutes are the Church Amendment, the
Coats-Snowe Amendment, and the Weldon Amendment.
Many of the plaintiffs challenging the HHS law in this case
failed in previous efforts to have the Weldon Amendment struck
down.
Most of the clients represented by Advocates International filed
testimony in support of their intervention motion pointing out
that denying rights of conscience could harm access to
healthcare for all by forcing medical professionals who refuse
to perform abortions to either relocate from jurisdictions that
force them to do so or leave the profession altogether.
Contact:
Samuel B. Casey,
Advocates
International, 703-624-4092
Advocates
International is an international organization of attorneys
in over 150 nations who seek to do justice with compassion,
including through its Global Task Forces on the Law of Life and
Religious Freedom protecting the right of health care
professionals not to perform or refer for elective abortions.
Christian Medical
Association
For Immediate
Release
March 22, 2010
Washington, DC, March
22, 2010--The nation's largest association of faith-based physicians,
the 17,000-member
Christian Medical Association (CMA),
today lamented the passage of a sweeping healthcare overhaul bill that
lacks strong conscience protections, saying the gap could lead to a
crisis of health care for poor patients."
Millions of poor
patients and those in medically underserved areas currently depend on
care from faith-based hospitals, clinics and physicians who follow
life-affirming ethical standards such as those found in the Hippocratic
oath and the Judeo-Christian Scriptures," noted CMA CEO Dr. David
Stevens.
"National
polling reveals that 95
percent of faith-based physicians say they will be forced to leave
medicine without conscience protections. Since the bill passed by
Congress does not include strong conscience protections, it opens the
door to an increase in discrimination against physicians, hospitals and
clinics that decline to participate in abortion and other morally
controversial procedures."
While several
longstanding federal laws passed on a bipartisan basis over the past 35
years have offered strong conscience protections, President Obama has
announced
plans
to rescind the only
federal regulation that implements those laws. The Senate bill passed by
the House on Sunday does not prohibit discrimination by the government
or healthcare facilities against healthcare professionals who attempt to
follow their conscience on abortion and other morally controversial
procedures. The Senate had declined to pass a strong
conscience-protecting amendment offered by one of its two physicians,
Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn.
Dr. Stevens added,
"The last-minute deal for an Executive Order relating to abortion and
conscience-the deal that changed the 'No' votes of pro-life Democrats to
'Yes'--was like trading a birthright for a mess of pottage. The
executive order, which added no additional conscience protections
whatsoever, can be changed tomorrow by this President, or later by any
subsequent President, with the stroke of a pen. The healthcare bill,
meanwhile, becomes permanent
law."
CMA summarized its
position on other aspects of the healthcare bill, including government
funding of abortion, in a recent
letter
to Congress. CMA also coordinates the
Freedom2Care coalition of 50 organizations supporting conscience rights in health
care.
Contact: Margie Shealy
Telephone:
423-844-1047;
E-mail: margie.shealy@cmda.org
The
Christian Medical Association is equipped with Ku Band Digital Uplink
satellite and ISDN lines.
Letter, legal motions seek to protect health care workers from being forced
to participate in abortions
Alliance
Defence Fund
19 March, 2010
HARTFORD, Conn., and NEW YORK - In a busy week of debate in
Washington over health care reform, attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund are
moving forward with efforts in four different lawsuits to ensure that conscience
protections for health care workers are not ignored. ADF is working together
with the Christian Legal Society's Center for Law & Religious Freedom in three
of those efforts.
"Medical professionals should not be punished for holding to their beliefs, and
they should not be forced to perform abortions against their conscience. It's
imperative that the government not ignore protections for the men and women who
save lives and provide healing to millions," said ADF Legal Counsel Casey
Mattox.
ADF and CLS attorneys re-filed
motions to intervene in three separate lawsuits Friday on behalf of three
pro-life medical associations that wish to defend a federal law protecting
health care workers from discrimination for refusing to participate in
abortions. ADF attorneys also sent the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services a
letter urging the department to enforce existing conscience regulations in
the case of a New York nurse forced to assist in a late-term abortion. ADF
filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf last year.
In 2009, ADF and CLS
filed motions to intervene in
National Family Planning & Reproductive
Health Association v. Leavitt, Planned Parenthood of America v. Leavitt,
and a third lawsuit in federal district court, where they are re-filing the
stayed motions on all three suits. The third suit, Connecticut v. United
States, was initiated by several state attorneys general, including
Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal and Massachusetts' Martha Coakley, to tear down
existing federal conscience protections. The other two suits, being litigated in
part by Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union, have been
consolidated with the third suit.
ADF and CLS represent the Christian Medical Association, Catholic Medical
Association, and American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and
Gynecologists, all of which desire to intervene in the suits to defend 45 CFR
Part 88, the conscience protections rule enacted in 2008 by HHS merely to
enforce existing law. ADF and CLS attorneys argue that the lack of adequate
conscience protections in President Obama's health care proposal and his
expressed desire to rescind the rule make obvious the need for the organizations
to intervene.
"These lawsuits aren't about 'choice' at all; they're about coercion," said ADF
Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. "For more than three decades, federal law has
prohibited federal grant recipients from forcing health care workers to assist
in abortions. The arguments of the suits themselves prove the dire need for
these protections."
ADF also sent a letter March 8 urging HHS to take action against New York's Mt.
Sinai Hospital for forcing senior nurse Cathy Cenzon-DeCarlo to participate in a
22-week abortion under threat of her job and license. In July 2009, ADF filed
suit on DeCarlo's behalf against the hospital, claiming it ignored federal laws
prohibiting such coercion while receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in
federal funding.
Mt. Sinai claimed last August that DeCarlo had no right to defend herself in
the lawsuit, Cenzon-DeCarlo v. The Mount Sinai Hospital.
- Note: Facts in ADF news releases are verified prior to publication but
may change over time. Members of the media are encouraged to contact ADF for the
latest information on this matter.
Contact:
ADF MEDIA RELATIONS
(480) 444-0020
ADF is a legal alliance of Christian attorneys and
like-minded organizations defending the right of people
to freely live out their faith. Launched in 1994, ADF
employs a unique combination of
strategy,
training, funding, and litigation to protect and
preserve religious liberty, the sanctity of life,
marriage, and the family.
Christian Medical
Association
15 March, 2010
WASHINGTON, March 15 /Standard
Newswire/ -- The 17,000
members of the
Christian Medical
Association today urged Members of
the House of Representatives to vote against the
controversial healthcare overhaul bill approved by
the Senate, H.R. 3590.
In a
letter to
all Members of the House, CMA CEO
David Stevens, MD noted that "The CMA strongly
opposes this legislation because it fails to provide
strong conscience protections for healthcare
professionals, allows direct federal funding of
elective abortions in community health centers and
allows federal funds to subsidize health plans
covering abortions."
CMA has led a national coalition of 50
organizations,
Freedom2Care,
to fight for conscience rights for healthcare
professionals.
Dr. Stevens noted in the letter, "A
national survey of faith-based physicians shows that
the failure to protect the rights of healthcare
professionals to decline to participate not only in
abortion but also in other morally controversial
procedures and prescriptions, may cause up to 95
percent of faith-based physicians to leave medicine.
Since faith-based physicians provide much of the
care for poor patients and those in medically
underserved areas, their exodus would lead to a
national crisis of access to care of catastrophic
proportion."
Dr. Stevens also wrote, "The CMA
strongly supports funding for community health
centers, and many of our physicians work full-time,
part-time and on a volunteer basis caring for the
poor. But we cannot support federal funding for
abortions that will result in yet more abortions
while violating the clear will of the American
people who do not want their tax dollars used to pay
for them."
On the issue of federal subsidy of
abortions, Dr. Stevens wrote, "Such funding, however
cleverly designed to obscure the result, clearly
violates the longstanding Hyde amendment and related
laws. Such funding also violates the President's
oft-repeated pledge to maintain the status quo on
abortion funding. Besides the obvious moral wrong of
funding abortions, this policy will also have
negative economic consequences. Incentivized by new
insurance subsidies, abortionists will simply raise
prices and increase their profits. Increased
abortions will rob the country of much of the
younger generation that otherwise would help avert
the financial strain of a top-heavy older
population."
The letter also noted "government
intrusion into physician-patient decision making and
the allocation of medical resources, the absence of
meaningful tort reform that is desperately needed to
prevent the loss of some of our best
physicians--especially obstetricians and
gynecologists, and the lack of bipartisan and public
support that should undergird any legislation of
this magnitude."
Dr. Stevens urged Members to "pursue a
new bipartisan, measured and focused approach to
true healthcare reform. Seven key principles our
members look for in healthcare reform include cost
containment, quality assurance, access for the poor,
economic fairness, ethical protection, prevention
focus and personal responsibility."
Contact: Margie Shealy
Telephone:
423-844-1047;
E-mail: margie.shealy@cmda.org
The
Christian Medical Association is equipped with Ku Band Digital Uplink
satellite and ISDN lines.
Right to Life New Zealand
20 February, 2010
Right to Life applauds a group of courageous pro - life doctors
challenging the Medical Council's provisions relating to abortion
included in its draft document titled, "Beliefs
and Medical Practice." The pro - life doctors have filed an
application with the High Court in Wellington for a judicial review of
the draft document.
The draft document requires a medical practitioner to inform a woman
who is ambivalent about her pregnancy, "is offered access to objective
information or assistance to enable her to make informed decisions on
all available options for her pregnancy including termination."
In the event that the doctor on the grounds of conscience is not
prepared to provide advice on abortion the doctor is obliged to inform
the woman requesting the service that she may obtain that service from
another health practitioner or a family planning clinic.
Right to Life contends that the above requirements are an
infringement on the conscience of medical practitioners and constitute a
violation of human rights. Man has the right to act in conscience and in
freedom to enable him to make moral decisions. He must not be forced to
act contrary to his conscience, nor must he be prevented from acting
according to his informed conscience. Our conscience enables us to do
good and avoid evil. The Medical Council has a duty to protect the
conscience of medical professionals.
- We are all called to defend life. Medical practitioners have a
duty of care to their patients and to do no harm. When a doctor is
being consulted by a woman who is with child, the doctor is dealing
with two patients. He has a duty of care for the unborn child, who
is the weakest and most defenceless member of the human family. The
doctor has no duty to offer the killing of the child as a treatment
option nor is he obliged to facilitate its killing. Is it
reprehensible for a doctor to believe and say that it is a violation
of the human rights of his patient; an unborn child to kill it and
that having an abortion could result in causing the mother to
experience a lifetime of regret, anguish and serious mental ill
health? It is tragic at this time when the High Court has warned
that there is serious concern about the lawfulness of many abortions
authorised in New Zealand that the Medical Council should be seeking
to expedite the killing of unborn children.
- In 1948 the General Assembly of the World Medical Association in
Geneva passed a Declaration on the responsibilities of medical
practitioners, it included, "The health and life of my patient will
be my first consideration." It also stated, "I will maintain the
utmost respect for human life from the time of its conception, even
under threat, I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the
laws of humanity." The Geneva Declaration was made in response to
the crimes against humanity that were perpetrated by Nazi Germany.
Will the Medical Council learn from history?
- Right to Life requests that the Medical Council promotes a
culture of life and opposes a culture of death by amending the draft
document to uphold the primacy of conscience and protect women's
health and the lives of their unborn children.
Ken Orr,
Spokesperson
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
20 January, 2010
WASHINGTON, Jan. 20 /Standard
Newswire/ -- Catholic League president Bill
Donohue explains why both the House and Senate health care bills are inadequate:
While the House bill is better than the
Senate bill on the issue of federal funds for abortion, neither adequately
provides protection for the conscience rights of health care workers. It is
important to recognize that one of the issues which hurt Martha Coakley in
Massachusetts was her adamant rejection of conscience rights: she effectively
told Catholic doctors and nurses that they either perform abortions or look for
another job. This didn't go over big with Catholics, as well as with many
others, in the Bay State.
President Obama told the graduating class of the University of Notre Dame that
he fully supports conscience rights for health care workers. That won him great
applause. But there is no evidence that he is working to secure these rights in
either the House or Senate bill. He invoked the name of Rev. Martin Luther King
the other day in pushing for health care reform, but he never cited what King
had to say about conscience rights.
King strongly believed that "an individual who breaks a law that conscience
tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in
order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in
reality expressing the highest respect for the law." King's plea, which is an
application of Catholic teaching on natural rights, needs to be heeded by Obama
and the Congress. Rather than forcing Catholic health care workers to break the
law--which they most certainly will do, if pushed--it would be much more prudent
to simply guarantee their conscience rights in these bills.
King understood how important these rights are. It's time those who lean on his
legacy adopted them as well.
Contact:
Susan A. Fani, Director of
Communications
Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights
212-371-3191,
catalyst@catholicleague.org
Related Links:
Objectors shouldn't work in emergency rooms
|
ADF Comment |
Coakley Hostility to Conscience Rights |
Catholic Medical Association
18 January, 2010
Philadelphia, PA - January 18, 2010 - In a statement released Monday, the
Catholic Medical Association (CMA) condemned statements regarding respect for
conscience rights made by Democratic Senate candidate Martha Coakley in an
interview conducted on January 14. "In the course of the interview, Martha
Coakley demonstrated hostility to conscience rights in general, and to the
beliefs of faithful Catholics in particular," stated John F. Brehany, Ph.D.,
S.T.L., executive director of the CMA.
When asked if she would support federal legislation that protected the
conscience rights of health care providers, Coakley replied, "I don't believe
that would be included in the health care bill." Moving on, she stated that, "I
would not pass a bill . . . to say that people who believe that they do not want
to provide services required under the law and under Roe v. Wade, that they can
individually decide to not follow the law. The answer to that is no."
Referencing the provision of drugs following sexual assault and Catholics,
Coakley concluded, "You can have religious freedom, but you probably shouldn't
work in the emergency room."
According to Brehany, there are a couple of important things to notice about
Coakley's comments: "First," he noted, "although much attention has been paid to
Coakley's comments about "working in the emergency room," her comments reveal
hostility to the rights of all providers regarding any procedure under the law.
While it is true that focused attacks on conscience rights have centered on
abortion and reproductive services, there is nothing to prevent advocacy groups
from insisting that providers cooperate with euthanasia, assisted suicide, and
any number of other unethical actions. Coakley specifically disagrees with
objecting to any services 'required under the law and Roe v. Wade'."
Second, Brehany commented, "Coakley's statements reveal a specific hostility
to faithful Catholics. While some news stories of the interview have referred to
'devout Catholics' in the emergency room, the interviewer actually referenced
Catholics who 'believe what the Pope teaches.' This is the definition of a real
Catholic, not of a devout Catholic. Coakley's dismissal of their faith and
rights and is a shocking display of disrespect for members of one religion. Even
on legal grounds, it is inadequate, as Matt Bowman of the Alliance defense fund
has pointed out
here."
Brehany concluded, "This should be a wake-up call to all Catholics and even
all health care providers. Conscience rights in medical practice are under
attack as never before. People should demand legal protection of their human and
constitutional rights in any new health care legislation. Running roughshod over
conscience rights is not only wrong in principle, it will harm patients as
faithful, ethical health-care providers are driven out of practice."
The section of the interview of Ken Pittman with Martha Coakley on conscience
and health care can be heard at this
link, beginning at the 55-second mark.
For more information, or for an interview with CMA executive director John Brehany, Ph.D., contact the Catholic Medical Association.
Founded in 1932, the Catholic Medical Association is the largest association
of Catholic physicians in North America. For more information, go to
.
Related Links:
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