Republican Party, Bush may be thwarted in 11th Hour HHS Provider "Conscience" Rule

 When last I posted about the HHS provider "conscience" (oh just let me at the use of that word in this issue) rules changes, some antiabortion (or, at least Republicans who seemed antiabortion) commenters left skeptical and critical comments about how the HHS rules changes were in any way a statement about abortion or funding for women's reproductive health care.

"Why is it that the democrats insist on distorting facts so that they can twist the politics towards their own moral persuasions? I mean if you only knew the half of it. Republicans don't want to limit women's access to birth control..." wrote one commenter, in a blaring example of throwing stones in glass houses.

Distorting facts? Hmm, I don't think so. And so I told her in my reply.

The HHS Rules changes absolutely and unequivocally are intended to allow medical professionals to block women from legal reproductive medical choices. Let there be no doubt.

The provider rules changes allow any health care provider who receives HHS money, including pharmacists, to refuse to provide health care services or medications, including prescriptions, to patients if the provider has a moral objection.

As RH reality Check's Jessica Arons explained, "The rule ostensibly protects only employees who object to abortion and sterilization, but it is written so broadly that it could also apply to contraception, fertility treatments, HIV/AIDS services, gender reassignment, end-of-life care, or any other medical practice to which someone might have a personal moral (not even religious) objection."

In short, in order to allow every single possible pro-life moral objection, the HHS rule change created a public health danger.

These rules changes were proposed by and implemented by Republican leaders, all of whom were promoting the Republican party's agenda on the reproductive choice issue: no choice by women, who are at the mercy of anti-choice health care providers. Although I'm sure there are some who consider themselves Republicans but who believe in choice, the Republican party is the self-proclaimed "pro-life" party. The party position and agenda will always be to reverse Roe v. Wade, as protesters and Republican lawmakers proclaimed yesterday.

People do truly divide along political lines on this issue, as a result.

If there was any remaining doubt that the HHS rules changes do intend to create an obstacle for women to receive legal health care and are promoting the Republican party agenda, the following should erase it utterly.

From the DAILY WOMEN'S HEALTH POLICY REPORT

IN THE COURTS | Antiabortion Medical Groups File Motions Objecting to Lawsuits Against HHS Provider 'Conscience' Rule
[Jan. 23, 2009]

Attorneys representing three antiabortion medical groups -- the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, the Catholic Medical Association and the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists -- on Wednesday filed motions in the U.S. District Court in Hartford, Conn., in objection to three recent lawsuits challenging HHS' new provider "conscience" rule, which greatly expands the ability of health care workers to refuse to provide services they find morally or religiously objectionable, the AP/Chicago Tribune reports. Attorneys from the Christian Legal Society and the Alliance Defense Fund, which represent the antiabortion medical associations, claim that the lawsuits would force medical providers to perform abortion-related services or face punishment (AP/Chicago Tribune, 1/23).

Seven states, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association on Jan. 15 filed three separate lawsuits opposing the rule, which allows the federal government to cut off funding to state and local governments, hospitals, health plans, clinics and other entities that do not certify that they accommodate employees who refuse to provide medical information or services on moral or religious grounds. The rule was scheduled to take effect Tuesday.

The three lawsuits challenge the HHS rule on multiple grounds, including that it is too broad, that it conflicts with other federal and state laws, and that it violates the spending clause of the U.S. Constitution. The suits also allege the rule was issued in violation of the public comment requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act because HHS failed to sufficiently address the major public comments it received during the rulemaking process. Finally, the suits claim that the rule puts an unconstitutional burden on women by violating their constitutional right to be free of government interference in access to reproductive health services (Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 1/16).

Game on.

However, according to RH reality Check's Brady Swenson, "HHS Rule May Be Subject to Obama's Halt on Bush Regulations,"

"The Legislative Advocate for California's chapter of NOW (National Organization for Women) claims that a contact at the Department of Health and Human Services confirms that the department believes Bush's midnight regulation that greatly expanded the ability of medical care providers to refuse to perform medical treatment on the basis of conscience falls under the guise of President Obama's executive order freezing all Bush's midnight regulations. . ."

I sincerely hope California's NOW is correct.

Comments

[progressivegal]

Julie - you are right on. One of the most insiduous plots of this specific attack on women's rights is the blurring of the line between abortion and contraception. The rest is a lot of hemming and hawing with some false outrage for effect but if if you look at the actual wording, the important distinction, the scientific and medical definition of pregnancy isn't met. In fact, by the very wording someone (anti-choice and against certain methods of birth control) could interpret hormonal birth control like the IUD to, in fact, be an abortifacient. It is just ridiculous how bold these people have become under the Bush Administration.

I'm glad to hear that the new CinC has already overturned the global gag rule originally implemented by Reagan and committed to restoring support of the UNFPA. Things are looking up, women's healthcare will finally be about healthcare and not pseudo-science based on junk studies done by people paid by the Family Foundation. And for that, I'm thankful.

[Lawyer Mama]

Yep, under the language, my IUD would fall under the midnight regulation. I'm thrilled that the Obama administration is undoing as much as they can, as quickly as possible.

[tinymarie]

As a prolife RN I offered post botched abortion care lovingly to a few scared young girls. I did this while working at a Catholic hospital. I would never assist with an abortion in any way shape or form, but I'm more than willing to help the people who had an abortion recover. It's not fair to pass a law that forces me to provide pre-abortion care. I work for an Adventist Hospital now. We have no problem offering post abortion care, but why should we have to go against our moral code and provide pre-abortion care? My tax payer dollars already provide a safe place for woman to get abortion...Planned Parent Hood. You will lose a huge amount of loving, talented, and giving health care workers when they are forced to choose. President Obama has the power to CHANGE this, but it is not a good change.

[Julie Pippert]

Tinymarie...which law is it, exactly, that is up for vote that requires you to provide abortions?

What's under discussion in this post are *rules* in HHS that link funding to medical care with bans on access to legal health care. At best these are dangerous and restrictive; at worst, they are in violation of code.

You've been "forced to choose" wrt life and death in your profession---if that's how you choose to look at it---since you entered it (unless you are at, near, or well past retirement age), including these services, which have been legal for a very long time:

~1884 to 1924: HIV (the virus that causes AIDS) probably transfers to humans in Africa

1930-1931 first male to female gender reassignment

1965: the Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut recognized the constitutional right of married couples to use contraceptives.

1965: Voluntary sterilization is legal and do not require medical justification in 47 states (excluding Connecticut, Kansas and Utah). Estimates at that time are an average of 100,000 per year.

1965: Florence Wald (Dean of the Yale School of Nursing) invited physician Dame Cicely Saunders to join staff

~1966 first HIV case in Haiti

1967 Dame Cicely Saunders founded first modern hospice—St. Christopher’s Hospice—in a residential suburb of London.

1969: Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross writes _On Death and Dying_.

~1970 first HIV case in US

1973: the Supreme Court decision in Roe v Wade stated that laws against abortion in the United States violated a constitutional right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision overturned all state and federal laws outlawing or restricting abortion that were inconsistent with its holdings.

1974: The first hospice legislation is introduced by Senators Frank Church and Frank E. Moss to provide federal funds for hospice programs. The legislation is not enacted. (See more history of hospice at http://www.nhpco.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3285)

1978: First successful live birth in vitro fertilization

1981: Doctors in the US begin using assisted reproductive technology (ART). According to CNN, "In 2005, 134,000 ART procedures were performed, resulting in approximately 52,000 births. Almost 12 percent of women ages 15 to 44 report having used some kind of infertility treatment, according to a 2002 national survey." http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/11/18/fertility.treatment.defects/index.html

1982: safer emergency contraception is introduced to the market, primarily RU486. All emergency contraception is legal under Griswold v CT

Health care should be about providing the best care to a patient that he or she chooses. This is about medicine and an oath to "first do no harm." It's not about personal religious choice for yourself. If you find your career choice too unethical to deal with for you---and I have been in that position and opted to change careers---perhaps it is not the career for you.

[TINYMARIE]

The Conscious rules provide additional enforcement for existing federal laws that make it so medical staff and facilities can't be forced to do abortions.
That seems fair to me!
I love teens, I have a special gift with teens and seniors. I can't be a public school nurse, because I morally object to giving pregnant teens info on abortion.
So, I've chosen to serve seniors instead.
The Conscious rules could protect me from having to administer suicide meds here in Oregon. Medical assisted suicide is against my values. The American Nurses Association believes nurses’ participation in assisted suicide violates the ethical standards of its Code for Nurses.

Nurses work hard long hour. We work on Christmas,Mother's Day, and the Fourth of July. Our jobs are stressful and often sad. All we need is another reason to make the Nursing shortage even bigger!