Brother Knights,

 

On March 10, 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services published in the Federal Register that it intends to revoke the provider conscience protection rule.  That rule is one part of the range of legal protections for health care workers—for doctors, nurses and others—who have objections in conscience to being involved in abortion and other killing procedures that are against how they live their faith in God. The current provider conscience regulations do not restrict health care providers from performing any legal service or procedure.  If a procedure is legal, a patient still has the ability to access that service from a medial professional or institution that does not assert a conflict of conscience.

 

We are all well aware of the damage that can be done by overturning the conscience protection rule.  My wife Sarah is an attorney and wrote the following comment which you are welcome to use, simply sign your name to it and send it to proposedrescission@hhs.gov.  Please forward this information as appropriate to your family, friends, and brother knights.

 

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Dear Department of Health and Human Services,
 
I write to you with regard to the Department’s “Rescission Proposal,” at 74 FR 10207, which proposes to rescind the January 2009 rule clarifying conscience protections for Americans serving in the health care field.  Not only does this proposal go against 35 years of statutory history, but it also violates the First Amendment rights of health care providers. The current rules protect the First Amendment freedoms of health-care workers without infringing upon access to any type of health care, including types that medical professionals may object to on moral grounds.

 

The right of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other professionals to decline to participate in procedures they find morally unacceptable is a long-standing part of American public policy, dating back to the “Church amendment’ of 1973, the 1996 Public Health Service Act, and the 2004 Hyde-Weldon amendment. As former HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said, “Freedom of expression and action should not be surrendered upon the issuance of a health care degree.”  Americans in the health care field who exercise their rights of conscience should be able to do so in this country without fear of discrimination or coercion.

 

Please retain the conscience protection rule, currently enforced by your Office of Civil Rights.  The right of conscience protected by existing federal laws is inviolable.  Weakening protection for this right will harm the ethical integrity of our health care profession, drive caring people out of this profession, and reduce patients’ access to much-needed basic health care.
 
Sincerely,

(your name and contact information here)

 

Vivat Jesu,