"Right of Conscience"

"Right of Conscience" Rule Shields Healthcare Workers

The Bush administration yesterday granted sweeping new protections to health workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal beliefs, setting off an intense battle over opponents' plans to try to repeal the measure. The far-reaching regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable. While primarily aimed at doctors and nurses, it offers protection to anyone with a "reasonable" connection to objectionable care—including ultrasound technicians, nurses aides, secretaries and even janitors who might have to clean equipment used in procedures they deem objectionable. The "right of conscience" rule could become one of the first contentious tests for the Obama administration, which could seek to reverse the rule either by initiating a lengthy new rulemaking process or by supporting legislation already pending in Congress. The rule comes at a time of increasingly frequent reports of conflicts between health-care workers and patients; pharmacists have turned away women seeking birth control and morning-after emergency contraception pills, fertility doctors have refused to help unmarried women and lesbians conceive by artificial insemination, and Catholic hospitals have refused to provide the morning-after pill and to perform abortions and sterilizations. Experts predict the issue could escalate sharply if a broad array of therapies becomes available using embryonic stem cells, which are controversial because they are obtained by destroying very early embryos. The rule, which will cost more than $44 million to implement, gives more than 584,000 health-care organizations until Oct. 1 to provide written certification of their compliance.