I had an alert from Americans United for Separation of Church and State to comment against a proposed regulation for the Department of Health and Human Services "that would greatly threaten access to necessary medical care and allow discrimination in the provision of medical services. These regulations would allow religious healthcare providers to refuse to treat patients under almost any circumstance with no consideration of how such refusal would affect patient healthcare." The last day for comment may be September 25.
http://capwiz.com/...
I asked some friends to join me in objecting to the regulation, using the example that someone could use this regulation to refuse help to a gay patient, and got the response: is that really true. I'm sorry to say, I hadn't read the document, rather I had trusted the AU (& others) were interpreting correctly. If you want to go directly to the source, go here:
http://www.hhs.gov/...
There's some quotes over the fold
Elise had an earlier (better) diary with more links. Thanks to turn Virginia blue for the pointer.
Quotes:
The conscience provisions contained in 42 U.S.C. 300a-7 (collectively known as the ``Church Amendments'') were enacted at various times during the 1970s in response to debates over whether receipt of federal funds required the recipients of such funds to provide abortions or sterilizations. ...
These statutory provisions protect the rights of health care entities/entities, both individuals and institutions, to refuse to perform health care services to which they may object for religious, moral, ethical, or other reasons. Consistent with this objective to protect the conscience rights of health care entities/entities, the provisions in the Church Amendments, section 245 of the Public Health Service Act and the Weldon Amendment, and the implementing regulations contained in this Part are to be interpreted and implemented broadly to effectuate their protective purposes. ...
The problem is that though there is a lot of talk about abortion and sterilization in the regulation, the regulation isn't about "assisting" in those two specific instances. It's a broad exemption without criteria for what is or isn't a legitimate objection.
In the "definitions" section the document defines: "Assist in the Performance", "Entity", "Health Care Entity", "Health Service/Health Service Program", "Individual" [providing assistance], "Instrument" [of certification], "Sub-recipient", "Workforce" -- it doesn't define "patient" or "objection" or "offending procedure" or "other reasons" -- nor does it say anything about balancing patient needs with individual concioncious, nor does it seem to indicate any provision for "life threatening" or "injury". Since there doesn't appear to be a criteria of what constitutes a "resonable objection" someone can object to treating [for instance] gay people "as a matter of conscious" -- or any other class of people or behavior -- and be (theoretically) protected from punishment.
The whole document is written from the point of view that there are anti-"discrimination" laws already on the books, but healthcare providers aren't aware, so there will be a certification process so that any entity getting federal funding will have follow these "non discrimination" rules, so it will be easier for healthcare workers to . I don't know if the way the various legislation is described in the proposed regulations is an accurate description, or if there's been some "interpreting" going on. It seems to me there's already (more of) a "healthcare access" issue than I knew about, with these laws already on the books. This explains why the Alliance Defense Fund keeps helping lawsuits where they say christian workers have been discriminated against. (I'm specifically interested if the underlying legislation includes criteria tests.)
Please send your comments! I believe the comment period ends soon.
So it will be who has money for lawsuits that will define who does or doesn't get to have this protection (at the expense of the patient).