The Trump Administration is creating a new agency to protect the religious rights of medical providers, a controversial move that is sure to spark outrage by flying directly in the face of the sacred Hippocratic Oath, an ancient Greek capitulation undertook by medical students to adhere to the ethics of always serving the sick, no matter the circumstance.
The Guardian reports:
The new “division for conscience and religious freedom” in the US Health and Human Services Agency will defend healthcare workers who, on religious grounds, refuse to treat patients or take part in procedures. The division will be part of the agency’s Office for Civil Rights.
“Laws protecting religious freedom and conscience rights are just empty words on paper if they aren’t enforced,” said Roger Severino, the director of the health department’s civil rights division, and an outspoken opponent of abortion, same-sex marriage and anti-discrimination protections for transgender people.
The Trump Administration is moving forward with a bigoted agenda that aims to alienate minority swathes of the population, further pushing them to the brink of despair and destruction. How very Christian of them (not).
Among the speakers at the announcement of the new division were pro-life lawmakers; the leader of a religious liberty foundation who fought against a mandate that health insurance cover birth control; and a midwife who said she was wrongly refused a job at a women’s clinic because she opposed abortion.
“No one should be forced to choose between helping sick people and living by one’s deepest moral or religious convictions, and the new division will help guarantee that victims of unlawful discrimination find justice,” Severino said. “For too long, governments big and small have treated conscience claims with hostility instead of protection, but change is coming and it begins here and now.”
The irony of course is that this ‘unlawful discrimination’ will be thrust upon those who require the good service of doctors, not the doctors themselves. It isn’t up to a doctor to choose whether or not a patient receives life-altering care, it is their job to help the patient based on current medical standards, regardless of personal differences.
However, the religious freedom division represents the Trump administration’s preferred governing strategy – making dramatic changes to agencies in the executive branch which Congress does not need to approve.
Already, civil rights campaigners have raised alarms about the new division.
“Religious liberty doesn’t include a right to be exempt from laws protecting our health or barring discrimination,” said Louise Melling, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union. “It doesn’t mean a right to refuse to transport a patient in need because she had an abortion. It doesn’t mean refusing care to a patient because she is transgender.
“Medical standards, not religious belief, should guide medical care,” said Melling.
The hypocrisy in the first paragraph is appalling. Trump and his ilk have blasted POTUS44’s use of Executive Orders to bypass congress since Trumpgang became public figures. Now they themselves are abusing their powers by forcing the DHHS to enforce religious-based discrimination when picking and choosing who can receive their services.
Democrats criticized the move as a denial of healthcare for women and others, while legal and medical ethics experts said that such exemptions have legal limits and would be challenged in court.
Democratic Senator Patty Murray said in a statement she was “deeply troubled” by reports of the new division and that “any approach that would deny or delay health care to someone and jeopardize their well being for ideological reasons is unacceptable.”
The division would enforce the legal protection and conduct compliance reviews, audits and other enforcement actions to ensure that health care providers are allowing workers with religious or moral objections to opt out.
As the division seeks to back exemptions, it is likely to face legal and ethical challenges.
Just one more step on the slippery slope towards Theocratic oppression, brought to you by the far-religious-right. And they said Shariah Law was our biggest threat?