A bill has been proposed in New Hampshire to protect medical conscience. You’d think I’d be thrilled, right? Wrong. This bill would permit doctors to refuse to save the life of a patient and to discriminate against people based on invidious bigotry.
The intent is understandable and necessary. From HB 1653:
1 Statement of Intent. It is the purpose of this act to protect as a basic civil right the right of all health care providers and/or institutions, to decline to counsel, advise, pay for, provide, perform, assist, or participate in providing or performing health care services that violate their consciences. Such health care services may include, but are not limited to, abortion, artificial birth control, artificial insemination, assisted reproduction, human cloning, euthanasia, human embryonic stem-cell research, fetal experimentation, physician-assisted suicide, and sterilization.
But the legislation is far too broadly written:
Health Care Provider’s Right to Conscientiously Object.
I. A health care provider has the right to conscientiously object to participating in a health care service.
II. A health care provider who conscientiously objects to participating in any way in a health care service shall not be civilly or criminally liable to any person, estate, public or private entity, or public official.
III. It shall be unlawful for any person, health care provider, health care institution, public or private institution, public official, or national certifying board which certifies competency in medical specialties to discriminate against any health care provider in any manner based on his or her conscientious objection to participating in a health care service, including, but not limited to: termination, transfer, refusal of staff privileges at a health care institution, refusal of board certification, administrative action, refusal to provide standard residency training opportunities, or any other disciplinary action.
This proposal obliterates the fiduciary nature of the doctor’s role by allowing medical professionals to abandon patients for virtually any reason. For example, it would literally permit a doctor to refuse to treat an AIDS patient because of a religious belief that AIDS is a punishment from God or refuse nourishment for a patient like Terri Schiavo-even though that was what she and the family wanted–based on a utilitarian philosophical belief that the quality of her life was not worth the cost of her care.
This conscience issue is important because medicine increasingly is becoming involved in killing and promoting lifestyles that are well beyond its traditional role of saving life and protecting health. But no right is absolute, and medical conscience shouldn’t be either. This legislation needs to be revised.
For those interested in the terms I think should apply in a law protecting medical conscience, hit this link.
February 28th, 2012 | 12:33 pm
What if a physician’s religion demands he or she not treat AIDS patients, for example? Why shouldn’t they be given a religious exemption?
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 28th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
Do you read the post or just the headline? Read my piece to which I linked, and you will understand. No laziness.
David Reply:
February 29th, 2012 at 10:27 am
@Wesley J. Smith, no, the point is that these lines are arbitrary.
If this is discrimination – and it is – then why isn’t denying birth control under “religious beliefs” also discrimination?
Why should I get a “religious exemption” for one procedure, but not another?
Why honor one “conscience” or “religious” objection, but not another?
If my religion demands I not treat certain people, am I being discriminated against if I am forced to treat?
Because they are so arbitrary, religious exemptions and conscience clauses are largely nonsense. If religious mythologists didn’t run around refusing to dispense Plan B or birth control, etc, etc – maybe the public wouldn’t be so bothered by conscience clauses. Since these people hold irrational beliefs as fact, why should we be surprised when they apply the “conscience clause” irrationally?
These people hold a license from the state to practice a controlled service. That is all.
There are WAY too many loopholes in your proposal. Won’t work.
How do you decide which positions to honor and which ones to reject? Who decides?
I can claim I’m not treating a patient, I’m treating AIDS. What are you gonna do?
What if someone has an emergency? Some nutjob mythologist refuses to treat, patient dies.
What if some kooky physician won’t peform sterilization on a consenting adult, and the patient has no other insurance alternative (out of network, etc). What about ED scripts? What about women who want birth control to “regulate” their periods – its not necessary – they won’t die without it.
What about aspirin for a headache? You can live without the aspirin. My religion says aspirin comes from the devil and infests people with demons. Prove me wrong.
Your suggestions are ill-conceived, illogical, and would result in denying patients (especially poor ones) medical care – a service that has controlled access.
Nonsense. Confusion. Inconsistencies. Favoritism. Ridiculousness.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 29th, 2012 at 10:35 am
No, professions are not merely controlled services. Well, in Leftists’ world, control is the key isn’t it? You don’t believe in liberty.
holyterror Reply:
February 29th, 2012 at 8:28 pm
@David, David, everything you say here proves you haven’t read seriously Wesley’s proposed guidelines for conscience clauses.
Also, pharmacists are not just some sort of human vending machine for drugs. They have a bunch of schooling they have to go through, and they don’t stop being people with the right to live with integrity just because they are pharmacists.
You are such a bigot you can’t even see straight.
February 28th, 2012 | 2:11 pm
Gotta disagree with you on this one Wesley. While I agree that it is ridiculous for someone to refuse to treat a gay person who has AIDS, or to refuse to treat someone for a disease when “quality of life” judgments interfere, I’m not so sure the right way to resolve that is through government compulsion.
It’s an impossible task to legislate this level of morality (and I FULLY believe the government already does and needs to legislate morality), particularly without stomping on the reasonable conscience rights of doctors in related areas.
It’s a far wiser strategy to give an overly broad conscience clause and then rely on public and professional pressure to reduce the instances of abuse of ethics/morality.
February 28th, 2012 | 2:41 pm
The analogy is to a pharmacy. If the pharmacist refuses to sell, provide, or dispense a certain product (e.g. contraceptives), that is his/her right. If the pharmacist were to agree to sell, provide, or dispense a certain product — but not to a certain group of people — that would be discrimination.
February 28th, 2012 | 5:35 pm
Any “physician” who truly believes that certain diseases are God’s punishment and should not receive medical treatment is in the wrong profession. But we’ve seen people here (not you, Wesley) who argue that pharmacists should essentially be allowed to do the same thing.
The problem is that it is going to be very hard to draft legislation that prevents the above situation while, say, allowing doctors to decline participation in euthanasia. Definitions and stipulations in specific prohibitions can change in the twinkling of a judge’s eye.
February 28th, 2012 | 7:54 pm
What if a physician’s religion demands he or she not treat AIDS patients, for example? Why shouldn’t they be given a religious exemption?
This is why, when rights are in conflict, we need to stop using identity politics to establish priorities, and start using the rights themselves.
The right to life is more fundamental than the right to religious freedom. This has already been established; it should not be controversial.
The right to religious freedom is, in turn, more fundamental than some of the recently-coined “rights” that people just make up and call “rights”.
Our nation was founded on the recognition that there are certain such things as inalienable rights, and freedom of religion is one of them.
The government is not what causes or grants rights (or “right” and “wrong”), but can only use its power in service to the rights that exist. The right to life and the right to religious freedom have been recognized as an existing right since the inception of our nation. These rights – and other such fundamental rights – should be recognized as greater in kind than the recently invented “rights” that are popping up right and left – many of which are frivolous in terms of what they actually deliver, or claim to deliver – the “right” to free birth control, or the “right” to use the wrong bathroom, etc.
(Note that many of these seemingly silly rights are in fact deadly serious, in that what they are trying to do is take away the idea that rights are outside of government, and “give” the power and authority to the government – the power to determine what religious beliefs you can or should be allowed to hold, or the power to determine who is and isn’t “a family”, etc.)
February 28th, 2012 | 8:16 pm
Trying to limit “conscience rights” is like saying someone’s “a little bit pregnant.” You either honor conscience rights or you don’t. To do otherwise is to find oneself in the position of weighing one set of ethical and religious values against another. Why would legislator in his right mind want to be put in that position?
HW
February 29th, 2012 | 5:43 am
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February 29th, 2012 | 4:25 pm
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March 1st, 2012 | 4:50 pm
Trying to limit “conscience rights” is like saying someone’s “a little bit pregnant.” You either honor conscience rights or you don’t.
What a nonsensical thing to say.
Of course everyone has the right to some conscience rights, and nobody has the right to other conscience rights. Even right now it is so. The question is where the line should be drawn – not whether there should be a line; there always has been, and always will be, a line.
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