Supporting Conscience Objections

Priests For Life has sent an alert about the US Department of Health and Human Services proposing new policies to enforce current law that protects health care providers from coercion to act against their conscience. Here is a clip from the HHS press release.

Regulation Proposed to Help Protect Health Care Providers from Discrimination

A new proposed regulation would increase awareness of, and compliance with, three separate laws protecting federally funded health care providers’ right of conscience. This proposed rule was placed on public display at the Federal Register today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“This proposed regulation is about the legal right of a health care professional to practice according to their conscience,” HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt said. “Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience. Freedom of expression and action should not be surrendered upon the issuance of a health care degree.”

Over the past three decades, Congress has enacted several statutes to safeguard these freedoms, also known as provider conscience rights, and the proposed regulation would increase awareness of and compliance with these laws. Specifically, the proposed rule would:

• Clarify that non-discrimination protections apply to institutional health care providers as well as to individual employees working for recipients of certain funds from HHS;
• Require recipients of certain HHS funds to certify their compliance with laws protecting provider conscience rights;
• Designate the HHS Office for Civil Rights as the entity to receive complaints of discrimination addressed by the existing statutes and the proposed regulation; and
• Charge HHS officials to work with any state or local government or entity that may be in violation of existing statutes and the proposed regulation to encourage voluntary steps to bring that government or entity into compliance with the law. If, despite the Department’s efforts, compliance is not achieved, HHS officials will consider all legal options, including termination of funding and the return of funds paid out in violation of the nondiscrimination provisions.

To make an official comment to HHS on the regulations you can click here to go to the proper page or email your comments to consciencecomment@hhs.gov.