Trump administration forms office to protect doctors' religious beliefs

[Stan]

The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has announced the creation of a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division in their Office for Civil Rights. The division aims to address concerns over sensitive subjects such as birth control, abortions, and treatment of the LGBTQ community. In addition to providing a center for complaints regarding religious discrimination, the division is pushing for the approval of a motion that seeks to protect medical personnel who refuse to perform treatments that violate their personal beliefs. The move has caused concern from human rights groups, who believe this office could be used to discriminate.

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[CoAspen]

Yes, organized religion will save us all! NOT! 

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...... the division is pushing for the approval of a motion that seeks to protect medical personnel who refuse to perform treatments that violate their personal beliefs.

I am not my brothers keeper, Cain is still with us.

[bonnie]

Not sure the intent is for organized religion to save anyone. Many Dr's believe abortion on demand is just plain wrong and destroys a human life. Obviously many believe they should be forced to take that life regardless of their personal belief.

[Gregory Matthews]

As some may know, I have about 20 years of experience in serving on a hospital ethics committee.  Most of that time was in a VA hospital.  Some of that time was in public hospital that was not operated by a religious denomination.

On rare occasions an issue would come to us that related to the request of a patient or family member that in some way conflicted with the religious beliefs of a clinical provider.  This could be a physician.  It might be some other clinical provider.  These issues did not often come to our ethics committee because they were normally resolved on a lower level.

Typically we would resolve the issue by  transferring the care of the patient to a different clinical provider who did not have a conflict between their individual belief and the request of the patient/family member.

 More often our committee would have an issue in which the clinical provider did not believe that the requested service was the proper treatment.  In those cases, the issue was not that of a religious belief of the provider.  In these cases our committee would discuss the issue on the basis of what treatment should be provided and under what conditions.

[CoAspen]

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 A Michigan couple whose newborn was refused treatment by a pediatrician due to her parent’s sexual orientation ........

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...the fifty-two page proposed motionoutlines protections provided to individuals unwilling to participate in a wide variety of medical activities, from assisted suicide to occupational illness testing.

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..... code of ethics supports a physician’s right to choose which patient to serve, while emphasizing access to medical care for all people. Many fear that a doctor’s choice to deny treatment based on religious objections could leave patients in underserved communities with no choice for medical treatment.

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The division aims to address concerns over sensitive subjects such as birth control, abortions, and treatment of the LGBTQ community. In addition to providing a center for complaints regarding religious discrimination, the division is pushing for the approval of a motion that seeks to protect medical personnel who refuse to perform treatments that violate their personal beliefs. The move has caused concern from human rights groups, who believe this office could be used to discriminate.

I don't read the proposals as a way of preventing abortions, but rather allowing medical professionals to base their care on religious beliefs. That is/would be opening Pandora's box! Whats next? God has a bad enough reputation because of humans desire for equity/service based solely on agreeability of 'religious' belief or lifestyle. I find no record of Christ haveing the poor and sick fill out a lifestyle/religion form before deciding to heal  them. 

Two thumbs down on the proposal from me!

[CoAspen]

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HHS’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) director stated Roger Severino, “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.”

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 Severino, a Harvard Law graduate and former DOJ Civil Rights employee, is prominent in the field of civil and religious rights. A well-known opponent of LGBTQ rights and abortions,

One could well assume, right or wrong, that the intent is to protect the medical person, being seen as victim and not the person seeking healthcare. What a crazy, mixed up world! 

First they came for......and I stood by because it  didn't concern me, then  they came for others and still I stood by, then one day they came for me. SDA's are taught/known for, the belief that one day they will be persecuted for Sabbath/7th Day keeping or some other religious belief. Could laws such as this, that allow discrimination based on ones moral beliefs, be such a beginning? The Golden Rule seems to have been well forgotten, or held aside for true believers only, when it comes to the treatment of others by the very people who say they believe in following Christ and what He taught and actioned on this earth.  Not much has changed!!

 

[bonnie]

"A Michigan couple whose newborn was refused treatment by a pediatrician due to her parent’s sexual orientation ........"

Why would anyone want to force a pediatrician to treat their child if that pediatrician did not feel he/she could do less than their best while being offered the services of another qualified pediatrician in the same office that could? Was the child sick while being denied and needed this particular physician at that time?

Should a physician be forced to treat a claimed transgender person with hormones or sex change surgery regardless of his personal and medical beliefs on the topic? Should he be forced to treat the teen whose parents lost custody of their daughter because they refused?

Our second son was born 2 months early when that meant almost a certain death sentence or a life of numerous medical difficulties.He lived only by God and the heroic efforts of the medical staff. Today, had I not wanted him faced with the dire warnings we were given about what life could mean for him I could have refused those medical efforts and had a late term abortion. Should I have been able to dictate the Dr violate his religious and moral beliefs and have them simply lay my son aside to die as he surely would have?

Refusing to treat a person in need of medical attention is one thing. Refusing to perform medical procedures that violate a personal religious or moral conviction is another.  For every Dr that refuses to perform a on demand abortion or provide hormone therapy and or sex change surgery there are ten that will gladly do so.

What would possess anyone to choose a Dr that could not wholeheartedly give her /his best for them? I would be grateful to the DR that told me upfront that they felt another Dr could offer what they couldn't.

Just as I would not have used a OB-GYN that performed abortions on demand,I had a choice.  I suppose I could have demanded they change their beliefs to suit mine but I would not want a Dr that would have violated his beliefs and let a child like mine die without his best efforts to save him

[Gregory Matthews]

The answer to the following questions is that no physician, who had never treated any one with either hormones or sex change surgery, would ever be forced to do such.  Such a physician would be considered to have lacked the training to do such and would not be forced to experiment on someone.

 

Should a physician be forced to treat a claimed transgender person with hormones or sex change surgery regardless of his personal and medical beliefs on the topic?

[bonnie]

I should have specified but did not think it necessary.

Should a physician according to his specialty be forced to violate his moral convictions?

Should a OB-GYN that performs theraputic abortions when necessary for the life of the mother be forced to perform abortions on demand?

Should a Dr according to his/her specialty be forced to perform any operation or medical procedure(unless emergency) the patient demands ?

[Gregory Matthews]

Good question Bonnie.  I am going to leave it and comment more on what an ethics committee does.

Case 1:

An elderly male, who received his medical care from the hospital where I worked, had dementia and lived at home.   His daughter, who had medical power of attorney over him, and was not eligible for medical care from us took care of him at home.

With her increasing age, she decided that, absent certain changes, she could not continue to provide care for her father.   She became convinced that the changes that she needed could be  effected if her father received certain treatments from us.  The physician in charge believed that the medical care she wanted given to her father would not effect the desired result and in addition was against the medical needs of her father.

So, we, as an ethics committee got the case.  In all honesty, this case tore at our heart-strings.  We agreed that the treatment she wanted would NOT provide the desired result.  We also agreed that the  requested treatment was against his clinical needs.  So, we agreed that her requested treatment would not be provided.

We also decided that we would work to seek ways in which we could give the daughter the support that she needed to continue to care for her father at home.

 

Case 2:

An elderly, comatose male came into  our emergence department.  He had ingested ethylene glycol.  Without treatment he was going to die.  So, we began aggressive treatment.  The eight (8) nearest living relatives of the man were united in their believe that this man would refuse our aggressive treatment.  They united in asking us to withdraw treatment and allow him to die.  

All eight of them met with our ethics committee.   As we refused to withdraw aggressive treatment, they united in stating that they were going to file a lawsuit against both the hospital and those who had given him clinical care.  We ended that discussion with telling them that we were going to continue our aggressive care and, we would keep them fully informed.

At the end, the man walked out of the hospital under his own power and  restored to his former life condition.

Shortly thereafter one of the relatives visited our staff to tell them how thankful all of them were in restoring the man to life, while sticking to our conviction that we should not   cease the provision of care.

 

 

 

[bonnie]

Really doesn't answer the question tho. When do I have the right to demand/force  a non life threatening procedure from a DR that would require him to violate his conscience? If I can do that what else can I demand that violates the conscience of another by being actively involved?