The Observer, September 12, 2008
Volume XLI, Issue 3
Doctors' morals should not supersede patients'
To the Editor:
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed regulations that, if passed, will greatly reduce the quality of healthcare throughout the country. The new regulations are an attempt to further erode patients' ability to access complete and medically accurate health care, including birth control, emergency contraception, and abortion.
Current policies forbid federally funded institutions from discriminating against employees on the basis of their moral or religious views. Therefore, if a physician has an objection to performing an abortion, s/he does not have to perform it, and can refer the patient to another physician. The proposed regulations would allow a physician to halt this process. They would give physicians the right to refuse to counsel or refer a patient. Ratification of this new policy will put doctors' moral views above patients', which sets a dangerous precedent and increases the potential for abuses of power in already trying situations.
The HHS proposal will affect the provision of appropriate healthcare to patients throughout the country. Under these regulations healthcare professionals can refuse to perform or even teach certain subjects. Thus, professors at publicly funded schools can refuse to teach students how to provide the full spectrum of reproductive healthcare procedures. We already face a shortage of abortion providers; these regulations, if accepted, will aggravate this problem.
Politics have no place in the examination room. The doctor is a specialist trained to provide healthcare on the basis of empirical evidence, not to restrict it according to his or her personal beliefs. We resolutely believe that such restrictions dishonor and distort the medical profession, and urge all readers to voice their concern to the appropriate local representatives.
Medical Students for Choice
CWRU School of Medicine
