Issues in Depth
-Legal Commentaries-
 

The Silence of Good
People and Non-cooperation
with Evil: A Response to
 Prof. R. Alta Charo

Service or Servitude:
 Reflections on
 Freedom of Conscience
for Health Care Workers

Freedom of Conscience
and the Needs
of the Patient

Establishment Bioethics

Referral:
A False Compromise

George Orwell wrote, "If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."

Much of our modern political warfare is about language. We bicker about who is more devoted to individual liberty. Conservatives emphasize the value of allowing people to choose what to do with their own money and property. Liberals emphasize freedom in personal behavior.

But the words we use may mask what we truly value. To quote the great sage Humpty Dumpty, when we use a word, it means just what we choose it to mean - no more, no less.

Take the "pro-choice" community. So powerful is the lure of liberty that the champions of "choice" dare not speak its name.

They rarely mention "abortion," using, instead, terms like "reproductive freedom" (as if there were someone somewhere who advocated compelled pregnancy) and "women's health" (as if your wife could get something for that nagging cough at the local abortion clinic). They insist that the government "keep its laws" off your body. They say that it is not abortion they favor but freedom. The "choice" is the thing.

Well, not all choices. Some are beyond the pale. Consider the Conscience Protection Act, passed last month by the state Assembly and under consideration by the Senate.

Taken together with existing law, the act gives health care workers with moral objections the right to refuse to participate in abortions, sterilizations, stem cell research, cloning and euthanasia. The law would permit pharmacists to refuse to dispense "morning-after" pills but probably not conventional contraceptives.

Neither existing law nor its proposed expansion prohibits any of these things. The point is simply to ensure that individual health care workers may choose not to participate if their consciences so compel. Thus, it serves liberty. Certainly our friends in the "pro-choice" community regard this as a good thing.

Not on your life. Planned Parenthood, confusing choice with compulsion, calls it the "Patient Abandonment Bill." The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, again displaying its rather eccentric view of what is and is not considered individual liberty, opposes it.

Although much of the current controversy turns on the issue of prescriptions for contraceptives and abortifacients, the protections offered by the law are broader than that and so is the opposition.

The National Abortion Rights League, for example, characterizes current Wisconsin law that permits doctors and nurses who have moral objections to abortions to choose not to do them as an "anti-choice" law. All of these groups have supported forcing hospitals and other health care facilities to offer abortions. Apparently not all choices are equal.

In the parade of horribles offered by the advocates of "choice," respecting the rights of conscience of health care professionals will result in the unavailability of legal, but morally controversial, medical services.

But this would happen only if health care providers regarded a service (i.e., euthanasia, late-term abortion) as so odious that virtually none could bring themselves to do it. If that's the case, its unavailability may not be so horrible after all.

In any event, it is unlikely that every physician, nurse and pharmacist in the state will suddenly be transported by religious fervor and refuse to participate in those activities covered by the law. Doctors and nurses have had the right to refuse to participate in abortions - excuse me, "women's health care" - for almost 30 years, and there are still "reproductive health centers" in Wisconsin.

Opponents of laws like the Conscience Protection Act suggest that if a health care professional has a moral objection to such things, she should leave the profession. She can exercise her choice but only at the price of her livelihood. Cold comfort that.

In the world of the American Civil Liberties Union, virtually every type of discrimination would be prohibited except that practiced against those with the "wrong" religious and moral views. Roman Catholics, evangelicals and others with moral objections to the panoply of "choices" that are part of our brave new world should sweep streets or go into accounting.

As Orwell reminded us, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others."

The advocates of choice may want to keep the laws off your body, but they are quite willing to place them directly on your soul.

Rick Esenberg of Mequon is an attorney. His e-mail address is resenberg@wi.rr.com
 

News Release

Their Choice vs. That Other Choice

The Silence of Good
People and Non-cooperation
with Evil: A Response to
 Prof. R. Alta Charo

Service or Servitude:
 Reflections on
 Freedom of Conscience
for Health Care Workers

Freedom of Conscience
and the Needs
of the Patient

RE:  AB 207, the Conscience Protection Act

On Thursday, September 15, you will be hearing public testimony on Assembly Bill 207,  the Conscience Protection Act, authored by Sen. Carol Roessler and Rep. Jean Hundertmark.

Wisconsin Right to Life strongly supports AB 207 and urges your support of this legislation.

The underlying principle embodied in AB 207 is that health care professionals, medical students, health care facilities and medical schools should not be forced to participate in activities that involve the deliberate destruction of human life.  The legislation clearly outlines what those activities are…abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, the deliberate destruction of human embryos for research or other purposes, and the use of the body parts of aborted babies.  

It cannot be credibly argued that the particular activities outlined in AB 207 are anything less than the deliberate destruction of human life. Those individuals who are involved in Wisconsin's health care community should have the right to refuse to deliberately destroy a human life in the ways outlined in the bill, even when it is legal to destroy that life.

Falsehood:  Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups have fabricated the notion that AB 207 covers contraceptives.

Fact:  Nothing in AB 207 deals with contraceptives.  In fact, the bill specifically exempts contraceptives.

Fact:  Nothing in AB 207 would provide conscience rights for health care professionals who withhold information from their patients.  The legislation provides conscience rights only in regard to participating in the specific activities outlined in the bill and discussed above.  One only has to read the bill's definition of  "participate in" to see that Planned Parenthood has fabricated the argument that the bill provides conscience protection for withholding information.  That definition reads, "'Participate in' means to perform; practice; engage in; assist in; recommend; counsel in favor of; make referrals for; prescribe, dispense, or administer drugs or devices, other than contraceptive articles, as defined ins. 450.155 (1) (a), for; or otherwise promote or encourage.'"  The ways a health care professional can refuse to participate are clearly stated in this definition, which does not include the phrase, "provide information."

Falsehood: Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups continue to falsely claim that AB 207 allows doctors, nurses and pharmacists to abandon their patients when they refuse to participate in an activity involving the intentional destruction of human life.

Fact: Conscientious health care workers will continue to care for their patients. They will help their patients explore life-affirming alternatives, giving them information on why a life destructive option is not good medicine for the patient. If the patient is insistent on pursuing an option such as an elective abortion, a pro-life doctor has the right to refuse to refer, that is, to locate an abortion provider for the patient since that would make the pro-life doctor complicit in the act of abortion. The pro-life doctor will, however, cooperate with the transfer of the care of the patient and the appropriate patient health care records to any health care provider chosen by the patient.   In fact, AA1 to AB 207, passed by the Assembly, reaffirms current law  (s.146.83) that requires, among other things, that a patient's health care records must be provided to the patient's health care provider upon request.  This amendment makes it clear that the various conscience protections afforded under AB 207 do not extend to a person, health care provider or health care facility that violates s. 146.83.

Falsehood:  Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups have literally "made up" the following argument that AB 207 "denies women access to infertility services because it allows a doctor who has a personal objection to in vitro fertilization to refuse women and their families with information about or referrals to infertility clinics."

Fact:   The legislation has absolutely nothing to do with infertility treatments and provides no conscience rights whatsoever regarding infertility treatments.  Medical professionals who have a moral objection to providing infertility treatments will not have conscience protections under AB 207.  Again, the only activities for which conscience rights are provided under AB 207 are abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide, the deliberate destruction of human embryos and the use of the body parts of aborted babies. In vitro fertility treatments are intended to create embryos who will be carried to term, not destroyed.

Falsehood:  Planned Parenthood falsely claims that AB 207 would take "away a family's right to make important medical decisions for incapacitated loved ones."

Fact:  There is absolutely nothing in AB 207 that would infringe on a family's right to make medical decisions for an incapacitated individual.  Whether a patient is incapacitated or fully functioning doesn't change the fact that AB 207 merely protects the conscience rights of those health care professionals who do not want to deliberately kill their patients.  If a family requested that food and water be withheld from an incapacitated patient, like Terri Schiavo, who was not terminally ill and not dying and who had not signed an advance directive, a medical professional's conscience rights should be protected if he/she would not want to remove food and water from this patient.  After all, if the patient is not dying from an underlying disease or condition, the removal of food and water will deliberately cause the death of the patient…an act that is tantamount to euthanasia.  No medical professional should be forced to participate in such a situation.  But again, this has nothing at all to do with Planned Parenthood's ridiculous claim that AB 207 would take away a family's right to make important medical decisions for incapacitated loved ones.

Falsehood: Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups continue to falsely claim that women's lives would be endangered by AB 207 if a woman could die if she continues her pregnancy.

Fact: Doctors would do everything possible to preserve the life of a pregnant woman. It is self evident that the unborn child will not survive if the mother dies. These physicians would focus their care on saving the life of both the mother and her baby. In cases such as an ectopic (tubal) pregnancy, a doctor will remove the embryo from the woman's fallopian tube knowing that the embryo will not survive. In all cases where saving the mother's life can only be accomplished at the risk of losing the baby, doctors will work tirelessly to save the mother's life.

One final point, dealing with referrals, needs to be addressed. Pro-abortion groups and other opponents of AB 207 want to force a health care professional who refuses to destroy a life, to literally get on the phone and find another health care professional who will destroy the life and make arrangements for the patient to see him/her. This is outrageous! AB 207 protects these health care professionals from having to "make referrals" because being forced to find someone who will destroy a life is just as morally reprehensible as directly destroying the life. AB 207 affirms current Wisconsin laws regarding patient health care records and advance health care directives. AB 207, as amended by AA 1 which was adopted by the Assembly, clearly reaffirms the duty to transfer patient health care records. Nothing in AB 207 authorizes a health care professional or a health care facility to conceal or withhold a patient health care record in violation of the current law governing patient health care records. AB 207 also retains the current law concerning living wills and power of attorney for health care documents which require a physician to make a good faith effort to transfer the patient to another physician who will comply with the patient's directions regarding the withholding or withdrawal of feeding tubes.

Wisconsin Right to Life urges you to support AB 207 and to reject amendments that may be offered by opponents of the legislation.