HHS Secretary: OB/GYNs w/ Objections To Abortion Should Not Have To Refer Patients To Other Doctors

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:



HHS Secretary: OB/GYNs With Objections To Abortion Should Not Have To Refer Patients To Other Doctors»

In November, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) issued new ethics guidelines. Members who have a moral objection to performing abortions are now required to refer their patients to another provider:

Physicians and other health care providers have the duty to refer patients in a timely manner to other providers if they do not feel they can in conscience provide the standard reproductive services that patients request. In resource-poor areas, access to safe and legal reproductive services should be maintained.

The Bush administration has now stepped in to block these guidelines. In a little-noticed letter on Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt wrote a letter to the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), stating that providers with moral objections to abortion should have no obligation to refer patients:

I am writing to express my strong concern over recent actions that undermine the conscience and other individual rights of health care providers.

It appears that the interaction of the ABOG Bulletin with the ACOG ethics report would force physicians to violate their conscience by referring patients for abortions or taking other objectionable actions, or risk losing their board certification.

Leavitt is overly concerned with these physicians who may be forced to “violate their conscience,” but apparently not at all concerned for women who may be turned away from the only accessible health care service. ACOG never stated that board certification would be stripped from doctors who ignore these guidelines.

As OB/GYN Wendy Chavkin of Columbia University told NPR this morning, Leavitt’s policy may also allow physicians to deny a woman who has been raped emergency contraception. Listen here: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/19/obgyn-leavitt/


Yesterday, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice put out a statement supporting ACOG’s “principled and sensible policy,” which would “leave untouched a physician’s right to refuse to provide abortions — a right that has been spelled out in law since 1973 — but would ensure that the patient received the services she needed and wanted.”


http://thinkprogress.org/2008/03/19/obgyn-leavitt/

[dchill]

1. No, they should be able to "refer" them...

to Homeland Sekurity.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Geez, what's the next step for HHS?

Making the noncompliant physician report the name of the patient seeking an abortion to the government?

[bryant69]

3. Don't give them any ideas.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[no_hypocrisy]

4. That was the sound of my head exploding.

[Warpy]

5. Doctors with morbid religious scruples that prevent them

from offering full reproductive care to their OB-Gyn patients need to find another specialty, no matter how powerful they feel when they control the birth process.

Seriously, nobody in any other job but health care is allowed to do things like refuse to cell cigarettes and beer at the 7/11 because their religion forbids those, for example.

These doctors are not offering their patients full and appropriate care. They need to GO.

[cbayer]

7. I completely disagree with that.

Abortion is a very personal issue. I support choice because I believe in exactly what that means - a person has the right to choose their position on abortion but should not be able to impose that decision on anyone else.

People's reasons for thinking that abortion is wrong are complex and individual. They are not solely the purview of people with morbid religious scruples. That applies to OB-GYN's as well.

I strongly support a physicians right to choose whether they will provide abortion services or not. And I strongly support ACOG's position that if they choose not to, they have a moral obligation to refer the patient who is requesting one elsewhere.

It's not just health care. There are many businesses and professionals that refuse to sell or offer specific services based on their own moral or ethical beliefs.

[Warpy]

8. Selling alcohol or cigarettes or pork or shellfish

is a very personal issue, driven by religion.

If these fucking goons were threatening male health, your position would be quite different.

As it is, as long as it's only women, well hell, let them not sully their pious hands with delivering full health care to women.

Note nobody is telling them to DO abortions, only to make referrals.

This is beyond ridiculous. Such people do not belong in healthcare in general, but in women's healthcare in particular.

Unless, of course, you think the only good woman is a dead woman.

[cbayer]

9. Wow.

How about attorneys that won't take potential death penalty cases? Investment firms that only use companies they feel are environmentally friendly?

I absolutely agreed with the point that they should have to make referrals. And my position would not be different if this was an issue threatening male health.

The physician organization cited created the policy that insisted on referrals. It is HHS, government bureaucrats, that are trying to change it. And I agree that such people should not make these kinds of decisions.

I believe in choice. And one of the choices is not to have an abortion or not to perform one. I respect the individuals decision and support the need to make sure that patients are referred if a particular physician chooses not to meet their needs.

[Hekate]

6. Bush was ready on Day One to reimpose the "global gag order" and he did. Now it's home...

> Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2001 > By TONY KARON
>
> Let's make sure, for a minute, that the meaning of the President's executive order — known by opponents as the "global gag order" — on Tuesday is properly understood. Third World family planning facilities have never been able to use U.S. funds to either conduct or promote abortion. What Bush's order does is deny all U.S. funding to such institutions that may have been using other monies for programs discussing or promoting abortion. In other words, it tells Third World family planning organizations that getting help from the U.S. requires conforming to the morality of the Christian Right. >snip<
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,96407,00.html

Bush and his lunatic supporters on the extreme right have been trying to bring this home for years, and they are succeeding. This is just the latest salvo in their war on women.

Hekate

[GreenPartyVoter]

10. Freaking scary, What comes next, I wonder?

[crimsonblue]

11. Doctors that that refuse to provide reproductive services...

obviously have no clue as to the history of abortion in America. What seems to be forgotten that one of the major reasons that abortion was legalized was so that it would end the practice of back alley abortions, which claimed the lives of thousands and thousands of women throughout history. A women should not be forced to get an abortion performed by some shady dealer using a coat hanger. Abortion needs to be legal for the sake of safety. Any doctor that does not recognize this, should have their license revoked. The safety of the patient supercedes ANY moral objections the doctor may have. Doctors have no right to inject their own morals into the decisions of their patients.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. I don't think they should be doctors in the first place.

To be perfectly honest.