Dictates of Conscience - or Dictated Conscience?

President Obama has directed the Department of Health and Human Services to rescind the conscience clause.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (ACLJ) - President Barack Obama has directed the Department of Health and Human Services to rescind the "conscience clause" which protects health-care personnel from pressure to perform or participate in procedures they regard as violations of their personal moral and ethical beliefs.

This action would rescind a 2008 Executive Order which sought to protect those who conscientiously hold to life-affirming principles of medical practice.

Mandating professional compliance is a heavy-handed, despotic approach and hardly reflects Obama's self-described "moderate" approach to abortion policy.

Physicians in our country have been typically granted the most autonomy among members of the healthcare team, and abortion advocates have continuously trumpeted their insistence that government refrain from interference in the physician-patient relationship. Yet in this circumstance the mantra has been changed to suit the agenda: as noted by the Bioethics Defense Fund's Nikolas Nikas, "the 'right to choose' has become the 'right to coerce.'" Private citizens have a privilege against undue governmental influence on their ability to obtain abortions--not a right to demand one.

Mandated compliance generates tremendous disincentives for those already in practice, and those who are considering healthcare professions. Enactment of this Executive Order will have the effect of pushing moral refusers out of medicine. The field is likely to be deprived of some of the best and brightest candidates, those who will not make the demanding sacrifices of medical training, only to become puppets of the government. Many of those who currently practice in underserved and poverty-stricken areas do so because of their Biblical and ethical commitments. This Executive Order could drive them out of practice, generating huge gaps in medical services.

President Obama has clearly abandoned his stated goal of uniting Americans. There are alternatives to his plan, however, which could affect a compromise without sacrificing patient care. One solution would grant authority to state medical and licensing boards to determine which physicians are willing to perform certain services, allowing others to opt out. Patients and doctors could be matched, based upon shared values and beliefs.

The fact is that there's not much time before President Obama acts on this important issue. We're in the middle of a 30-day public comment period. A growing number of Americans - including medical professionals who don't want to violate their conscience by engaging in abortion-producing procedures - are expressing their concern and opposition to President Obama's desire to rescind the "conscience clause" protection.

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The question: will he really listen?

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Kim Shaftner MD is a Fellow at the American Center for Law and Justice. Dr. Shaftner practiced medicine for 24 years and is finishing his last semester at Regent University School of Law.

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The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) focuses on constitutional law and is based in Washington, D.C. This article is used with permission.