It has come to my attention that our President has decided to rescind a law called the Conscience Clause.
The Conscience clause, originally called the Church Amendment, was put into effect shortly after the Roe vs Wade case, and is supported by both political parties. It allows for medical personnel to refuse to participate in an abortion if it is against their conscience.
By rescinding this law, the message that President Obama is sending out is this…Only those who chose abortion have rights. Those same constitutional rights, the right to choose, are not extended to everyone, but only to a few. If Obama has his way, my constitutional right to refuse to participate in an abortion will put me in jail and I will lose my license to practice nursing. This means that if I work for a state funded hospital or clinic (which means anyone receiving Medicaid or Medicare) I will be required to participate in a procedure that I find unethical and against everything I believe in. This is unreal.
I personally would rather surrender my RN license than participate in this absolulely barbaric procedure.
Which brings health reform to a new level. If Obama thinks he has a health care crisis now, wait until he jacks with the very doctors who lovingly provide care to millions in our country. Or how about all the private, rural hospitals that will close their doors before being forced to perform abortions? Talk about a health crisis. Lord have mercy, this is huge people.
I am sure you know that doctors are required to take the Hippocratic Oath. This oath is a solemn vow taken in which the doctor promises that they will “do no harm”. Did you know that the original wording stated “I will not give a woman an abortion remedy.” You can read the modern version here and much more in this great article.
I would like to pose this dilemma to you this way: You may support choice. You may say that it is up to the mother to decide if she wants to abort of not. But what if you were told today ”I am 22 weeks pregnant, and I don’t want this baby. Thank you for supporting my right to choose….now scrub up and perform my abortion.” Yeah, it gets a bit more complicated when you put it that way. For those of you who have no medical background, it might be easier to support something you know very little about medically. It is a messy, ugly thing, and you should thank your lucky stars that you don’t have to participate in the killing of a 2nd trimester baby. Ideology gets complicated when you are forcedto participate, which is what rescinding this law will do to me. As an OB nurse, I will be forced to participate in something that I personally find unethical and morally wrong.
I am very obviously Pro-Life. I am also one of the people that this law will effect adversely. So are you. If your President is allowed to do this, your rights to expedient, reliable health care will have its scope narrowed substantially.
Please go here and sign this petition if you support my right to choose. This will not effect yourright to choose, but it will effect mine. It would be hypocritical to support a woman’s right to choose abortion, but not my right to refuse to participate. I understand not everyone thinks the same way, and there are many different views on this, but I personally see abortion as the killing of an innocent life. In that light, I believe if I were to assist in an abortion, I would be involved in killing another human being. Um, yeah, that is something I cannot do.
I am an excellent nurse. I have never, in my entire 15 year carrier as an RN, made even one medication error. I will lovingly clean your festering, infected and contagious wound. I will enter your room to care for you as you hack TB all around it. I will wipe your head and hold you up as you vomit. I will coach you and rejoice with you as you give birth to new life, and I will hold your hand and cry as you take your last breath. I am an angel of mercy, but I will not participate in your abortion. I will surrender my license, the license that I worked my tail end off to earn, before I compromise my core beliefs. My inbox is receiving many emails from doctors and nurses who are professing the same.
When that happens, there will be one less nurse to care for you in a competent and loving manner. Now multiply it times 14, 000 or more. We are already experiencing a shortage of medical care professionals ….what is this President thinking???
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***adding some more info and links that will be useful to you:
Here is the full government text of what is being rescinded:
Apparently, numerous lawsuits had been initiated against practitioners who had refused abortion or sterilization service to individuals. Employees and students were being discriminated against for refusing abortion instruction, in spite of the Church, Coats and Weldon acts.. It had become quite a problem, especially with the aggression in which Planned Parenthood was seeking unlimited access to these procedures. They were also saying that Roe and Casey gave the right to a woman to receive these procedures from
whomever they chose. Roe and Casey DO NOT preempt Church, Coats and Weldon.
The law that is being rescinded is CRF 45 Part 88 and it defines and makes mandatory the compliance with Church, Coats and Weldon that was being ignored prior to this Title. Removing it will open the door to continued discrimination against health care individuals, students and others who practice conscience objection.
BTW, conscience objection in the health care field is not a bad thing, nor is it new. If a nurse refuses to administer blood products due to conscience objection, there are ALWAYS, and I mean ALWAYS others on duty to administer the blood products without compromising patient safety. In the 15 years I have spent as a nurse, I have never seen a patients health compromised by conscience objection and I have seen nurses peacefully practice this right. There are other laws, such as the Nurse Practice Act that do NOT allow for conscience objection if the patients safety is in jeopardy, and CRF 45 Part 88 cannot trump them. SO the argument to patient safety is really null and void.
This is a great and easy way to officially comment on the policy change: go to http://www.freedom2care.org and fill out either the healthcare provider or patient form.
Becky Miller
Education Coordinator, Rhode Island Right to Life
I am not a health professional. I have not heard about this tidbit of info before reading this. Ivhave not done any research. I am pro-choice, not a Christian, and believe that abortion is the taking of a life.
With that said…
As a health professional, is there a piece in your oath that speaks to serving the needs/wants (I recognize that these are two different things) of the patient? Is there anything that says you can refuse to take part in an abortion, but have to provide information about where they can get one…?
I’ll do some research on this too-
Thank you for this post. My niec is wanting to become a nurse and so I told her to come to your site to read this. She says she feels exactly as you do. I do as well.
The problem is he doesn’t think at all, he is so far up Hollywoods butts they all think alike, We need to seriously bombard washington with petition after petition because it is going to get a whole lot worse I kid you not…
Wow, so beautifully written, and so true. I thought I was the only one around who doesn’t think Obama walks on water. I will sign the petition and forward it to others as well.
Very interesting…I’m posting a link on my blog as well so others can be informed.
I, personally, am counting down the days till we can vote him out of office.
I had no idea this was going on. It almost makes me physically sick. I will sign the petition!
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Thanks for the good post about this – I’m a family practice physician who loves OB care who is also worried that I may have to give up doing what I love because I will not take part in abortions, the morning after pill, or anything like that. I actually also just blogged about it a few days ago myself –
http://jandatell.blogspot.com/2009/03/worried.html
Feel free to stop by. And thanks for the link to the petition!
Actually, he’s only removing the part of the rule Bush signed into office in August and became active the day Obama took office. The clause as it was when Bush left office stands in effect.
“‘We recognize and understand that some providers have objections to providing abortions,’ according to an official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The official declined to be identified because the policy change had not been announced. ‘We want to ensure that current law protects them. But we do not want to impose new limitations on services that would allow providers to refuse to provide to women and their families services like family planning and contraception that would actually help prevent the need for an abortion in the first place.’”
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/27/conscience.rollback/
Jody says: Yes, Heidi, that is what the press is saying and what I thought at first, but upon really digging it looks like he wants to rescind the Clause in its entirety. In the Federal Registrar, he is pushing to rescind the pro-life protections entirely. Sneaky indeed……read here from March 6th http://www.lifenews.com/nat4893.html and here from March 3rd http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/03/03/obama-repeal-bush-abortion-regulation/ The Bush laws are in effect to keep entities from discriminating against medical employees who exercise their right to conscience. As for the argument that women will be limited in their rights to birth control and the morning after pill….ridiculous…..for one thing the morning after pill does not need a prescription. You can get it at any pharmacy that carries it http://ec.princeton.edu/questions/get-EC.html Do you see that Planned Parenthood can dispense it? Notice the “call ahead” to check to see if the pharmacy carries it. Yup, they can CHOSE not to carry it. Sort of like a grocery store chosing not to carry organic milk. If Obama appeals the law, he can FORCE a pharmacist to carry and dispense of them regardless of his/her beliefs. Mind you, that includes PRIVATELY OWNED pharmacies. That is not right. The Bush law is not a giant F-u to the Pro-choice community. It is in place to protect the rights of those on the other side of the coin as well. The lawsuits are pure BS. If someone is raped, and wants the morning after pill, it is available to them and nothing in this law opposses that persons right. And the BS about it limiting family planning is just plan fallacy…… trust me, birth control is alive and well in America, regardless.
Thank you for voicing your opinion on this one! I could not agree with you more, and I think many nurses and doctors will stand firmly by your side and he will have no choice but to let you and others choose!
Unfortunately, I’m afraid he’s not thinking at all, but is a puppet for the radical left. Even the majority of the people who voted for him don’t agree with his leftist policies. The question is, How long can he go one ignoring the opinion of the American people before he is stopped. Can you impeach a president for acting in bad faith?
how do you sign the petition
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I am pro-choice and not a Christian. I totally disagree with the “requirement” that this is stating. I believe that the medical personnel have full right to chose to work in a place that offers abortions, and if they chose not to, then they should not be required to perform this action.
I have always disagreed with late term abortion. I have six children, I know when they start kicking, when they respond to noise and light, I do not agree with killing of a child during this time. Before three months gestation, I have rationalized it in my head.
After that, I disagree.
Thank you for bringing this to our attention!
Signed!!!
Very well written! Even though I didn’t vote for Obama, I pray for him daily…God change his heart!
Amen!
I will be signing, and forwarding this along. Thanks for your firm stand on this issue!
Wow. Very distressing news here. Thank you for sharing.
Well written. I am in agreement with you 100%. I am not a nurse, but I am against abortion. With that said, I am a recent convert from pro-choice. I used to be a radical feminist, very pro-choice…until God got a hold of my heart. I am upset about this reversal too. I have some seriously bad opinions of Pres. Obama….of which I will not share here! I will go sign this petition with the hopes that one more voice added to many more voices will wake up this president of ours!
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Off to sign…
)
I completely understand and agree with your viewpoint.
As an aside I didn’t realize (or forgot) that you were an OB nurse. Major cool points to you!
I don’t have a blog, but have signed this and forwarded to several friends/family members in the field. I am not in health care (but did attend a few years of nursing school) and I totally agree, I would surrender my license if it came to that!
Very well said. And to try to answer your final question there, I have no idea.
We’re in Santa Fe and I just checked my email. So proud of you for writing about this disgusting matter. Keep talking girl. I’m right behind you!!
Hey, he also erased the restrictions on US government funding for abortions abroad, embrionic testing, and is looking at sending military care – even active duty – to the private sector.
He is such an ethics dreamboat!
I’m pro-choice, and actually agree with you. I never understood why doctors couldn’t refuse to do whatever procedure was against their ethics. Everyone has that right, and should have that right.
I don’t see, on the other hand, why the government thinks they have the right to take away the rights of others – whether that is the right to choose an abortion or choose not to perform an abortion. I really don’t see why the government should get to decide that. It comes down to the individual. If it’s against their ethics, they should be able to refuse.
I am right there with you on this, Jody.
I’m sharing your blog post.
Thanks for posting it.
Thanks for sharing about this. I am mentioning it on my blog tomorrow,
Mary, mom to 10
Signed…this makes me sick.
I also linked this post on my Twitter.
Wow. That’s just crazy.