An article at The American Thinker reminds us that we have only till April 9th to make our voices be heard on the attempt to abolish the long standing conscience protection for health care providers.
Mary L. Davenport, MD points out in her article:
This basic principle securing the integrity of physician-patient relationships has been threatened of late. In December 2008 the Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation clarifying the protections offered by three civil rights laws for health care providers passed by Congress with bipartisan support. However, the Obama administration has stated its intention of overturning the conscience regulation and not enforcing the existing laws.
This is yet another, in a long list of the freedoms that we enjoy in this country, to come under attack of late. We cannot allow the Government to dictate what services we must perform as a matter of law regardless of whether your a Doctor, Lawyer, Banker or you work in one of the countless other professions, where does this stuff end?
If history s any indicator, Mary provides us with some great examples:
In the 1930’s the medical societies in Germany were Nazified, purging the leadership and ranks of the physicians who did not want to go along with the Nazi program. Cardinal George recently warned that eliminating conscience protections "would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism."
Should medical doctors be forced by government to override personal ethics and moral conscience to serve the utilitarian "common good" as defined by the state? This is the very matter at stake and is one in the same as that faced by physicians in Nazi Germany, as they were ordered to "exterminate" the handicapped, those with mental disorders and those deemed incurably ill, and then to kill the Jews. Removing the conscience clause that protects physicians and their patients from imperious rulings by state authorities is indeed the first step on the road to a tragic, totalitarian end.
Please be sure to express your opinion before the April 9th deadline on this very important matter that threatens our liberty.
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