We, the undersigned, urge the Department of Health and Human Services to RETAIN the conscience regulation of December 19, 2008, and to enforce the laws protecting the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions. The government has a special responsibility to ensure that the conscience rights of health care providers are fully protected, based on the following points:
* Religious liberty and freedom of conscience have been building blocks of our society since its founding. We respect conscientious objection for those opposed to war, physicians opposed to taking part in capital punishment, and others who object to involvement in the taking of life. We can do no less in the context of abortion.
* Conscience protection does not threaten access to health care. Allowing health care providers to serve the public without violating their consciences protects and enhances access to health care, by ensuring continued participation by some of our most dedicated health professionals. Catholic and other faith-based providers are specially called to serve the poorest and most vulnerable, from the inner city to remote rural areas; if they are driven away, who will replace them
* Abortion, in particular, cannot be seen as âstandardâ health care. Most physicians, nurses and hospitals choose not to provide abortion, and the Hippocratic Oath that established medicine as a profession has rejected abortion for many centuries. Forcing health professionals to be involved in abortion against their will shows a distorted sense of prioritiesâone that will irreparably damage the healing professions and undermine efforts to work together for health care reform.
* The argument by pro-abortion groups about the regulation reducing access to rural and poor citizens is not factual. In fact, should the conscience protection be rescinded, the numbers of Catholic health care workers and hospitals may be reduced, thereby diminishing access to health care for these citizens.
Sincerely,
Petition Signers of The Catholic Family Caucus