It’s a whisper in the news……. You’d have to dig hard to find it. Obama gutted the regulations Bush had put into place to protect conscientiously objecting health care professionals from discrimination.
There were essentially no new provisions in Bush’s executive order, except to cause institutions to worry about receiving federal funds if they discriminated against health care professionals who refuse to kill humans in their practice.
Obama has returned the situation to its previous state: toothless conscience legislation, nearly unenforceable because unemployed health care professionals usually lack funds to bring civil redress when incidents of discrimination occur. Also, what remains of “protection” will only apply to what is obviously recognized as abortion to a layman, and sterilization. Objection to chemical abortions at the early stages of human development, and use of various biotech medical devices, unethically derived drugs, vaccines, transplants, implants (from killed humans) will not be covered.
Actually the situation is worse than it was previously, as the department of Health and Human Services has utterly no interest in hearing or cataloging incidents of discrimination. The head of this department, Kathleen Sebelius had no interest in enforcing medical standards applicable to abortion clinics in her home state of Kansas.
It is fortunate that the new Congress has shown some interest in this situation, otherwise it might be missed entirely by the public.
The actual repeal is gibberish, unless one has intimate familiarity with the underlying laws and regulations. Heritage Foundation has pretty much put it in English.
The Sebelius HHS will effectively leave conscientiously objecting health care professionals without protections, and all should be prepared to find new jobs or careers should a conflict between the employers mandates and personal conscience ever arise.
As previously, the protection of conscience for health care professionals will largely lie in the power of the internet, to expose institutions which discriminate against health care professionals who refuse to kill, and reduce private business, and the sources of charitable donations, funds and grants.
