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RCRC Letter to HHS Opposing Regulation

September 2008

Department of Health and Human Services
Office of Public Health and Science
Attn: Brenda Destro
Hubert Humphrey Building
200 Independence Ave. SW
Room 728 E
Washington, DC 20201

Re: RIN 0991-AB48

Dear Secretary Leavitt:

On behalf of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, I write to oppose the “Provider Conscience” regulation proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services on August 26th, 2008.

RCRC is an interfaith alliance of national mainstream religious organizations dedicated to ensuring access to reproductive health and achieving reproductive justice. As an organization, we work for public policies that honor diverse religious beliefs and each person’s decisions about whether and when to have children. We seek a society that values human life and human dignity and honors individual conscience. We believe that government must never mandate the tenets of one religion.

The proposed rule ignores existing law and instead erects substantial obstacles to legal, medically requested reproductive and general health services. Our government should be doing its utmost to protect its most vulnerable populations not creating more barriers to care. In the guise of protecting the conscience of providers, this proposed regulation denies women and other patients their right to follow their conscience and make decisions according to their religious and moral beliefs.

We live in a religiously pluralistic society, and as a nation we believe in protecting religious expression and freedom. As a religious organization, RCRC understands the importance of accommodating employees' religious convictions. Religious beliefs are sacred and government must ensure that employees do not have to check those beliefs at the door. But this must never be an excuse for denying patients medical services. Current federal employment law, Title VII, successfully strikes a careful balance between these competing claims, by providing protection for the religious beliefs of all employees – including health care providers – while also allowing employers to ensure that patients get access to health care services and information. Under Title VII employers have a duty to reasonably accommodate an employee or applicant’s religious beliefs for practices unless doing so places an undue hardship on the employers business.

The proposed regulation goes far beyond honoring the providers’ conscience. This rule allows any employee of a health care provider working in a program that receives HHS funding to refuse to treat any individual receiving any service – if doing so would violate his or her moral beliefs—without regard for the needs of the patients. This is unreasonable and destructive. It would undermine the ability of clinics and other health care providers to conduct business and it would jeopardize women’s access to needed services. The impact on low-income women and women of color will be especially severe. The proposed regulation can only serve to exacerbate the existing disparity in health and health care for vulnerable populations.

The proposed rule could make it more difficult to receive a broad spectrum of health care services. The scope of what is allowed to be refused under the regulation is dangerously broad. A physician could deny a patient access to the cervical cancer vaccine because he or she does not agree with sexual activity outside of marriage. A physician could deny a patient mental health medication because it conflicts with his or her moral beliefs.

Numerous leading professional organizations have written guidelines to help their professionals balance religious objections and patient care and safety. Each does a better job than the proposed regulation. Please consider the position of the American Nurses Association:

Where a particular treatment, intervention, activity or practice is morally objectionable to the nurse. . . the nurse is justified in refusing to participate on moral grounds. . . The nurse is obliged to provide for the patients safety, to avoid patient abandonment, and to withdraw only when assured that alternative sources of nursing care are available to the patient.” (American Nurses Association Code of Ethics)

According to the American Pharmacists Association,

Pharmacists should be allowed to excuse themselves from dispensing situations which they find morally objectionable, but that removal from participation must be accompanied by responsibility to the patient and performance of certain professional duties which accompany the refusal. . . ensuring that the patient will be referred to another pharmacist or channeled into another available health system (American Pharmacists Association, 1997-1998 policy committee report on pharmacist refusal clause)

These thoughtful statements prove that HHS can write a rule that balances religious objections and patient needs.

As proposed, these regulations conflict with our nation’s commitment to a fair and just society. Moreover, they enshrine a singular moral view and disrespect the pluralistic religious beliefs of our citizenry. I urge you to rescind these regulations.

Thank you for the opportunity to submit these comments. Your most favorable consideration is appreciated.

Sincerely,

Reverend Carlton W. Veazey
President and CEO