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| Atty. Gen. Sessions: religious liberty threats "must be confronted and defeated." |
Editor's Note: This is the tenth essay in a series on conscience in healthcare, by Freedom2Care Director Jonathan Imbody. For the other essays, click "ConscienceEssay" on Topics at left.
I recently attended a U.S. Department of Justice conference headlined by remarks by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, on religious freedom. [i]
The Attorney General pointedly addressed the false notion, advocated in recent years by abortion advocates including some in the medical community, that professionals automatically sacrifice their Constitutional freedoms when they choose their profession:
"We don’t give up our rights when we go to work, start a business, talk about politics, or interact with the government."
The Attorney General's comments stood in contrast to the agenda of healthcare conscience law opponents such as Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and University of Pennsylvania professor Ronit Stahl. In a New England Journal of Medicine opinion piece entitled, "Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care,"[ii]
According to Emanuel and Stahl, conscripted soldiers get forced into their occupation, so therefore they may conscientiously choose not to participate in areas of moral concern. But because physicians choose their occupation, the authors reason, they lose the ability to conscientiously choose not to participate in areas of moral concern.
"No one is forced to be a physician, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care professional or to choose a subspecialty within their larger field. It is a voluntary, individual choice."By entering a health care profession, the person assumes a professional obligation to place the well-being and rights of patients at the center of professional practice."Health care professionals are not conscripts, and in a freely chosen profession, conscientious objection cannot override patient care."[iii]
Never mind that many physicians actually chose the medical profession to protect life—not to end it. Or that patient care extends to the unborn patient as well as to the already born patient.
U.S. government is reviving religious freedom
The U.S. Attorney General recognizes that the movement to eradicate conscience and religious freedom is not only a threat to medical professionals and their patients, but to the philosophical foundation of our nation:
"A dangerous movement, undetected by many, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. This is no little matter. It must be confronted and defeated."
In response to this threat, the Attorney General has launched several initiatives and at the meeting announced the creation of a new Religious Liberty Task Force. The Task Force is designed to ensure that "all Justice Department components are upholding that guidance in the cases they bring and defend, the arguments they make in court, the policies and regulations they adopt, and how we conduct our operations. That includes making sure that our employees know their duties to accommodate people of faith."
"As the people in this room know, you have to practice what you preach. We are also going to remain in contact with religious groups across America to ensure that their rights are being protected. We have been holding listening sessions and we will continue to host them in the coming weeks."
Discrimination against health professionals starts on campus
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| Acting Assistant Attorney General John Gore |
· At a dental school in Ohio, where CMDA had ministered to students for 40 years, school officials denied dental students the ability to form a new chapter, stating, “The group has not been approved because of the emphasis on God and especially because of the Bible sessions as written in the proposal you send. [We]…feel that it is not appropriate for us to endorse such activities."
· At a medical school in Illinois, officials derecognize a 30-year-old CMDA chapter because it did not “meet the Board of Trustee’s policies regarding non-discrimination” because the chapter’s leaders are held to moral standards. Officials stated that because “…students are not eligible to be leaders of the organization if they do not believe in God…your organization’s registration is denied.”
· At a Wisconsin school of dentistry, administrators forbade a CMDA chapter from meeting on campus because of a fear of legal consequences related to federal non-discrimination laws. Apparently officials had no fear of legal consequences related to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
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| Campus ministries, such as the Christian Medical Association, are experiencing discrimination against their beliefs. |
* Essay #1: "Weaponizing "the patient comes first" eliminates ethical protections and professional judgment"
Essay #2: "Autonomy quickly translates to tyranny"
Essay #3: "Medical ethics: Bedrock oaths versus zeitgeist barometers"
Essay #4: "'Patient autonomy' – The Trojan Horse assault on conscience freedom in healthcare"
Essay #5: "Are healthcare conscience laws needed?"
[i] Remarks at the Department of Justice’s Religious Liberty Summit, Washington, DC, Monday, July 30, 2018, accessed online July 17, 2018 at https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/attorney-general-sessions-delivers-remarks-department-justice-s-religious-liberty-summit. Essay #3: "Medical ethics: Bedrock oaths versus zeitgeist barometers"
Essay #4: "'Patient autonomy' – The Trojan Horse assault on conscience freedom in healthcare"
Essay #5: "Are healthcare conscience laws needed?"
[ii] "Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care," Ronit Y. Stahl, Ph.D. and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., New England Journal of Medicine 376;14, April 6, 2017.
Stahl and Emanuel, p. 1384.
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