Biden, abortion and conscience

Published by The Washington Times, April 20, 2022

If you are a health professional who follows the Hippocratic oath's proscription against abortion, should a government-funded hospital be allowed to coerce you to participate in abortions against your professional ethics and personal conscience?

Nurse Cathy DeCarlo faced just such coercion, despite her agreement with a hospital that she would not participate in abortions, due to her moral and ethical conscience convictions. The fateful day came when hospital supervisors suddenly demanded she participate in an upcoming abortion, threatening her with a charge of insubordination and abandoning her patient if she refused.

“They threatened my job and my nursing license if I did not take part in the murder of that baby. I felt violated and betrayed," Cathy recalls. Forced to count the body parts of the baby torn apart during the abortion, she says, "It was like something out of a horror film."

Human-animal chimeras and scientists deluded by a god complex

The battle in Congress over human-animal chimera experiments highlights the gulf between communists and Democrats and Republicans on the distinctions and boundaries between humans, animals and God.

A Chinese-led research team injected human stem cells into monkey embryos and let the chimeric creature grow for 19 days before killing it. As avowed atheists, Chinese Communists do not believe that God created each of us human beings in His image, with inestimable worth incomparable to the animals He created, each "after their kind."

Policy versus politics: A retrospect and prognosis

A physician member of the Christian Medical Associations (CMA) recently asked me for a perspective on the tragic temporary takeover of the U.S. Capitol and the role of politicians before and after that tumultuous event.

The physician's email began, "I’m so saddened by this incident and so appalled…."

I've been asked to share the response to that physician more widely, so my edited response is below, followed by some thoughts on public policy ministry, the past four years and the next four years.

Thoughts on the Capitol takeover and surrounding events

I responded to the physician's concern and request for perspective about the Capitol takeover and surrounding politics as follows:

Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical?

Public Discourse recently published my essay, written with Dr. Jeff Barrows, "Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical?"

On November 9, 2020, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and biotech company and cancer treatment specialist BioNTech stunned the world with the announcement that a “vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis.” The 90 percent success rate far exceeded experts’ hopes of a 50–70 percent effective rate and promised ultimately a potential curb on the global pandemic that has crippled the world’s economy.

Christian Medical Association applauds new Tennessee policy to protect vulnerable patients during pandemic

Bristol, TN—June 26, 2020: The Tennessee-based, 18,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) today applauded a Tennessee patient protection policy announced this afternoon by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and developed collaboratively between HHS, the state of Tennessee and disability rights groups.

CMA's Executive Vice President for Bioethics and Public Policy, Dr. Jeffrey Barrows, noted, "Patients with disabilities face even greater challenges than others during a pandemic, and we're thankful that both the federal government and the state of Tennessee are standing in the gap to protect the civil rights of all Americans. No person with a disability should have to fear that a government will assign their lives a lower value simply because they live with physical challenges."

The policy, announced today by HHS, reportedly incorporates crucial protections into the state's Crisis Standards of Care plan, stipulating that factors such as age or disability should not be used as criteria in determining the allocation of scarce resources. The policy also protects vulnerable patients who require additional resources from automatically being assigned a lower priority to receive lifesaving care.

Working with the HHS OCR, the state agreed to remove language permitting the use of a patient's long-term life expectancy as a factor in determining assignment of scarce resources. The policy also stipulates that long-term ventilator users will be protected from having their own ventilators taken from them and given to someone else.

Dr. Barrows, an Obstetrician-Gynecologist, observed, "Every human life is of immeasurable worth at every stage of life, regardless of physical challenges. We congratulate the HHS Office of Civil Rights for ensuring the civil rights of persons with disabilities. We also encourage the Department to ensure that civil rights are extended to vulnerable persons of all ages, including babies born prematurely."

National poll: Faith-based health professionals care for all but need conscience protections on moral issues

By Jonathan Imbody, VP for Government Relations - Christian Medical Association and Director - Freedom2Care

Faith-based health professionals care with compassion and respect for all patients, but they will leave medicine rather than violate their conscience if forced to participate in morally objectionable procedures and prescriptions.

I recently delivered that message from our members, based on a professionally conducted poll, at the White House to the President's advisors; at the U.S. Capitol to Congressional staffers; at a U.S. House of Representatives office to legislators and staffers; and at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to agency officials.

The survey, a nationwide poll of faith-based health professionals, conducted by Heart and Mind Strategies, LLC, found that 91 percent said they would have to "stop practicing medicine altogether than be forced to violate my conscience." That finding holds significant implications for millions of patients, especially the poor and those in underserved regions who depend upon faith-based health facilities and professionals for their care. 

The survey of faith-based health professionals also found that virtually all care for patients "regardless of sexual orientation, gender identification, or family makeup, with sensitivity and compassion, even when I cannot validate their choices." The finding puts the lie to the charge that somehow conscience protections will result in whole classes of patients being denied care. 

"Faith-based health professionals actually seek out and serve marginalized patients to provide compassionate care," explained CMDA CEO Emeritus Dr. David Stevens in a news release. "All we ask as we serve is that the government not intrude into the physician-patient relationship by dictating that we must do controversial procedures and prescriptions that counter our best medical judgment or religious beliefs." 

Key poll findings include:

• Faith-based health professionals need conscience protections to ensure their continued medical practice.
• Conscience-driven health professionals care for all patients.
• Religious professionals overwhelmingly support a biological—not ideological--definition of sex.
• Religious health professionals face rampant discrimination.
• Access for poor and medically under-served patient populations depends on conscience protections.

Detail on the poll of faith-based professionals can be found at www.Freedom2Care.org/polling.

CMA is currently represented by the Becket law firm in two cases on which this poll has bearing: Franciscan Alliance v. Azar, which addresses an Obamacare transgender mandate, and New York v. HHS, which addresses a new federal conscience protection rule.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) recently introduced two new regulations on which the poll has bearing: a final conscience protection rule and a proposed gender rule. For more information on these rules, see https://www.freedom2care.org/laws-regs-cases and click on Regulations.

U.S. encourages U.N. member nations to uphold life, reject policy tricks using abortion euphemisms

HHS Sec. Alex Azar

This email from a friend in the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services outlines the bold and right stance that U.S. leaders are taking at the United Nations regarding the value of early human life:

On Tuesday, President Trump spoke to the 74th United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) and boldly asked the nations to resist efforts to include abortion language (also known as “sexual and reproductive health rights” (#SRHR)) into the U.N.’s Universal Health Coverage promotion:

Americans will never tire of defending innocent life. We are aware that many United Nations projects have attempted to assert a global right to taxpayer-funded abortion on demand, right up until the moment of delivery. Global bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the sovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life. Like many nations here today, we in America believe that every child, born and unborn, is a sacred gift from God.

 

Preceding this historic event, Alex M. Azar II (Secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services) and Mike Pompeo (U.S. Secretary of State) also made history in July by being the first secretaries to write a joint letter to many member nations encouraging them to join the U.S. in standing for life at all ages and stages.

Excerpt of their letter:

The United States appreciates our longstanding partnership in many global health areas. As a key priority in global health promotion, we respectfully request that your government join the United States in ensuring that every sovereign state has the ability to determine the best way to protect the unborn and defend the family as the foundational unit of society vital to children thriving and leading healthy lives. We remain gravely concerned that aggressive efforts to reinterpret international instruments to create a new international right to abortion and to promote international policies that weaken the family have advanced through some United Nations fora. …

We do not support references to ambiguous terms and expressions, such as sexual and reproductive health and rights in U.N. documents, because they can undermine the critical role of the family and promote practices, like abortion, in circumstances that do not enjoy international consensus and which can be misinterpreted by U.N. agencies.

 

The letter paid off. On Sept. 24, Secretary Azar, along with 19 nations representing 1.3 billion people, released a joint statement (excerpt below):

Such terms do not adequately take into account the key role of the family in health and education, nor the sovereign right of nations to implement health policies according to their national context. There is no international right to an abortion and these terms should not be used to promote pro-abortion policies and measures.

Further, we only support sex education that appreciates the protective role of the family in this education and does not condone harmful sexual risks for young people.

We therefore request that the U.N., including U.N. agencies, focus on concrete efforts that enjoy broad consensus among member states. To that end, only documents that have been adopted by all Member States should be cited in U.N. resolutions.

…

In summary, we have outlined four key principles driving the administration:

1. The Trump Administration is pro-life;
2. There is no “international right” to abortion;
3. U.N. agencies and bureaucrats should not intimidate or pressure other nations into accepting abortion policies; and
4. Nations have a sovereign right to make their own laws.

Finally, here are helpful resource links for those who desire to help amplify these exciting events:

• President Trump’s Speech to the UN General Assembly
• July Letter to the UN from Secretaries Azar and Pompeo
• 19 Nations Statement at the UNGA (Increased to 21 nations as of Sept. 25)
• HHS’ Office of Global Affairs
• The Protection of Life in Global Health Policy (PLGHP) assures proper oversight of taxpayer dollars, while helping to protect the dignity of every life, born and unborn.
• The Protection of Life in Global Health Assistance (PLGHA) is an expanded version of the Mexico City Policy (See Presidential Memorandum – Jan. 23, 2017 directing Departments of State and HHS, as well as USAID.
• Interagency PLGHA FAQs

Christian Medical Association applauds administration move to bind human tissue research to ethical considerations

Washington, DC –June 5, 2019--The 19,000-member Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org) today voiced strong support for the administration's move to stop taxpayer funding of the use of fetal tissue, from elective abortions, for research purposes.

"This courageous and right decision gets the government and our tax dollars out of the sordid business of using tissue from developing babies who have died as a result of elective abortions," noted Jonathan Imbody, CMA Vice President for Government Affairs. 

"Our government now will focus our resources instead on developing sustainable, ethical research that has real potential to save real lives.

"This combination of adhering to life-honoring ethical standards while also aggressively pursuing and investing in scientific innovation is the best path to solid advances in medicine that every American can support and many patients can embrace for healing."

The National Institute of Health (NIH) is ending all intramural research that involves fetal tissue obtained from abortions. In the future, an ethics advisory board convened by the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) will evaluate projects that propose to use fetal tissue obtained from abortions. The NIH recently announced a $20 million research program to develop models that do not use fetal tissue from abortions.

Essay 7: Conscience freedoms protect against ideological agendas

Editor's Note: This is the seventh essay in a series on conscience in healthcare, by Freedom2Care Director Jonathan Imbody. For the other essays, click "ConscienceEssay" on Topics at left.

With pro-life individuals increasingly targeted,
conscience laws can help protect both
patients and professionals from discrimination.

On January 26, 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed a conscience protection rule designed to enforce and educate regarding "a long history of providing conscience-based protections for individuals and entities with objections to certain activities based on religious belief and moral convictions. "[i]

The rule specifically cited over two dozen existing federal statutes protecting the exercise of conscience in healthcare, both for patients and professionals. Included in the laws are:

·      

Comment by March 27 on new HHS conscience rule that erects a wall against ideologically driven assaults

Action: Submit your comment by Tuesday, March 27 to protect conscience in healthcare

Today I submitted a document to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services outlining the reasons why a new proposed conscience protection rule serves the interests of health professionals and their patients:

TO: Department of Health and Human Services, Office for Civil Rights RIN 0945-ZA03

FROM: Christian Medical Association and Freedom2Care - Jonathan Imbody

RE: RIN 0945-ZA03 or Docket HHS-OCR-2018-0002

DATE: March 26, 2018

Protecting Statutory Conscience Rights in Health Care; Delegations of Authority

The following narrative offers answers to specific requests for comments (marked below with numbers and quotations) outlined in the text of the proposed rule.

·       "Comment on all issues raised by the proposed regulation."

The Christian Medical Association and Freedom2Care, representing combined constituencies of nearly 50,000 individuals who are committed to the moral and ethical practice of medicine, heartily applaud this proposed rule. We laud the Department for producing an outstanding tool to enforce existing conscience protection law and to educate regarding our most cherished principles of freedom.

The proposed rule clearly and thoroughly lays down the legal and rational foundation for the Department's enforcement of and education about existing federal law that protects the exercise of conscience and religious convictions in healthcare, both for patients and for professionals. Given the priority of conscience and religious freedom in our nation's founding, in our Constitution and in our legal tradition, the case could not be clearer for restoring the rightful place of these freedoms among other civil rights laws and principles.

Only willful political corruption and ideologically driven assaults on these core founding principles can explain why in 2018 the universal integration of conscience and religious freedom in healthcare remains incomplete. Therefore the proposed rule offers a welcome, if long overdue, course correction to get the nation back on track on the principles on which this democratic republic depends.

While the proposed rule offers hope of a renaissance of a political, cultural and professional commitment to freedom of conscience and religious exercise, ideological forces within government, academia and the healthcare community continue to subvert these freedoms. As a survey of medical and academic publications will indicate, abortion advocacy and a strong undercurrent of intolerance for faith-based and pro-life commitments would sweep out of medicine any and all health professionals who hold to such ideals. A radical and authoritarian ideology that marches under the false flag of "patient autonomy" would force all professionals to participate in any legal procedure or prescription, regardless of professional judgment, medical ethics or moral convictions.

The result of such intolerance and coercion, left unchecked by federal law, court action and regulatory enforcement, would be a catastrophic loss of healthcare for millions of American patients. Hardest hit by the loss of pro-life and faith-based professionals and institutions would be the poor, the marginalized and the medically underserved.

By enforcing the freedom of pro-life and faith-based health professionals to continue to practice medicine, the proposed rule protects patient access to a diverse pool of health professionals and institutions. In the process, the rule also upholds and advances core American values of freedom.

To read the rest of the document, click here.

To learn how to quickly (30 seconds) submit your own comment on the proposed rule (deadline Tuesday, March 27) using a pre-written, editable form, click here.

To watch a quick video explanation, click here.

Essay 6: New HHS division, conscience freedom laws and policies protect patients and physicians

The new HHS division implements 25 federal conscience laws

Editor's Note: This is the sixth essay in a series on conscience in healthcare, by Freedom2Care Director Jonathan Imbody. For the other essays, click "ConscienceEssay" on Topics at left.
In January 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced the creation of a new division within its Office of Civil Rights—the Conscience and Religious Freedom Division.[i] The new division now serves as a center for information on 25 federal conscience laws, outlined on the division's website, including:[ii]

Dem, GOP platforms contrasted on life issues

Both major political parties recently issued new platforms that communicate contrasting core values to the American people. Following is a breakdown of where each party stands on the life issues of particular concern to readers of this blog: abortion, sex education, embryos and stem cell research and assisted suicide:

Abortion

The Democrat party platform maintains that “that every woman should have access to quality reproductive health care services, including safe and legal abortion” (p. 37).

The Republican party platform focuses on “The Constitution’s guarantee that no one can ‘be deprived of life, liberty or property’ deliberately echoes the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation that ‘all’ are ‘endowed by their Creator’ with the inalienable right to life” (p. 13).

Democrats: “We will continue to stand up to Republican efforts to defund Planned Parenthood health centers, which provide critical health services to millions of people” (p.37).

“We will continue to oppose—and seek to overturn—federal and state laws and policies that impede a woman’s access to abortion, including by repealing the Hyde Amendment [which prohibits most government funding of abortions]” (p. 37).

“We will support sexual and reproductive health and rights around the globe. In addition to expanding the availability of affordable family planning information and contraceptive supplies, we believe that safe abortion must be part of comprehensive maternal and women’s health care and included as part of America’s global health programming. Therefore, we support the repeal of harmful restrictions that obstruct women’s access to health care information and services, including the “global gag rule” and the Helms Amendment that bars American assistance to provide safe, legal abortion throughout the developing world” (p. 46).

Republicans: “We oppose the use of public funds to perform or promote abortion or to fund organizations, like Planned Parenthood, so long as they provide or refer for elective abortions or sell fetal body parts rather than provide healthcare” (p. 13).

“We will not fund or subsidize healthcare that includes abortion coverage” (p. 13).

“Because of [Democratic party] opposition to simple abortion clinic safety procedures, support for taxpayer-funded abortion, and rejection of pregnancy resource centers that provide abortion alternatives, the old Clinton mantra of “safe, legal, and rare” has been reduced to just “legal” (p. 14).

“We condemn the Supreme Court’s activist decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt striking down commonsense Texas laws providing for basic health and safety standards in abortion clinics” (p. 14).

Sex education

Democrats: “We recognize that quality, affordable comprehensive health care, evidence-based sex education and a full range of family planning services help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions” (p. 37).

Republicans: “We renew our call for replacing ‘family planning’ programs for teens with sexual risk avoidance education that sets abstinence until marriage as the responsible and respected standard of behavior. That approach — the only one always effective against premarital pregnancy and sexually-transmitted disease — empowers teens to achieve optimal health outcomes” (p. 34)

Embryos and stem cell research

Democrats: No mention.

The 2012 platform had noted that “the President issued an executive order repealing the restrictions on embryonic stem cell research.”

The 2008 platform had issued a call to “lift the current Administration's ban on using federal funding for embryonic stem cells– cells that would have otherwise have been discarded and lost forever–for research that could save lives.”

Republicans: “We call for expanded support for the stem cell research that now offers the greatest hope for many afflictions — through adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells — without the destruction of embryonic human life. We urge a ban on human cloning for research or reproduction, and a ban on the creation of, or experimentation on, human embryos for research” (pp. 37-38).

Assisted suicide and euthanasia

Democrats: No mention.

Republicans: “We oppose the non-consensual withholding or withdrawal of care or treatment, including food and water, from individuals with disabilities, newborns, the elderly, or the infirm, just as we oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide” (pp. 13-14).

Event: "Making Life & Taking Life: Ethical Questions in Medical Science"

"Making Life & Taking Life: Ethical Questions in Medical Science,"

Thursday, March 10, 2016 | 7:00pm.

Christ the King Anglican Church

1801 North Quaker Lane, Alexandria, VA.

Speakers:

Elaine Petty, Consultant on bioethical issues

Dr. Allen Roberts, Medical Director of the Surgical ICU,

Georgetown Hospital

http://www.ctkalexandria.org/events.html

Email: admin@ctkalexandria.org

Phone: 703-535-6815