Do no harm’ hijacked

The Department of Health and Human Services is proposing regulations to enforce conscience rights for healthcare workers. This sounds good, in theory. But what does it mean to you? It means that you can be denied service, or even a referral, for family planning services if it goes against the morals of the healthcare worker you approach. Although three laws have already been passed regarding these rights–the Church Amendment, the Coats Amendment and the Hyde/Weldon Amendment–nothing much has been done to ensure their enforcement or implementation.

Michael Leavitt, the Health and Human Services secretary, has proposed that organizations that receive federal funding be penalized for discriminating against workers that have beliefs that contradict with family planning techniques such as abortion and birth control. The most affected group of healthcare providers is pharmacists, because of their role in giving patients access to these sorts of drugs.

On one side, it isn’t fair to force people to participate in activities that they find morally reprehensible. But where does the medical code–“do no harm”–come in given these situations?

An excellent example is in the case of a 20-year-old Tucson rape victim who called many pharmacies after her rape seeking emergency contraception. When she finally found a pharmacy that did have the drug, she was told it would not be given to her because of the pharmacist’s moral and religious objections.

The psychological trauma of a rape victim is intense as it is, how could someone believe it was moral to deny a person a drug that could prevent a pregnancy from such a brutal act? This pharmacist would not even refer the young woman to a pharmacy that did stock the pill.

Unfortunately, the pharmacist was within her legal boundaries. This care provider, in essence, punished the victim for being assaulted; sending the message that to be raped and impregnated was perfectly acceptable.

When a woman is denied the right to birth control by a self-righteous doctor, nurse or pharmacist, they are painted as immoral and the pharmacist as a righteous, finger-pointing saint. These professionals were not forced into their occupation.

There is no ethical reason that they should be allowed to deny healthcare, or at the very least healthcare referrals, based on their own personal beliefs. It goes against the medical code of doing no harm, period. If teachers don’t share the same beliefs as their students, are they allowed to stop teaching them? Are they allowed to fail them in every class? Of course not.

The idea that a single person should be allowed to make decisions for another based on their own set of values is oppressive and a violation of the First Amendment. Freedom of religion is violated when someone abuses their power by forcing their spiritual will on another person.

If an atheist wants to purchase birth control pills, who is a Catholic pharmacist to say that God doesn’t want them to practice control methods? This extends far beyond religious tenets, as well. The bottom line is that health decisions should be made by the individual and medical necessity.

Someone else should not force it on people. Doctors, nurses and pharmacists cannot argue that providing birth control harms the mother in any way, so they have no right to stand in the way of its dispersal.

I do not believe that healthcare workers should be forced into practicing activities that they find wrong. Religious and moral rights must be protected on both sides. However, I do believe it is their duty to refer clients to other facilities or healthcare workers who can better serve them.

If this is not upheld, then where does it end? A healthcare worker could say they do not believe in painkillers, and then deny them to a cancer patient? Doctors who are morally against saving lives, using the theory that it’s in God’s hands? Any sort of treatment could be at risk. There is a line, albeit a thin one, between religious freedom and infringing on others’ rights.

While I understand the dilemma that these healthcare providers face, they have chosen a career of helping people, not of converting people to their faith. They must do what is best for the clients, not what is best for their morality or religion.