Should doctors refuse care to patients based on their religious or moral beliefs?

image source: blognetnews.com

I just heard a segment on CNN about doctors refusing treatment to patients based on their religious beliefs, and I wanted to put this post out to see what you’re thinking.

from CNN…

WHITE HOUSE SET TO REVERSE HEALTH CARE CONSCIENCE CLAUSE

The Obama administration plans to reverse a regulation from late in the Bush administration allowing health-care workers to refuse to provide services based on moral objections, an official said Friday.

The Provider Refusal Rule was proposed by the Bush White House in August and enacted on January 20, the day President Barack Obama took office.

It expanded on a 30-year-old law establishing a “conscience clause” for “health-care professionals who don’t want to perform abortions.”

Under the rule, workers in health-care settings — from doctors to janitors — can refuse to provide services, information or advice to patients on subjects such as contraception, family planning, blood transfusions and even vaccine counseling if they are morally against it.

From USA Today…

SOME DOCTORS REFUSE SERVICES FOR RELIGIOUS REASONS

Doctors are becoming more assertive in refusing to treat patients for religious reasons, expanding the list of services they won’t provide beyond abortion to include artificial insemination, use of fetal tissues and even prescribing Viagra.

The shift is prompting a new round of debate in courts and state legislatures over the balance between protecting the constitutional right to religious freedom and laws prohibiting discrimination…

…The collision between religious freedom and rules against discrimination occurs when physicians perform procedures selectively, offering them to some patients but withholding them from others, says Jill Morrison, legal counsel to the National Women’s Law Center.

This year in a case generating wide interest, the California Supreme Court will hear a first-of-its-kind lawsuit: fertility treatment denied to a lesbian.

In Washington state, a gay man recently settled out of court with a doctor who refused to prescribe him Viagra…

Ok, I’m no doctor, but this legislation sounds insane! I should’ve known it was from the Bush era. As a doctor or health care professional, I feel like you have to take an “oath” of objectivity.

Before I go on and on…

Should health care providers refuse care to patients based on their religious or moral beliefs?

Are there certain circumstances where you think the choice is ok or is not ok?

I’m trippin’ on CNN’s statement about “janitors to doctors” meaning this applies to anyone working in a health care setting. So can a janitor refuse to clean up a blood on the floor from a patient? or something like that?