On Feb. 18, the Obama Administration repealed significant portions of an executive order signed by former President George W. Bush, which dramatically broadened existing protections for doctors and nurses who refused to perform controversial procedures, based solely on religious or moral grounds.
Laws and orders similar to Bush’s “conscience clause” have been on the books since abortion first became legal in the U.S. in the 1970s. Historically, doctors and nurses retained the right to refuse performing an abortion or sterilization, but no other medical personnel were given this right, and it was only applicable for those two procedures.
On Jan. 20, 2009, the last day of his presidency, George W. Bush enacted a set of controversial modifications to existing conscience laws, which extended new protections to any medical personnel unwilling to perform any duties at odds with their religious or moral convictions.
The Bush Administration’s vague wording tacitly sanctioned medical vigilantism, allowing not just doctors and nurses, but also pharmacists, medical technicians, receptionists and even janitors to abstain from any duty for any moral or religious reason. Critics argue, under Bush’s provisions, a pharmacist could refuse to sell birth control and doctors could be permitted to refuse care to homosexual patients due to their religious beliefs.
President Obama expressed his intent to revise the conscience clause in the early days of his presidency, but delayed any action until after a consensus was reached by the Department of Health and Human Services. After soliciting input on the issue from the public, the department reviewed more than 300,000 comments and decided to modify Bush’s provisions rather than repeal them completely.
Bush’s changes weren’t all bad, as they improved enforcement of existing conscience laws. Despite the existence of conscience laws, before 2009 there was a lack of official protocol for enforcement of these regulations and there were no official channels through which doctors or nurses could appeal a perceived infringement of their rights.
Obama elected to retain Bush’s provisions for enforcement, but opted to restrict refusal rights to doctors and nurses opposed to abortion or sterilization.
There are dozens of reported cases of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control or sell the morning after pill due to their religious beliefs. Personally, I don’t understand how a pharmacist who believes abortion is murder can rationalize refusing to sell a woman birth control or Plan B.
If a woman is refused birth control either before having sex or after birth control failure and she does become pregnant, there is at least a chance she will abort her pregnancy later.
Even if a pharmacist believes human life begins at conception, birth control and Plan B do not terminate pregnancies — they prevent them from ever occurring. Refusing to provide a woman with birth control will drastically increase the chances of her getting pregnant, and like it or not, increase the chances of her having an abortion.
Refusing to sell Plan B is especially questionable since the drug has a brief window of effectiveness. If terminating a pregnancy is tantamount to killing a human being, then “pro life” pharmacists should be all for preventing pregnancy from the beginning if there is any chance it will end with an abortion.
I understand many Christians oppose birth control despite shaky biblical justifications, but how can the sin of using birth control outweigh the sin of committing murder?
While President Obama continues to infuriate conservatives and alienate liberals, this is one case where I believe his administration made the right call. Protect doctors from what they believe is murder and force pharmacists to do their jobs.
 
Andrew Shockey is a 20-year-old biological engineering sophomore from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Ashockey.
 
 
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Contact Andrew Shockey at [email protected]