Proposed federal health policy may limit access to contraceptives

A proposed rule enacted by President George W. Bush’s administration may give health providers greater religious and moral protections, while restricting access to contraceptive and abortion-related information.

The New York Times reported the rule would prohibit hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and drugstores that receive federal funding from discriminating against employees who will not perform tasks involving abortion and sterilization procedures if it is against their religious and moral beliefs.

Gaylord graduate student Rachel Jones said the proposed rule is unnecessary and may do more harm than good.

“Under the Civil Rights Act, employers already have to make reasonable accommodations for employees’ religious practices, so it doesn’t seem like we need these harsher regulations that could negatively impact women’s rights,” she said.

Jones is afraid the rule could lead to employees refusing services that are a part of their job, meaning a pharmacist could refuse to fill orders for contraceptives if it is against his or her religious or moral beliefs.

Pastor Jonathon Bakker of Christ the King Lutheran Chapel said it would be unwise for a pharmacy to refuse to fill

orders for contraceptives because the pharmacy will lose business.

“If they want them, they can get them,” he said. “They’ll just go to a different pharmacy.”

Bakker said the rule appears to try to broaden rights, but he is neutral on the issue.

“I would be more weary of something that was in the opposite direction,” he said. “If it’s something that you didn’t expect reasonably going into it, and all of the sudden you are finding that this is a conflict of your values, then you shouldn’t be punished for it.”

Vice president of VOX and Kalamazoo senior Amy Holysz said it is the patient who is going to be punished.

She said religious perspectives should not interfere with access to health care.

“A woman should be able to make informed and educated decisions about her body without the interference of religious doctrine that she does not subscribe to,” Holysz said.

She said institutions should establish a protocol to exempt employees from performing duties they are morally opposed to, but those exemptions should not interfere with a person’s right to access those services.

Another concern of this proposed rule is the access of health care for low-income individuals using Medicaid.

Licensed practical nurse and Clare resident Amy Huovinen said physicians can opt out of receiving federal money as a Medicaid doctor if they are not willing to perform procedures because of religious or moral reasons.

She said Medicaid patients should not be turned away because of a physician’s personal beliefs. Instead, other physicians should be able to treat them.

“They wouldn’t be turned away; they would be told, ‘Here are your other choices’,” Huovinen said.

Although she supports the proposed rule, Huovinen said personal beliefs should not interfere with patients’ rights.

“I don’t believe in abortion, plain and simple. Am I going to treat a patient any differently? No, I’m not,” Huovinen said. “But I think that a physician that is going to be asked to perform it, and have Medicaid pay for it, he should have that choice to say, ‘I will not participate with this’.”

She said if doctors felt strongly about a certain aspect of their position conflicting with their religious or moral beliefs, they would not work there. However, they should still have a right to religious expression.

“I think that a person has a right to exercise, to a point, their personal beliefs,” she said.

news@cm-life.com