The risk in a Biden reversal of medical conscience protections
"The Biden administration is preparing to scrap a Trump-era rule that allows medical workers to refuse to provide services that conflict with their religious or moral beliefs," Politico reported Tuesday, citing "three people familiar with the deliberations." The exact scope of the prospective update isn't clear, but the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed it's coming.
In one sense, the change is irrelevant. Introduced in 2019, the rule in question would have denied federal funding to health-care organizations that don't allow staff to opt out of participation in abortions, procedures related to gender transition, assisted suicide, and the like. But it was blocked in federal court before it took effect and so has never been implemented. The Biden administration's "change" would merely confirm the status quo. Moreover, cases where health-care workers are forced to perform services they believe to be immoral (or fired for refusing to do so) seem to be relatively rare. They do happen, but most states already have laws on the books providing at least some conscience protections for medical professionals.
Still, the federal reversal is a step in the wrong direction on two counts. One is a matter of principle: The government technically isn't forcing doctors who believe abortion is murder to perform abortions. This isn't a straightforward mandate, because the doctors can, of course, quit their jobs instead. But federal endorsement of organizational policies that require employees to choose between conscience and livelihood does not exactly evince a civil libertarian spirit. It isn't a clear-cut state violation of freedom of conscience or religious liberty, yet it does give the government's blessing (and dollars) to private rejection of very serious claims of conscience.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Then there's the practical side of things. Politico quotes Jacqueline Ayers of Planned Parenthood, who says the change would "help ensure people can access the health care and information they need when they need it." If this revocation — of a rule, again, that never took effect and is already broadly echoed at the state level — changes anything, I suspect the opposite would be true.
Were medical professionals widely required to work in violation of their consciences, many would leave their fields, change their specialties, or outright refuse to take on certain patients — something doctors, in particular, will always be able to do by citing facially neutral concerns like workload. In the worst case, I can imagine situations where a medical worker forced to act against conscience would deliberately misdiagnose or mistreat a patient, rationalizing that this is the lesser sin.
Compelling any violation of conscience is a very grave proposal. Compelling it of medical staff is uniquely risky, too.
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
-
Today's political cartoons - March 16, 2024
Cartoons Saturday's cartoons - pointed commentary, Haiti in trouble, and more
By The Week US Published
-
5 hilarious cartoons about the RNC's MAGA takeover
Cartoons Artists take on RNC funding, Lara Trump, and more
By The Week US Published
-
Trump's presidential run: a bad bet for Republicans?
Talking Point The GOP is taking a 'big gamble' on former president's 2024 White House bid
By The Week UK Published
-
Trump's presidential run: a bad bet for Republicans?
Talking Point The GOP is taking a 'big gamble' on former president's 2024 White House bid
By The Week UK Published
-
'Violent resistance has failed Palestinians'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Biden's State of the Union gave Democrats hope but not much else
Talking Points The president was forceful and feisty in his address to congress — so why hasn't it moved the electoral needle?
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published
-
'Grandstanding about the existential threat climate change poses'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Hur defends description of Biden's 'poor memory'
speed read Former special counsel Robert Hur defended disparaging remarks made about Biden's age in his report
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
Biden, Trump clinch nominations
speed read The current and former president have each secured enough delegates for an election rematch
By Peter Weber, The Week US Published
-
'TikTok is a national-security threat'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
By Harold Maass, The Week US Published
-
Biden and Bibi duel with incompatible 'red lines' over Gaza
Talking Points The White House and Prime Minister's office have set the stage for a major showdown between allied nations, even if the specifics — and their consequences — are unclear.
By Rafi Schwartz, The Week US Published