Jessica

Vozel

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March 24, 2008

Women’s Reproductive Rights vs. Doctors and Their ‘Conscience’

On Friday, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt wrote a letter to Dr. Norman Gant, director of the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG), expressing his discontent with a recent policy put forth by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) that outlines physician responsibility for referring women to abortion providers, or another physician who can do so, in a timely manner. 

In a report issued by the ACOG Ethics Committee in November 2007 titled “The Limits of Conscience Refusal in Reproductive Medicine,” the ACOG discusses the limits of conscience rights in the medical community, especially with regard to women and reproductive health.

According to the abstract for the report, the ACOG Ethics Committee believes, “All health care providers must provide accurate and unbiased information so that patients can make informed decisions. Where conscience implores physicians to deviate from standard practices, they must provide potential patients with accurate and prior notice of their personal moral commitments.” 

This ACOG document was a necessary one. Unfortunately, it is not unusual for pharmacists and doctors, particularly Catholic and conservative practitioners, to deny their patients the basic right of access to information and reproductive medicine such as contraception and abortion referrals. According to one account, a woman named Lori Boyer was denied emergency contraception by an ER physician after she had been raped. Her doctor simply said, “I can’t do that. It’s against my religion.” 

Another young woman attempted to purchase emergency contraception at a pharmacy, was denied and left with few other options. The pharmacy was the only one nearby in her small town.  Some Catholic hospitals, according to an MSNBC feature, have even postponed the termination of doomed pregnancies because they will only provide abortions if the mother’s life is in danger. Other Catholic hospitals have denied prescriptions for even basic birth control on the basis of religious principles. 

Planned Parenthood of America has been increasingly watchful of such occurrences, and has noticed a trend of women coming to them after being denied reproductive care and information by their primary physicians. Coupled with a 2007 survey in the New England Journal of Medicine that found 63 percent of physicians thought it acceptable to deny patients care and information based on their moral beliefs, this shows that if morality trumping responsible medicine wasn’t a concern before, it is certainly becoming one now.

It is depressing, then, that our Secretary of Health and Human Services is not only unperturbed by this trend but wants to see it continue, and is reaching out to protect the rights of physicians rather than patients. In his letter, Leavitt wrote of his concern for upholding anti-discrimination laws put in place to protect physicians, saying, “I am concerned that the actions taken by ACOG and ABOG could result in the denial or revocation of Board certification of a physician who – but for his or her refusal, for example, to refer a patient for an abortion – would be certified.” 

Even the headline for the HHS press release is inherently biased: “HHS Secretary Calls on Certification Group to Protect Conscience Rights.” The rights of physicians are the front-burner issue here, with patients’ rights a seemingly inconsequential afterthought. 

Not a word in Leavitt’s letter addressed the discrimination that women face when they are trying to access the care that should be guaranteed them in a time of crisis. Overwhelmingly male physicians are routinely causing their female patients shame and embarrassment, as was the case with Lori Boyer, who didn’t visit a gynecologist for over two years after she was denied contraception by a physician who seemed to think he occupied a moral high ground in doing so.

Even more frightening is the thought of younger women who are raped and unaware of emergency contraception. They wouldn’t know to ask, and a physician like Lori Boyer’s certainly wouldn’t offer it outright. Is this not discrimination against women? Have we ever heard of an unmarried male being denied a prescription for Viagra because the physician found sex before marriage to be immoral and against his or her religious beliefs? 

It seems simple enough: If one is devoted to a religion that prohibits one from giving his or her patients the full range of care, he or she should consider a different profession.

As a vegetarian, I certainly would not apply to work at a steakhouse and then refuse to deliver dinner to my customers because of my beliefs about meat-eating. And in that case, I’m talking about steak, not a potentially dangerous situation for women across the country. 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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