Rep. Hermilando Mandanas (2nd district, Batangas), author of House Bill No. 5028, said those who decline to counsel, advise, pay for, provide, perform, assist, or participate in providing or performing health care services should not be compelled to act against their will.
“The right of conscience of doctors, nurses and other health workers and employees and even students must be recognized and protected. They do not lose their right to exercise their religion and conscience once they enter the health care profession,” Mandanas said.
Mandanas said giving legal recognition to the civil rights of health care professionals will not in anyway infringe on the patients’ rights or the quality of care they ought to receive.
He explained that while patients have the right to receive the health care services they desire, they have no right to force someone to provide it to them.
Mandanas said without comprehensive protection, these “conscientious objectors” rights of conscience may be violated in various ways such as harassment, demotion, salary deduction, transfer, termination, loss of staffing privileges, denial of aid benefits, and refusal to license.
The bill seeks to prohibit discrimination against any doctor, nurse, worker, employee or student, public official, or employer, who refuses to provide artificial birth control, abortion, sterilization, ligation, artificial insemination, assisted reproduction, human cloning, euthanasia, human embryonic stem cell research, fetal experimentation, and physician-assisted suicide or information on such services based on an individuals conscience.
Mandanas clarified that the bill would not obstruct on the patient freedom to choose nor would it interfere with existing malpractice standards, adding that it merely acknowledges that certain demands by patients, usually for procedures that are life-destructive and not life-saving, would not be blindly accommodated.
He said it also would not prevent others from providing health care services to which a conscientious objection has been made.
He noted that conscientious objections are most often raised for elective services such as contraception, abortion, sterilization, ligation, physician-assisted suicide, and withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, rather than necessary life-saving services.
Mandanas said the lack of participati on in these practices by a health care provider would not endanger patient’s lives.
“Thus, there is no need to argue about any loss of access to health care. There is no overriding duty to provide health care against one’s conscience. And the patient may always go to another health care provider who has no such objection,” Mandanas said.
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