|
 |
| |
|
| |
HB 5028: The Rights of Conscience Act of 2006
|
|
Get a copy of HB 5028 (PDF)
Explanatory Note:
It is increasingly becoming a norm for doctors, nurses and other medical or health workers, employees and students, both public and private, to be expected to provide products and services despite their personal views and opinions about these products and services. In drug stores or in health clinics, birth control pills, condoms or intra-uterine devices may be available for sale, yet some health providers may be averse to participate in their sale due to their moral, ethical or religious beliefs.
|
The Constitution enshrines the value placed by the State on the dignity of every human person and the guarantee of full respect for human rights. The State thus respects and protects the fundamental right of conscience of all individuals who provide health care services.
The civil right of conscience must be recognized and protected for all individual and institutional doctors, nurses and other health workers and employees, and students. Individuals do not lose their right to exercise their religion and conscience once they enter a health care profession. Too many health professionals and workers, especially pharmacists and medical students, are at risk of having their right of conscience violated. For example, pharmacists may be fired, harassed, or demoted for refusing to dispense birth control pills or “emergency contraceptives.” It is not farfetched to imagine that pharmacists will be told to dispense what they in conscience do not wish to dispense, or for health care providers, including doctors, to be required to perform sterilization or ligation, or to provide information on birth control, suicide, or abortion, despite their beliefs. Nor is it farfetched to imagine that public officials may be required by law to deliver or cause to deliver artificial birth control devices or products despite their conscientious objections.
Without comprehensive protection, rights of conscience may be violated in various ways, such as harassment, demotion, salary reduction, transfer, termination, loss of staffing privileges, denial of aid or benefits, and refusal to license.
It is the purpose of this Act to protect as a basic civil right the right of all doctors, nurses, and other health workers and employees, as well as students, institutions and payers to decline to counsel, advise, pay for, provide, perform, assist, or participate in providing or performing health care services that violate their consciences. Such services may include, but are not limited to, artificial birth control, abortion, sterilization, ligation, artificial insemination, assisted reproduction, human cloning, euthanasia, human embryonic stem cell research, fetal experimentation, and physician-assisted suicide.
This Act therefore prohibits all forms of discrimination, disqualification, coercion, disability, or liability upon such health care providers, institutions and payers that decline to perform any health care service that violates their conscience. Those who do have adverse action taken against them must be able to assert a cause of action for damages and, in some cases, injunctive relief.
To fully protect doctors, nurses, and other health workers and employees, as well as students, institutions and payers, this civil right must extend to anyone who may have to participate in any way in a health care service to which they conscientiously object. This civil right must include the whole range of health care providers, including pharmacists, nurses’ aides, students, counselors, and insurance carriers, both in the private and public sector. Moreover, “health care service” must be defined expansively to include any phase of the health care service to which a conscientious objection has been or may be raised. “Health care service” must include dispensing medication, recommendation or referral of a service or product, payment for the service or product, withdrawal of a service or product, and training in a type of service.
Public and private hospitals, too, must be able to assert their civil right of conscience. Some have argued that only individuals and private or religious hospitals may have a right of conscience. This is a myth that must be corrected.
Legal recognition of the civil rights of health care professionals, workers and students in no way infringes on the rights of patients or the quality of care that they receive. Patients have a right to receive the health care services they desire, but not a right to force someone to provide it to them. Thus, patients’ ability to choose is not hampered by this legislation. Neither does this Act interfere with existing malpractice standards. The Act merely acknowledges that certain demands of patients, usually for procedures that are life-destructive and not life-saving, must not be blindly accommodated to the detriment of the rights of health care professionals, workers and students. Individuals and institutions do not lose their right to exercise their moral and religious beliefs and conscience once they decide to become health care providers. Nothing in the Act prevents others from providing the health care service to which a conscientious objection has been made. Conscientious objections are most often raised concerning elective services, such as contraception, abortion, sterilization, ligation, physician-assisted suicide, and withdrawal of nutrition and hydration, rather than necessary or life-saving services. Therefore, the lack of participation in these practices by a health care provider or institution would not endanger the lives of patients.
Finally, 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. Furthermore, a patient may always go to another health care provider who has no such objections.
In view thereof, approval of this bill is earnestly sought.
HERMILANDO I. MANDANAS
Representative, 2nd District, Batangas
Get a copy of HB 5028 (PDF)
back to Pro-Family Bills
|
|
|
