The Conscience of the Christian Healthcare worker

The conscience of the Christian healthcare worker doesn't seem to be much of a concern of President Obama:

On January 20, 2009, President Bush implemented regulations that would protect health care workers who refuse to participate in abortion-related activities from discrimination. President Obama and his Department of Health and Human Services have published their intent to overturn these regulations. The regulations are intended to educate health care professionals, as well as the general public, about the rights of medical personnel to treat their patients in accordance with their conscience, free from discrimination or intimidation. They also give health care professionals a way to press charges in the event that they experience discrimination. By law the Obama Administration must leave a 30 day period open for the public to comment on his repeal of the right of conscience. Please write into the Department of Health and Human Service today and tell them that you oppose discrimination on account of conscience!

Please let your voice be heard!! Email at proposedrescission@hhs.gov.

Existing federal law allows health-care workers to refuse on moral grounds to provide abortions. This rule Bush strengthened and extended those protections. Overturning these regulations would result in Christian Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals (and especially Catholic Hospitals, which would close rather than comply) not being able to opt out of performing or helping in abortion if their conscience dictates this.

Cardinal Francis George, the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met with Pres. Obama for half an hour this week in a meeting not on Obama's schedule, and kept on the down low. The meeting was "private," and few details were given, but the Cardinal released a video the same day regarding the conscience protection regulations, which may suggest what he talked to Pres. Obama about.

According to LifeSiteNews, the Cardinal says the following in the video:

Cardinal George, the president of the USCCB, taped the video released today after the Obama Administration announced in early March that it was rescinding the regulations which guarantee that health workers cannot be forced to provide services that violate their consciences, including abortions.

"As Catholic bishops and American citizens, we are deeply concerned that such an action on the government's part would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism," says the Cardinal in the video.

"Respect for personal conscience and freedom of religion as such ensures our basic freedom from government oppression. No government should come between an individual person and God - that's what America is supposed to be about. This is the true common ground for us as Americans. We therefore need legal protection for freedom of conscience and of religion-including freedom for religious health care institutions to be true to themselves."

The Cardinal observed that the country respects conscientious objection in the case of those who object to war, "even though it's good to defend your country," and for physicians who do not want to participate in the death penalty.

"Why shouldn't our government and our legal system permit conscientious objection to a morally bad action, the killing of babies in their mother's womb?" he asks. "People understand what really happens in an abortion and in related procedures - a living member of the human family is killed - that's what it's all about - and no one should be forced by the government to act as though he or she were blind to this reality."

The Cardinal concluded by urging concerned citizens to contact the government and tell them to retain the conscience protection regulations: "I ask you please to let the government know that you want conscience protections to remain strongly in place. In particular, let the Department of Health and Human Services in Washington know that you stand for the protection of conscience, especially now for those who provide the health care services so necessary for a good society.


The Abortion President strikes again. Let your voice be heard folks.