The First Step Toward Despotism
by Fr. Roger Landry - March 27, 2009
Over the last few decades, our society has made great progress against discrimination and harassment in the work place. The rights that flow from workers' human dignity have been increasingly secured in law so that now those who discriminate or harass, rather than their victims, are the ones at risk for losing their jobs, money and freedom.
This progress in protecting workers' rights that our country has made puts into even greater relief how retrograde and dishonorable are the Obama administration's recently announced plans to strip health care employees of conscience protections in the workplace.
The President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, last week called attention to the troubling significance of the Obama administration's intentions. Never known as one to engage in hyperbole, Cardinal George declared in a video statement that the administration's proposed action "would be the first step in moving our country from democracy to despotism." His stark and unexaggerated language shows the seriousness with which this matter should be taken by all who care about our country, our freedoms, and the consciences of our health care workers.
"On Friday afternoon, February 27," Cardinal George described in his statement, "the Obama Administration placed on a federal website the news that it intends to remove a conscience protection rule for the Department of Health and Human Services. That rule is one part of the range of legal protections for health care workers — for doctors, nurses and others — who have objections in conscience to being involved in abortion and other killing procedures that are against how they live their faith in God.
"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. 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."
Cardinal George next expanded upon the un-American nature of the Obama administration's proposal. "Conscientious objection against many actions is a part of our life. We have a conscientious objection against war for those who cannot fight, even though it's good to defend your country. We have a conscientious objection for doctors against being involved in administering 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? 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."
He finally appealed to you — and all citizens and Catholics — to get involved by letting the Obama administration know that this is not the type of change that we support. "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 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has opened a 30-day window between March 10 and April 9 to accept comments on the administration's intention to rescind the conscience protections. Comments may be submitted electronically on the Web site www.Regulations.gov (by entering 0991-AB49 in the search box) or sent by e-mail to proposedrescission@hhs.gov. Written comments — which, if mailed, need to be submitted in triplicate — may also be sent to the Office of Public Health and Science, Department of Health and Human Services, Attention: Rescission Proposal Comments, Hubert H. Humphrey Building, 200 Independence Ave. SW, Room 716G, Washington, DC 20201. A fitting message would be: "Please retain the conscience regulation, and enforce the laws protecting the right of health care providers to serve patients without violating their moral and religious convictions. The government has a special responsibility to ensure that the conscience rights of health care providers are fully protected."
In a recent article, Susan Wills, the assistant director for education and outreach for the Pro-Life Secretariat of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, provided some background for the outrageous nature of the intended move by the Obama administration. "The right of conscience is recognized in the U.S. Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the World Medical Association's Code of Medical Ethics, and in 47 states, laws protect the conscience rights of healthcare providers. Given the universality and history of the right of conscience among free peoples, it is shocking that the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and others have sued to overturn regulations implementing long-standing federal laws enacted to protect the conscience rights of healthcare professionals and institutions.
By seeking to rescind the federal regulations, Wills continued, "the ACLU is taking aim at three federal laws. Congress enacted the 'Church Amendment' immediately after the Roe v. Wade decision to ensure that health care professionals and hospitals would not be coerced into involvement in abortions or sterilizations. The Coats Amendment was enacted over a decade ago to nullify the attempt by the medical accreditation council to coerce medical schools into training ob-gyn residents in abortion procedures. Since 2004 the Weldon Amendment has prevented governmental discrimination against healthcare entities on account of the entity's refusal to 'provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.'" The regulation the Obama administration intends to rescind puts teeth into all three of these congressionally-passed protections. By taking the regulation off the books, all of these defenses would remain unenforced.
Why would the Obama administration propose to do this? Wills answered, "Despite all their talk of 'choice,' the abortion industry and its supporters are determined to eliminate the choice of medical professionals and entities to not become accomplices in killing unborn boys and girls. Despite all their talk about 'privacy,' the abortion industry and its supporters are determined to trample on healthcare professionals' innermost zone of privacy, that 'secret core and sanctuary' known as conscience. It is no longer enough, in their eyes, that women and girls can obtain potentially abortifacient drugs in virtually every pharmacy in the U.S. or that women and girls can have abortions on request in every city where there's a profit to be had. They will not rest until every pharmacy, hospital, healthcare provider, and taxpayer collaborates in the culture of death."
Wills said in summary, "A hallmark of free nations is the recognition of the individual's freedom of conscience. Tyrant states do not protect conscience; they strangle it." After for decades treating those who are younger and weaker as if they were non-persons, now the abortion industry and its political enablers in Washington want to treat those who disagree with them as second-class citizens, giving them a choice between following their conscience or keeping their jobs.
The stakes for our country involve more than keeping those who respect life in the healing professions. As Cardinal George points out, once our government begins to force those who wish to keep their jobs to violate their consciences and do what they know is evil, we are no longer dealing with a limited government, but rather with a despotic one. And with a despotic government, none of our rights is safe.
Now is the time for Catholics and all people of good will to get involved.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
