Obama's "sensible conscience clause"

During his commencement address at Notre Dame this weekend, President Obama made reference to pro-life demands that healthcare personnel who oppose abortion receive a conscience or religious exemption to protect them from losing their job or being required to participate in illicit activities. Said Obama: “Let’s honor the conscience of those who disagree with abortion and draft a sensible conscience clause …”

It's a puzzling remark, given that the Obama administration rescinded the Bush administration's 11th hour conscience provision to provide additional protections for pro-life physicians, nurses, and pharmacists. So what, in fact, would be a "sensible conscience clause" in Obama's view?

I happened to be doing a bit of research yesterday and came upon this passage in a San Francisco Chronicle article on the issue.

"Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, said his organization wholeheartedly supports long-held protections for individual health care providers to recuse themselves based on conscience."

So Catholics for Choice  support conscience exemptions for  pro-life heath care workers and institutions? Actually, the position is a bit more complicated than it appears at first. O'Brien issues this carefully worded caveat--he advocates conscience rights for individuals but not for institutions:

"But, he said, giving entire hospitals or health care systems the blanket protection called for under the Bush plan threatens the freedom of nurses or doctors to give services they believe patients need.

"Principles of individual"

O'Brien said that if a doctor believed a patient had the right to have an abortion or be referred to one, such as in the instance of a raped child, a hospital should not stand in the way. Catholic tradition, he said, values individual conscience above that of an institution.

"They're trying to say the institution has a conscience," O'Brien said. "But by saying that, they're denying the conscience of doctors, nurses and patients."

Is this the "sensible conscience clause" Obama wants? I hope not: it would violate the mission of Catholic healthcare institutions committed to upholding the sanctity of all human life--from conception to natural death. On a practical level, it would create complete chaos in such institutions, with individual physicians issuing their own edicts. 

Maybe that's not what President Obama meant by  "sensible conscience clause" -- he didn't define his terms during his Notre Dame address. But if this stance is close to his actual policy, he may prefer to roll it out at another time. Right now, he needs Catholic support and would want to avoid a direct confrontation with the Catholic hierarchy. Further,  recent polls now confirm that a fragile majority of Americans now embrace a pro-life position. I wrote about this trend in a recent post on my blog, The Cathoholic. 

Update: I received a press release yesterday with the following news: "In response to President Obama's commencement address last Sunday at the University of Notre Dame, today Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), held a press conference in Washington, D.C. and sent a letter to President Obama calling on him to publicly forgo rescinding the Bush Administration conscience protection regulation. 

 

Comments

[Benighted Savage]

Thanks for pointing out this very important distinction.