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When ‘choice’ is not freedom
Pastor Pat Duffin
South Peace News
Well, Americans voted for change. Only it may not be the change they were looking for.
These days the change is looking more like chains. On April 9, the 30-day comment period ended in which U.S. citizens could voice their concern about President Barack Obama’s rescission of what is commonly called ‘The Conscience Clause.’ Astonishingly, one of the most profound, spontaneous grassroots protests in American history has gone literally ignored by the media and by the Obama administration.
Known as the Red Letter Campaign, nearly 2.25 million protest letters in red envelopes were mailed to the White House in that very short one-month period. Red envelopes were used to symbolize the blood of innocent babies sacrificed on the altar of ‘choice.’ This unprecedented and overwhelming groundswell of public opinion has not received any mention in the media nor received any notice from the White House administration. It has been what they call in the business ‘spiked.’ The silence has been deafening, enlightening and alarming.
The Conscience Clause, in effect since the 1970s, allows medical professionals and organizations (such as hospitals) to choose not to provide services which are contrary to their religious beliefs or missions. This specifically pertains to the performance of abortions and sterilizations although it is also extended to fetal stem cell research, euthanasia, termination of life support, and providing contraception or fertility services to patients. The Conscience Clause was generally designed to reconcile the conflict between religious health care providers who provide care in accordance with their religious beliefs and the patients who want access to medical care these religious providers find morally or ethically objectionable.
Ultimately it is President Obama’s publicly promised intention to sign the ‘Freedom of Choice Act’, which would eliminate every single restriction on abortion at any government level and would force all doctors, nurses and hospitals to participate in abortions regardless of their personal beliefs or be fired. What is not clear is the rationale for these draconian measures since during the 30 years that the Conscience Clause has been in effect abortions and sterilizations have grown in both demand and availability and are readily accessible throughout the country even in rural areas.
Therefore, the existence of The Conscience Clause has in no way limited the ability of all Americans to receive these services if they so choose. So, whatever the Obama administration’s intentions may be, it certainly cannot be about improving American health care.
Until now, the Conscience Clause has protected the freedom of both medical professionals and medical organizations. It has allowed those individuals to conduct their medical work without being forced into any conduct that would contradict their faith views. It has also allowed hospitals with faith-based missions to continue to practice as well. But what happens when the freedom of conscience is removed?
First, let’s consider the moral and political ramifications of the proposed Freedom of Choice legislation. Ironically, the first casualty will be ‘freedom’ itself. It would appear that freedom of choice only applies to the anti-life, pro-abortion camp. Medical professionals will be forced to perform or participate in abortions to one degree or another. They will not be able to refuse. So much for dissent! So much for ‘freedom’ of religion! So much for ‘freedom’ of conscience.
The threat to personal liberty here cannot be over-exaggerated. Freedom of person is fundamental to any other freedoms. And nothing is more intimately entwined with freedom of person than freedom of conscience. It is absolutely core to one’s personal integrity and it is only in totalitarian regimes where people are forced to go against their conscience.
Senator Tom Cobburn (Republican - Oklahoma), who is also an Ob/Gyn said that many medical practitioners including himself, will go to prison before agreeing to engage in medical practices they morally oppose, such as abortion. Let’s keep in mind that it is only in totalitarian regimes where we find ‘prisoners of conscience’.
Those who morally object to abortion usually do so because they understand abortion as the taking of innocent life. To require a physician who believes this to refer someone for an abortion would force him or her to be complicit in that act. A government forcing physicians who morally object to abortion to participate in it at any level including referral would be more consonant with the tenets of a repressive regime than with the tenets of a free society. By dictionary it would not be incorrect to define such a regime as fascist.
Freedom of religion and conscience was the very reason many of the first settlers braved the perilous ocean crossings and endured a hostile new world so they could escape the religious and political oppression in their homelands.
But now, the ‘right’ of some to receive a particular service demands that there be an obligation upon others to provide it, regardless of their opinion about the morality or harmfulness of the procedure. This is the double standard of postmodern thinking. Thus, for all the abortion ‘choice’ rhetoric, choice is really a one-way street. When it comes to pro-life individuals, abortion choice quickly turns into abortion mandate and the others have no ‘choice’ at all.
For a long time the pro-choice mantra has been, “You have a right to your belief, but you do not have a right to force your belief onto me and control my body.” Yet it’s somehow alright for the pro-choice to force their beliefs upon and control the people who disagree with them by legislatively compelling individuals to provide services that violate their conscience.
In terms of simple fairness and equality, pro-choicers must allow the same consideration they want for themselves. Apart from professionals, women deserve to have the option to choose doctors who reflect their views on the sanctity of human life. They will lose that freedom if pro-life health care professionals are driven from the medical field.
Since pro-choicers don’t want to be forced, they should not be forcing others either. After all, no one would reasonably argue that people should be involuntarily compelled to contribute money to the Church. So why doesn’t the same logic apply when it comes to forcing people to violate their conscience on abortion? In this case ‘choice’ no longer means freedom.
Second, let’s consider the practical ramifications when people of conscience are forced to withdraw all their services by leaving the health care field. Only great harm can come if conscience protection is removed. Catholic hospitals, for example, are the largest provider of hospital services in the United States. Since Catholics are officially required by their Church to oppose abortion, these institutions and their care providers will be forced out of the health care field thereby leaving a massive gap in medical services that will be impossible to replace.
In addition to the Catholics, there are also many other hospitals with faith based missions and there are innumerable individual health care professionals in every field who are people of faith and cannot accept abortion. What’s more, there is a large population of non-religious people who object to abortion based on their own personal values. The prospect of all these people removed from the health care field should make one shudder with dread over the ensuing chaos.
The proposed systematic and institutionalized discrimination will decimate every single area of health care in the name of forcing mandatory abortion services that are not even needed.
It’s crazy public policy!
But these are insane times and the trampling of individual freedoms as well as destructive social policies is happening right before our eyes on many different fronts.
Ho hum, why should we care in Canada? Simple. Whenever the United States catches a cold, we get the flu. What goes around comes around. What is happening in the U.S. will inevitably cross the border.
So let’s be clear. In the new political parlance ‘choice’ for some means no choice for others. Nothing less than personal freedom is at stake.
Will we apathetically stand by and allow our freedom to be destroyed in Canada? We better wake up before it’s too late!
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