Tepeyac Family Center

Conscience

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FREEDOM OF CHOICE IN HEALTH CARE

Bob Laird

It was an interesting experience the first time being in a restaurant, ordering a “Coke”, and being asked, “Is Pepsi alright?” as if I might be somewhat offended. I gave little thought previously to that question and realized that we had always had Pepsi at home and not Coca Cola. So why hadn’t I ordered Pepsi in restaurants and not Coke? Looking back, I wonder why I wasn’t disconcerted that I had never been asked that question before. Maybe all along I had been served Pepsi and no one ever asked me. In later years I began to notice on some menus the all too blatant footnote, “We serve Pepsi products.”

Health care providers are obviously on a level much different from restaurant owners and whether one serves Coke or Pepsi products may not necessarily be a matter of conscience unless those respective companies are engaging in immoral practices.

Beginning in 1973, Congress has passed numerous laws protecting rights of conscience in health care. Last week the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed federal regulations on the conscience rights of health care providers protecting them from discrimination because they wish to make a choice and not engage in immoral practices such as performing or referring for abortions or prescribing or dispensing contraceptives used for birth control purposes.

However, it should come as no surprise to the American public that the “pro-choice” lobby sees this as a further opportunity to be anything but “pro-choice”. If there is any meaning to choice, it should apply to both the patients and their caretakers. Why should OB-GYNs who in conscience cannot do abortions, sterilizations, prescribe contraceptives for birth control purposes be required to refer patients to someone who would?

Basic moral theology teaches the extent of both formal and material cooperation in moral acts. While I may not be able to assist someone as a hit man to eliminate the burden in someone’s life, I would certainly bear some moral responsibility for recommending someone who could.

The Secretary of HHS has recently reminded the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) that such coerced refusals are among the violations of federal conscience laws.

Divine Mercy Care (DMC) in Fairfax, VA finds itself located squarely in the center of this issue. Neither its OB-GYN clinic nor its new pharmacy will ever require the health care worker to do something that is immoral. This includes direct actions by themselves or formal or material cooperation in referring patients elsewhere. There is nothing in DMC’s practice that violates anyone’s “choice”. In fact, it is preeminently “pro-choice”—it offers 100% choice to both the patient and the healthcare provider. Patients can choose a service that is completely in conformity with their beliefs and providers can offer service that is equally in conformity with theirs.

At the heart of DMC’s mission, obviously, is the ethical issue of not compromising one’s beliefs and values. On a very different level is the foundation of American business—freedom of choice. Any storeowner opens his business with a two-fold understanding: whom does he want to serve and what does he want to provide. Both he and his patrons know what he provides. No customer looking to buy bacon or sausage would go to a kosher butcher expecting to find it. Nor would the customer expect to find that store open on Saturday.

Large chains of businesses have developed their own products that people expect to find there and nowhere else. Who would seriously go into a Burger King expecting to buy a Big Mac? There is a difference between Wal-Mart and K-Mart and rightly so, and each can decide what hours to be open.

DMC continue to provide excellent health care, serving patients with and without insurance while following the teachings of the Catholic Church. It may not demand this of others, but it seeks to be able to do so for those who want it. Just as its patients and clients should expect it to provide such health care, so also DMC expects to “have a seat at the table” and be able to accommodate them and their providers.

Just as pro-abortion hospitals choose to practice health care their way, so we expect to be able to practice it our way. If there is a demand to be “pro-choice”, then that should include the ability to choose the type of health care that we intend to practice. There is no reason to expect an orthopedist to be able to perform bypass surgery. Not every neurologist performs or is expected to perform neurosurgery. Similarly not every OB-GYN should be expected or required to perform abortions, sterilizations, or prescribe contraceptives.

In effect, the pro-abortion lobby seeks to remove the element of competition from the American enterprise. The entire DMC experience is based on the fact that there are thousands of patients who demand the health care experience that we provide. Patients want a form of health care that allows them to practice their religion not only in churches and homes, but in the doctors’ offices. This is competition…and it is healthy.

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Bob Laird is the executive director of Divine Mercy Care (DMC), a pro-life non-profit health care organization in Northern Virginia and the practice administrator of Tepeyac Family Center, a six-physician pro-life OB-GYN practice – an affiliate of DMC.