State groups on opposite sides of 'Conscience rule'

On its way out the door, the Bush administration has issued a new government regulation that will make it easier for health care workers to opt out of providing medical services on religious or ethical grounds.

A variety of groups, including Planned Parenthood and the American Medical Association, are warning that the so-called "conscience rule" will place new obstacles in the path of women and girls seeking reproductive health care.

The rule was issued Dec. 18 and will take effect the day before President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated. It ensures that health care workers can refuse to participate in abortions, sterilizations or any federally funded health service or research activity on religious or ethical grounds.

Any employer who fails to accommodate such a worker will be subject to a cutoff of federal funds.

The rule is being hailed by conservative groups as a victory for freedom of religion and assailed by abortion rights advocates and other critics, who say it will restrict access not only to abortion but also to contraception, infertility treatment, assisted suicide and stem-cell research.

The regulation applies not only to doctors but to any worker involved in a procedure to which he or she objects, such as drug-store cashiers and hospital janitors who clean medical instruments.

The rule will affect nearly 600,000 hospitals, nursing homes, doctors' offices, pharmacies, laboratories, home health care services, medical schools and other entities at an estimated annual cost of $43.6 million.

"We're really concerned that this rule is going to have disastrous effects for women and their access to health care," said Courtney Jones, a grass-roots organizer at the Virginia League for Planned Parenthood.

For example, Jones said, a health care worker who opposes birth control could refuse to provide counseling for family planning. Or an emergency-room worker could deny a sexual assault victim information about emergency contraception that would help prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

But Jeff Caruso, director of the Virginia Catholic Conference, the public policy arm of Virginia's two Catholic dioceses, called the new rule "long overdue." Catholic hospitals refuse to perform abortions or sterilizations or provide emergency contraception.

"I think what's most paramount here is that individuals and institutions that are committed to healing should not be required to end the lives that they are dedicated to protecting, and they shouldn't be required to violate their own consciences or their religious beliefs," Caruso said. "I think this is really about nothing less than religious freedom."

Amy Vest, a pharmacist who works for a national retailer in Virginia Beach, also welcomed the regulation.

"It would allow me to go to work and perform my duties and not have in the back of my mind whether this would be the day that I would have to choose my beliefs over my job," she said.

Vest said she has a moral objection to dispensing the emergency oral contraceptive, which she considers equivalent to abortion. The so-called "morning-after pill," marketed under the trade name Plan B, has been available without a prescription since 2006.

Her employer already allows employees to opt out of ringing up the sale, Vest said, but that is inadequate protection for her as a pharmacist.

"It requires a licensed pharmacist to be on duty for the sale to occur," she said. "So I still felt party to the sale."

Obama criticized the rule when it was first proposed over the summer. The new administration could seek to reverse it, but that is a lengthy process. Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., have introduced a bill to repeal it legislatively.

Bill Sizemore, (757) 446-2276, bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com