Save Wisconsin's compassionate care law
by Nancy Ratzan ¦ Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ¦ 7 September 2008 It took five years of struggle to win passage in 2007 of Wisconsin’s Compassionate Care for Rape Victims bill, which requires hospitals to give rape victims information about emergency contraception and to dispense it upon request. It may take only a few seconds for Michael Leavitt, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, to wipe it out with a stroke of his pen by approving a new regulation allowing health care providers to opt out of providing information or services they find morally objectionable. Federal law already gives individuals and institutions the right to refuse to provide abortion and sterilization services. The law also protects entities that refuse to provide or require training in abortion and individuals who refuse to be trained to provide abortions. But HHS claims to find a problem: the appearance of “an attitude” that providers “should be required to provide or assist in the provision of medicine or procedures to which they object, or else risk being subjected to discrimination.” The American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology, which had been cited by HHS in its press release, objected vigorously, stating that Leavitt had been unable to supply even one instance of such discrimination. Furthermore, the regulation proposed by HHS on Aug. 21 goes way beyond reproductive health care services. It is breathtaking in scope and apparent purpose, covering any procedure to which an employee could have a moral or religious objection. It seeks to protect not only health care providers such as doctors and nurses but anyone associated with a health care procedure, from receptionists to technicians to those who clean the instruments. HHS estimates 584,294 entities would be required to spend at least $44.5 million to certify that they “will not require involvement in procedures that violate an individual’s conscience as part” of any aspect of a health service program. The draft regulation makes no effort to require providers or their employees to provide information to patients on the health care services they need or to refer patients to other providers who will help them. It seeks to allow an employee’s religious or moral views to trump the rights of women and all patients to receive the services on which they depend, without any countervailing responsibility to ensure that care is delivered. While the regulation is indeed broad and could affect end of life care and fundamental scientific research as well, the impact will be felt by the most vulnerable of women — victims of rape and young and poor women who rely on clinics and not private practitioners for reproductive health services. When Wisconsin lawmakers enacted the Compassionate Care Act, they intended that victims of rape not be held hostage to the individual beliefs of health care providers when the right to prevent an unwanted pregnancy was at stake. If the new federal regulation takes effect, Wisconsin’s decision will be effectively overturned. If Wisconsin residents want to protect their wives, daughters, sisters and mothers — indeed themselves — from unwanted pregnancies resulting from rape, they need to write to Leavitt today and demand these changes be abandoned. Nancy Ratzan is president of the National Council of Jewish Women, a grass-roots organization of volunteers and advocates that works to improve the quality of life for women, children and families.
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