Back in the waning days of the Bush Administration, #43 was busy doing all that he could to make our country as regressive as possible before Obama took over. One of those maneuvers was to make the anti-choice religious zealots happy by allowing doctors and nurses to refuse certain medical treatments to patients if they felt some sort of moral conflict. The rule was vague, but gave broad authority to health care professionals to put people's lives (both mortally and not) at stake, such as not giving rape kits to victims because they didn't want to terminate a fertilized egg that a victim had insider her. As of today though, violating their hippocratic oaths is no longer acceptable.
From The Chicago Tribune:
WASHINGTON — Taking another step into the abortion debate, the Obama administration Friday will move to rescind a controversial rule that allows health-care workers to deny abortion counseling or other family-planning services if doing so would violate their moral beliefs, according to administration officials. The rollback of the "conscience rule" comes just two months after the Bush administration announced it last year in one of its final policy initiatives. The new administration's action seems certain to stoke ideological battles between supporters and opponents of abortion rights over the responsibilities of doctors, nurses and other medical workers to their patients. Seven states, including California, Illinois and Connecticut, as well as two family planning groups, have filed suits challenging the Bush rule, arguing it sacrifices the health of patients to religious beliefs of medical providers.It is so nice to have a President that doesn't kow tow to the religious beliefs of a few that violate the liberties of so many others. Evangelicals will probably be up in arms over the matter, but most rationally-thinking Americans are extremely grateful for restoring the rights of patients as soon as Obama makes the rule officially rescinded.
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