On Thu Sep 11, 2008 I posted a Diary on Daily Kos titled "Denying contraception by law. URGENT!" http://www.dailykos.com/...
I pointed out that Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said in his blog http://secretarysblog.hhs.gov/... "putting doctors (or any one who assists them) in a position where they are forced to violate their consciences in order to meet a standard of competence violates more than federal law. It violates decency and the core value of personal liberty."
IMO however , If there is any violation, it is the potential for violation of an individual who may be dying with the horrible pain that can accompany cancer metastasis to bone or a dying bowel.
None of George Bush’s, going out the door of his Presidency, rules have quite provoked national outrage as has The Department of Health & Human Services "right-of-conscience rule" (Rof C rule).
So what can be done about it?
Barbara Combs Lee ,President of "Compassion and Choices (C&C)", a National Right to Die organization has said, "We dream of a time when all Americans can die in dignity and according to their own values."
In keeping with that statement, in a recent release of information from C&C, I was shocked to learn about what I did not know back on 9/11/2008, namely that the RofC rule has the potential to prevent dying patients with agonizing terminal disease, that is unrelieved by the usual pain relieving measures, from receiving a medical measure of care referred to as "Terminal Sedation".
In "Terminal Sedation" the dying patient is essentially kept in a comatose state until death ensues. Because the drugs used to induce that state of coma can also suppress respiration , death may be hastened. Because of this physiologic response, medical care personnel so inclined under the provision of the RofC rule, would be able to personally refuse to participate in "Terminal Sedation"care and thus possibly would be able to prevent a terminally ill patient from receiving this care that would deny the ability to die free of pain.
Given my long time concern & involvement with "right to die issues" I achieved contact with Carla Axtman, online community builder, compassion & choices. I enquired about any abilities and actions
that the incoming Obama administration might have to thwart the "right of conscience rule"?
Ms. Axtman responded with information from an article by a Mr. Mike Lillis ( as of 1/1/09), which dealt with Democrats giving an eye to overturning the Bush Medical Rule Regulation Giving Medical Workers Leeway in Providing Services.
However, Democratic Party leaders aren't saying how they'll try to do it.
Options to accomplish defeating the rule, according to Mr. Lillis’s article, include: "Sens. Hillary Clinton (N.Y.) and Patty Murray (Wash.) introduced legislation last month that would simply prevent HHS from implementing the new rule. Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Col.) and Louis Slaughter (D-N.Y.) have vowed to introduce similar legislation in the House next year."
Also, "Congress could also simply refuse to fund the new rule, which is estimated to cost $44 million."
Or "they could nix it altogether by invoking an obscure law - known as the Congressional Review Act (CRA) - which allows Congress to reject White House regulations passed within 60 legislative days of Congress's adjournment. The law would leave Democrats several months next year to kill the rule.
An advantage of the CRA route is that the vote would be exempt from Senate filibuster. The disadvantage is that the measure would have to stand alone and couldn't be buried in another bill as a rider."
Jessica Arons, director of the Center for American Progress' Women's Health and Rights Program, said that invoking the CRA is not as easy as it sounds, particularly when the issue has any relation to abortion.
Conservative-leaning Democrats might not support it, she said, and party leaders might not have the political will to bring it up to begin with."
Further,"Obama could simply propose a new regulation."
But, "Despite his early opposition to the rule, he (Obama) might not want to make an abortion-related issue one of his first battles, if only because it might threaten that message of bipartisan healing."
That could well be where demands by Kossacks, directed to Obama and other Democratic Party officials, might help get rid of the "right of conscience rule" abomination. So, Gird your loins, for any help we might be able to provide in the future should the need arise..