History
The earliest national conscience clause law in the United States, which was enacted immediately following the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade, applied only to abortion and sterilization. It was sponsored by Senator Frank Church of Idaho. The Church Amendment, passed by the Senate on a vote of 92-1, exempted private hospitals receiving federal funds under the Hill-Burton Act, Medicare and Medicaid from any requirement to provide abortions or sterilizations when they objected on “the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Nearly every state enacted similar legislation by the end of the decade—often with the support of legislators who otherwise supported abortion rights. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of Roe vs. Wade, endorsed such clauses “appropriate protection” for individual physicians and denominational hospital.
Conscience clauses have been adopted by a number of U.S. states. including Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota. There are some recent comprehensive reviews of federal and state conscience clause laws across the United States and in select other countries.
The Obama administration has proposed reversing recent additions to the conscience clause enacted by the Bush administration.
Read more about this topic: Conscience Clause (medical)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The custard is setting; meanwhile
I not only have my own history to worry about
But am forced to fret over insufficient details related to large
Unfinished concepts that can never bring themselves to the point
Of being, with or without my help, if any were forthcoming.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe concerning the immortality of the soul, or the like, but the universal impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance, and is the principal fact in this history of the globe.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)