"Conscience Clause" for Health Care Providers

Assembly Bill 207
Testimony Before the Senate Committee on
Health, Children, Families, Aging and Long Term Care

Prepared by:
Barbara Beckert, Assistant Director, Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations
Michael Blumenfeld, Executive Director, Wisconsin Jewish Conference
Thursday, September 15, 2005

The Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, which represents 29 local Jewish organizations, agencies, and synagogues, along with our statewide partner, the Wisconsin Jewish Conference, strongly opposes passage of Assembly Bill 207.

We are concerned that AB 207 will deny patients access to important healthcare services, based on the religious beliefs of the provider, and that it places the rights of employees over the rights of patients in need of service. We believe that Wisconsinites should be free to make their own healthcare decisions within the context of their own religious convictions and beliefs, without interference from the state. This is based on the Jewish community’s deep commitment to the principle of separation of Church and State, guaranteed by our Constitution, which has kept our nation strong and preserved full freedom for the individual.

AB 207 would set a dangerous precedent of allowing health care workers to pick and choose what procedures, medications, health education or treatment they feel are right for the patient. It allows health care professionals to deny patients vital health care services, even if the denial of care harms the patient, and may permit hospitals and health care providers to ignore patients' advance directive documents such as living wills.

This law could infringe on the rights of patients or other possible service recipients to access a particular type of service because no health care provider is willing to provide the service. This is particularly problematic in rural areas where there is no other available service provider.

According to the Wisconsin Medical Society and other health care professional groups, current Wisconsin law already protects a healthcare provider’s choice not to provide certain types of treatments or procedures if he/she has moral or religious objections. However, current law mandates that if a provider cannot provide such care, he/she has a professional and ethical obligation to refer a patient to another provider who will honor the patient’s wishes. This important patient protection will be subverted if AB 207 becomes law.

Unlike most employment discrimination laws which have an exception for an employer to show that the refusal poses an undue hardship, AB 207 does not. Without an undue hardship clause, an employer does not have any recourse – they might not be able to dismiss an employee even if the employee refuses to perform certain procedures legally permitted and thereby economically endangering the business. This bill would significantly change employment law by taking employment decisions away from employers and sanctioning additional burdens for employers and businesses.

Providing health care is not just an obligation for the patient and the doctor, but for society as well. It is for this reason that Maimonides, a revered Jewish scholar, listed health care first on his list of the ten most important communal services that a city had to offer to its residents (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot De’ot IV: 23). Almost all self-governing Jewish communities throughout history set up systems to ensure that all their citizens had access to health care. This bill will allow health care providers to deny access to information, medication, and safe treatment options. We urge you to vote against AB 207 in order to protect a patient’s access to health care and right to referral in order to receive desired medical care.