Cardinal Rigali stands for conscience rights of health care workers

"Cardinal Justin Rigali has written a letter to all members of the U.S. Congress defending conscience protections for pro-life health care workers. According to the cardinal, due to a lack of executive action some institutions may be violating conscience protection laws “without even knowing it.”
Cardinal Rigali, who is Archbishop of Philadelphia and Chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee for Pro-Life Activities, wrote the July 18 letter in response to a New York Times article about a draft proposal requiring that any program run or funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) must certify that it will not refuse to hire nurses and other healthcare workers who object to abortion and abortifacient contraceptives."

Imagine a world without Catholic hospitals? If the pro-death camp gets it's way, Catholic and other health care professionals who follow their conscience and opt out of abortion, sterilization, and euthanasia, or pharmacists who won't fill prescriptions for abortifacients like the pill, RU486, or Plan B will be driven out of their jobs.
The only health care workers left in the field will be those whose conscience is sufficiently numbed to not cause them any discomfort when these horrific procedures are done. A terrifying thought as the US population ages!
President Bush also wants to protect the conscience rights of health care professionals.
"The Bush Administration has proposed new rules to guarantee that all recipients of federal aid under federal health programs will not discriminate against hiring doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals who have moral objections to abortion and abortifacient birth control according to a report by the New York Times.
The proposed regulations would require that hospitals, clinics, researchers, and medical schools sign "written certifications" before receiving federal funding under any program run by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HSS).
The rules would also apply to state and local governments, and forbid them from disqualifying hospitals and other institutions that refuse to perform abortions from receiving grant money. The Times reports that the HSS proposed the new requirement in order to make sure that federal money would not "support morally coercive or discriminatory practices or policies in violation of federal law."
You can expect an entirely different attitude towards healtcare worker's freedom of conscience if Barack Obama is elected president, with a Democrat Congress. The Freedom of Choice Act, whose passing he promised as his first act as president would roll back all restrictions on abortion on the state level, and you can be certain that any health care worker who disagrees will find themselves unemployed in our new National Health Care system.
HT Life Site News
Read the entire story here.
HT CNA