The department proposed regulations last month requiring any health care source receiving federal funding to certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable.

Referred to as the conscience law, the rule would ensure that all employees and volunteers for health care entities — whether it’s a private practice or a hospital — can refuse aid in providing any treatment inconsistent with their “religious beliefs or moral convictions,” including contraception.

Health and Human Services estimates that the rule, which would affect nearly 600,000 hospitals, clinics and other health care providers, would cost $44.5 million a year to administer.

The proposal states the written certification will ensure that recipients of federal funding know of and will comply with the applicable nondiscrimination provisions. Any violation of the new protections will be in violation of the False Claims Act, which includes fines of up to $10,000 and three times the actual damages suffered by the government. Public comments were accepted until Sept. 25, and the department is to make further decisions within the next month.

Laws allowing doctors to refuse to perform specific procedures have existed for more than 30 years — the Church Amendments, the Public Health Service Act and the Weldon Amendment all protect Health and Human Services-funded employees and volunteers from having to participate in or even inform patients of the option of abortion or sterilization.

This new conscience law seeks to mandate written consent by institutions, as well as to include “any lawful health service” under objectionable practices; essentially, absolutely any medical treatment can be refused on moral grounds.

Nowhere in the proposal is religion or moral convictions defined — the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster could theoretically be a basis for refusal of treatment.

So how far, exactly, will the government allow moral objection to permeate medical care?

The U.S. champions its quest for religious freedom, and even those opposed to a separation of church and state still celebrate the free will of choosing their religion. This proposal particularly focuses on ending discrimination based on religious beliefs and moral objection in medical practice, and ironically that may be the most backward rhetoric of the year — yes, even amid presidential (and vice presidential) debates.

Giving doctors from federally funded medical institutions the legal right to refuse to participate in unspecified “other medical procedures” on religious or moral grounds isn’t protecting religious freedom — it’s using religion and morality, in the name of the government, as a reason to discriminate against patients who want or even need treatment or certain procedures. There would still be willing practitioners available, but a patient’s doctor would in no way be required to provide any information on “objectionable” services.

Medicine doesn’t exist for the purpose of the physician — it exists for the patient. Americans trust their doctors to be sources of unbiased medical advisement and treatment; like many professions, doctors have a responsibility to those they serve, and unlike others, denying that responsibility can be life-threatening.

The absence of resources for abortion and sterilization are significant chasms in adequate health care. Throw in any number of potentially life-saving procedures and now myriad decisions are left up to physicians to deny or agree to as they please, on the federal dime.

Don’t want to honor your patient’s wishes? Start your own practice, exclude or include as many or as few as you want. But the government should play no part in supporting an institution that subjectively evaluates and refuses treatment and consequently patients that just don’t jive with the doctor’s “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”

For a measure so intent on protecting moral conscience, it succeeds wonderfully at unadulterated corruption.

Catherine Fish is the State News production crew chief. Reach her at fishcath@msu.edu.