Regarding your story that President Obama is considering overturning George Bush’s “provider conscience” rule: If someone becomes a doctor, they should be obligated to provide the medical services that are legal. If they want to voice their opposition to the legality of a certain procedure, there are other forums they can use that do not include the denial of treatments to patients seeking them. Health care providers are not afforded a special moral status when they graduate that puts them above the law.

Who is this nutty woman on the air right now? Is she a physician? If so, she needs to have her license to practice revoked. “Life at conception” shows how ignorant of the developmental cycle this woman is.

Well, it appears that Dr. Phillips has taken the first steps towards her own type of ‘Sharia’law where her beliefs are above her medical responsibilities…

In listening to Dr. Michele Phillips I can not but help hear a professional rationalize or cloak her religious/moral beliefs in justifying her denying giving contraceptives to single women versus married women. It is Doctors like Michele Phillips that make “provider conscience” rule unfair. If Dr. Phillips wants to practice “morality based medicine” she should not be in the business of working in family practice. It is up to the women who come to her practice to decide how they live they their lives and they should not be forced to accept her interpretation of the bible.

As a single 25yo woman who is going to sleep with whom she so desires (this is the 21st c ya know!) in the safest way possible, this doc would be doing a disservice to deny me appropriate medical care to prevent the chance of my becoming pregnant with a child I am in no place to have. Now that’s irresponsible.

Regarding the interview with Dr. Michele Phillips, I wonder why this woman ever became a doctor. It sounds like she is unable to provide care to her patients without being judgmental. Health care is not the place to make judgments on a patients behavior. Dr. Phillips is certainly someone that I would never seek out for health care because I would not trust her judgmental opinion. She makes health care decisions based upon her “feelings” instead of facts and science.

Re: Interview w/Dr. Michele Phillips and the Provider Conscience Rule. My issue is: how would a patient be forewarned about a physician’s reluctance or refusal to prescribe contraceptives prior to an appt? The waste of time and money and the presumed judgement of my lifestyle by someone I’m paying to provide a necessary service would really anger me.

I’m listening to this doctor Michelle Phillips talk about how her moral obligations to scripture can allow her to decline advice on or assistance with birth control issues. She’s far away from considering the fact that her “moral obligations” would not sit only with birth control, but as a Christian, wouldn’t it also extend to every other Christian moral concern? So, if for instance a man came in to the emergency room bleeding and dying from wounds that he got while killing someone else, AND he’s an atheist, wouldn’t her Christian morals tell her that she should not help this “immoral” man? Her stance is a dangerous and a silly one that is based on a “pick and choose” style of religious right argument.

Finally! A physician not afraid to call her single, sexually active patients dirty little hussies. Nothing quite as refreshing as a doctor who not only provides physiological but also moral diagnoses of her patients.

It’s a relief she’s moved into private practice. I wouldn’t trust her with any woman I loved or respected.

Finally, in this interview, it is an enormous indicator that they let her rabble on for almost ten minutes before revealing her organized religion foundations for her ‘philosophies’. I respect the show for holding this from the audience, because had they shown it upfront, she would have played as a fundamentalist crackpot from the get-go, instead of letting her slowly drain her credibility as she did.

The “Provider Conscience” rule and discussion is extremely disturbing to me. I agree with Jenni. I think this is a slippery slope and could lead to someone denying treatment b/c they believe a patient is the wrong color, wrong sex, wrong sexual orientation, wrong marital status.

Dr Phillips denies treatment based on her “You are of the wrong marital status” litmus test. If this is not corrected you will find other medical professional refusing treatment for any number of “Moral/Ethical Objections”.

@Pamela Tormey – I completely agree, couldn’t have said it better myself!

And I love Ms. Phillips’ moral high-ground she takes towards single women. Hey, Ms. Phillips, what about your married patients who might be having extramarital affairs or partake in “swinging”? Don’t just stop your gestapo questioning with, “Are you married?” You’re going to have to really dig deep if you want to morally judge everyone equally.

It is better for Dr. Phillips to be in private practice, where patients may choose to be subjected to her religious interpretation of how to provide health care. As for myself, I am grateful to know who these people are so that I may avoid them when I seek care. As far as I am concerned, religion and health care are NOT two great tastes that taste great together.

I will be thrilled if/when President Obama strikes down this so-called “conscience clause.”

I am not a woman, so I can’t even fathom going to a doctor for a legal product (birth control and/or morning after) and being denied that product on moral grounds! Add the emotional distress of a rape or unplanned pregnancy and the judgmental blows from Ms. Phillips would probably send me over the edge! It’s just sickening.

While my own faith and beliefs may frown upon it, I believe it should be a crime for a doctor to stand on a moral pedestal and impede a woman’s reproductive rights – often in dire, time-sensitive situations.

At these crucial times, a woman needs to know they can count on a doctor to do their job without the influence of personal emotion.

The law of the land allows a woman to abort an unwanted pregnancy, period.

Doctors who wish to thwart that law on religious or moral grounds should probably consider a profession in the clergy rather than presume that they can use their position as a physician to force women to live by her own personal beliefs. To do so is shameful, and in my opinion offsets any good they may presume to be doing.

Medicine and religion must remain separate worlds, and those incapable of separating them have no business practicing medicine.

Physicians cannot have their cake and eat it too by refusing to reveal their religious beliefs at the outset and then later allowing them to influence how they treat an unwitting patient.

If Dr. Phillips follows her own logic, does she refuse to treat high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or type II diabetes as each of these conditions can, in part, be related to lifestyle factors such as poor diet and minimal exercise? Treatment of these conditions could then lead people to feel they can be risky with their health behaviors and simply pop a pill to solve their problems. To take it a step further, would she refuse to give immunizations like a tetanus shot as someone might then feel inclined to step on a rusty nail because they feel they’ve been protected?

Regarding Dr. Michele Phillips’ moral objections to providing certain services to her patients: I wish you had asked her whether, when she refuses to provide the requested service on moral grounds, she also waives the fee for the office visit?

Thank you for the hair-raising interview w/ Dr. Phillips, who apparently believes that her “interpretation of the bible” is an important part of her medical judgment. A recording of it could be played as Exhibit A for the argument to abolish the so-called provider conscience rule (which I, as a citizen and potential patient, find “morally objectionable”).

Here’s hoping that Obama does indeed act without delay to revoke this particular piece of right-wing idiocy.

She can do whatever she wants, but she better not be billing for an office visit when she refuses to provide the service the patient is seeking.

I have to wonder where this rule ends. If someone believed it was morally wrong to have large families due to overpopulation, would that justify withholding information about a potential risk to a pregnancy so that a pregnancy would be lost? Would someone who has moral objections to recreational sex be justified denying Viagra to a patient with erectile dysfunction? The possibilities for moral objection are huge and it seems that mainly this relies on liberal tolerance to restrict the objecting parties to religious right. A rule like this seems unconscionably broad, indiscriminate and, also, hugely offensive in that it denies the validity of the patient having a moral stance. It’s one thing to advise a patient to seek other care, another to become the moral arbiter simply because one has power of any kind, down to the power to write down an appointment in a calendar if the example of the receptionist bears out.

I think this doctors should stick to facts and laws. This rule put doctors about the law on what they can allow or deny service. This argument is more philosophical and not on merits of medical or legal.

I am heartened by all of the feedback from listeners who have teased out the moral ambiguity of doctors treating patients based on the tenets of organized religion. What struck me about Dr. Phillips’ stance is the assumption that her patients have made a balanced, reasoned decision to create a life. Maybe she and I are living in different worlds, but in my world women are still subject to coersion, pressure, and physical domination resulting in unplanned and unwanted sexual intercourse. In a world free of that imbalance, Dr. Phillips’ judgments might be condsidered more fair, but sadly, still inappropriate for a medical practioner to make.

I was so pleased to hear the interview with Claire Conceison,the co- author of Ying Ruocheng’s autobiography. I knew Ying briefly during the 1980’s and have wished more Westerners could know his story. Now comes this beautifully written book showing the greatness of the man and his amazing spirit which survived the horrors of the Red Guard movement to continue trying to drag China into the 20th C. I hope many will read the book. It also shows what isolation for 60 years can do to the thinking of a people. It makes one fear all the more for the North Koreans.

There are plenty of people out there (presumably a number of doctors of all stripes included) who object to eating meat on moral grounds, either on account of the killing of animals or because of sustainability implications. These views can (though need not necessarily) be derived from religious beliefs just as surely as the ‘right to life’ mantra is derived from some strains of christianity. Would this doctor then conclude that it is equally legitimate for doctors to refuse to provide treatment for medical conditions associated with the consumption of meat (obesity, hypertension, diabetes, etc.)?

“Doc, I’m having a heart attack! Help!” “Do you eat a lot of red meat?” “Yes, jesus god help me!” “Yeah, sorry, I really cannot implicate myself in that lifestyle, you’re going to have to find a different doctor. Best of luck to you.”

I somehow doubt it.

As a Christian I was deeply troubled by Dr. Phillips comments. I find that every time someone claims that they have “searched the Scriptures” what follows is a statement of intolerant high-mindedness. The Bible is not a manual to “search” it is a book to absorb in its entirely. Perhaps then she would work with compassion instead of intolerance. Perhaps then she would realize she was put into a position to help people deal with complex decisions thoughtfully. But sadly, when pressed, she retreated to the “matter of conscience” defense. She has traded reason for certainty. Christ never separated himself from the world as a “matter of conscience.” Nor should we. Her attitude helps me understand why places like Texas have such high teen-pregnancy rates and why just as many Evangelical teens are sexually active as their secular counterparts.

Does Dr. Michelle Phillips and those like her realize the effects of the medical Pandora’s Box they have opened could be applied? Dr. Phillips could walk into an emergency room where ER registration personnel or ER triage personnel would as a “matter of conscience” suggest that no treatment is available to them for their publicized beliefs. How would Dr. Phillips feel about this rule being applied to her?
I seriously doubt this described event would ever happen due to the fact that hospital personnel on the whole want to help all patients with judgment.

I commend Dr. Phillips for bringing her beliefs on the Provider’s Conscious Rule.I also agree with what she had to say. What’s wrong with abstinence and a doctor educating a patient on that subject instead of contraceptives? ( I KNOW I’LL BE LABELED TOO FOR BEING A RELIGIOUS FANATIC FOR USING THE WORD ABSTINENCE)
Also, you mentioned women’s rights, doctors have a right too.They have a right to prescribe medication that they feel a patient needs or does not need. Not dictated by liberal society and journalist. If Obama over turns the rule , I would not be surprised. I wonder what the Christian population thinks of the interview and of the above comments. There are Christian doctors and nurses who believe the same way Dr. Phillips does. However, if you choose to not to go to any of them, there are plenty liberal, secular mainstreams physicians who are willing to make a buck for any price

[...] No birth control for you! [...]

Your interview with Paul Levy last week was a great counterpoint to the piece today on the AIG bonuses. There are many companies and non-profits in MA, and probably all over the country, taking a shared sacrifice approach to the current economic meltdown: executives giving back perks, employees across the board accepting furloughs, delayed cost of living increases, etc., in order to avoid/minimize layoffs or hours-reductions that would cost co-workers’ basic benefits. No such communal impulse, no humility, from the financial sector. Please keep highlighting the leaders, Paul Levy included, who can help us navigate to a more equtible and sustianable economy.