Posts by Jonathan Imbody
Human-Animal Chimeras and Scientists Deluded by a God Complex
The battle in Congress over human-animal chimera experiments highlights the gulf between communists and Democrats and Republicans on the distinctions and boundaries between humans, animals and God.
Read MoreTrust in Public Health
WND recently published my op-ed designed to highlight the benefits of trusted doctors and faith-based organizations communicating on public health issues. I also noted what I considered to be several significant failures of government public health messaging.
Read MoreVaccine Resistance and Public Health Messaging
“I’m still a zero’: Vaccine-resistant Republicans warn that their skepticism is worsening”) that examined the vaccine hesitancy of conservatives.
Read MoreThe Equality Act Targets the Faith and Medical Communities for Ideology-Based Prosecution
The Washington Examiner recently published my op-ed on the radical Equality Act. This ideologically coercive and discriminatory bill, which has already passed the House and now is on the Senate calendar, will radically impact your professional career and your ability to live out your faith.
The commentary is below, followed by excerpts of a CMDA letter to U.S. Senators and of written testimony submitted by several CMDA members.
Read MoreThe “Equality Act” will erase your religious freedom and medical judgment
The U.S. Congress has taken one step closer to ending religious protections—and medical judgment for health professionals—on gender issues, by passing the Equality Act by a largely partisan vote in the House of 224 – 206.
Read MoreFederal Court Strikes Down Transgender Mandate, Protects Medical Judgment and Conscience
A federal court has provided protections for physicians committed to following medical evidence and conscience convictions regarding the transgender and gender-questioning patients for whom they care.
Read MorePolicy Versus Politics: A Retrospect and Prognosis
A physician member of CMDA recently asked me for a perspective on the tragic temporary takeover of the U.S. Capitol and the role of politicians before and after that tumultuous event. The physician’s email began, “I’m so saddened by this incident and so appalled….”
I’ve been asked to share the response to that physician more widely, so my edited response is below, followed by some thoughts on public policy ministry, the last four years and the next four years.
Read MoreNavigating Vaccine Ethics
CMDA Senior Vice President for Bioethics and Public Policy Dr. Jeff Barrows and I recently wrote a piece for The Public Discourse, “Is Receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Ethical?” that suggested principles to consider as we navigate ethical issues related to COVID-19 vaccines. I’ve included brief highlights below; more from the original article and also new observations will be published in an upcoming edition of CMDA Today (previously known as Today’s Christian Doctor).
Read MoreNew Religious Freedom Survey Provides Encouragement
An encouraging new nationwide poll reveals that Americans see religion as a core part of who they are and how they navigate trials, that they feel the faith community should play an even greater role in social justice and that elected officials should protect religious freedom.
Those are the key findings of my valued friends at Becket, the phenomenal public interest legal institute that has represented Little Sisters of the Poor, the Christian Medical Association and individuals of all kinds of religious persuasions from Anglicans to Zoroastrians.
Read MoreU.S. Sends Shot Across Bow of UN, WHO with Multilateral, Pro-Life Health Declaration
“At stake in this battle is the funding and prevalence of abortion, influencing societal views on abortion and securing or losing conscience freedom for pro-life healthcare professionals.”
At a signing ceremony in Washington, D.C. on October 22, 2020, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar laid out a multilateral agreement that sends a clear message to the United Nations and the World Health Organization: Stop pressuring countries to submit to a radical abortion agenda and focus instead on consensus global health issues.
Read MorePresidential Executive Order Protects Vulnerable Newborns
A Presidential Executive Order (EO) signed on September 25, 2020 by President Trump recently mandated care for vulnerable newborns while highlighting the need to enforce protections to prevent the intentional neglect of babies born with significant challenges.
Read MoreCommunist Repression, a Secret Vatican Compact and the Universality of Religious Freedom
If religious organizations kowtow to tyrants at the peril of religious freedom, why should the nonreligious even care?
Read MoreAddressing Race in Healthcare Through the Faith and Through the Law
Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) has tackled race issues in healthcare proactively, gathering members together for prayer and fasting, webinars, public policy statements, articles, discussions, video presentations and more while pledging to “continue seeking to oppose racism in healthcare and society and pursuing justice in access to healthcare and equitable outcomes.”
Read MoreHHS Addresses “Transgender Mandate” in New Rule…but Supreme Court Redefines “Sex Discrimination”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on June 12 that it had “finalized a rule under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that maintains vigorous enforcement of federal civil rights laws on the basis of race, color, national origin, disability, age, and sex, and restores the rule of law by revising certain provisions that go beyond the plain meaning of the law as enacted by Congress.”
Read MoreResponding to Anti-Christian Animus Revealed in the Pandemic
In New York City, pronouncements against the volunteer work of the Christian relief group Samaritan’s Purse revealed venomous anti-Christian attitudes. Because Samaritan’s Purse, led by Franklin Graham, the son of the late evangelist Billy Graham, adheres to a biblical view of marriage, some New Yorkers would have had the group kicked out of the city rather than allowed to help save lives.
Read MoreKeep FDA Safety Requirements and Nix Telemedicine Abortions
Seeing the pandemic as an opportunity to pump up profits from abortions, the abortion industry and its advocates in state governments are lobbying to loosen abortion-related FDA safety requirements.
Read MoreCoronavirus Response Reveals Character of Governments
American novelist James Lane Allen wrote, “Adversity does not build character; it reveals it.” The response by the governments of countries around the world to the COVID-19 Coronavirus is revealing the fundamental character of those governments.
As the U.S., state and local governments and healthcare professionals labor tirelessly in compassionate and effective efforts to protect American citizens from the spreading COVID-19 Coronavirus, governments in certain countries instead are reportedly exposing persecuted religious groups to the threat.
Read MoreCulture Clashes Require Courage
Barna research has reported that “Half of Christian pastors say they frequently (11%) or occasionally (39%) feel limited in their ability to speak out on moral and social issues because people will take offense. The other half of pastors say they only rarely (30%) or never (20%) feel limited in this way.”
Read MoreDisassembling the Abortion vs. Childbirth Safety Myth
The abortion industry launched a lawsuit after the state of Louisiana passed Act 620, which required “that every physician who performs or induces an abortion shall ‘have active admitting privileges at a hospital that is located not further than thirty miles from the location at which the abortion is performed or induced.’” To many observers, such a requirement obviously would help protect women who experience adverse events from an abortion.
Read MoreHow CMDA Made an Impact in Washington in 2019
Since CMDA opened its Washington, D.C. federal public policy ministry office in 2000, God has opened doors for influence that have far exceeded all that we could ask or imagine. The following few highlights of last year (organized by months, with the most recent first) illustrate how God is using this ministry to advance kingdom values in our government.
Read MoreCMDA Court Cases: Good News and Bad News
This month’s blog provides updates on two Christian Medical & Dental Associations federal lawsuits. The following case updates are information and help for healthcare professionals who have experienced discrimination on the basis of their faith and conscience.
Read MoreMessage at Supreme Court: Constitution Protects Both Minority and Majority Viewpoints
I recently spoke outside the Supreme Court in the face of raucous protests on the day of oral arguments in a case involving transgender individuals and alleged sex discrimination, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Speeches had resumed outside the court after a bomb scare had prompted police to clear the area.
Read MoreNational Poll: Faith-based Health Professionals Care for All but Need Conscience Protections on Moral Issues
Faith-based health professionals care with compassion and respect for all patients, but they will leave medicine rather than violate their conscience if forced to participate in morally objectionable procedures and prescriptions.
Read MoreThree New Regs and two CMDA Court Cases Aim to Protect Faith-centered Professionals
Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) and Freedom2Care (our center for freedom of faith, conscience and speech) recently submitted official comments on three federal regulations that significantly impact faith-based organizations and conscience-guided health professionals. We also have engaged in court cases, described below, related to two of these regulations.
Read MoreEngage before they come for you
Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA) member and OB/Gyn physician Dr. Regina Frost appears to be a modern-day Queen Esther, taking a courageous stand for the faith as did the Biblical heroine. Dr. Frost is the face of Christian doctors in a high-stakes federal lawsuit to protect the new federal conscience protection rule from legal assault.
Read MoreAdministration Moves to Bind Human Tissue Research to Ethical Considerations
By implementing a new policy promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Trump administration has moved to stop taxpayer funding of the use of fetal tissue, from elective abortions, for research purposes.
Read MoreThe New HHS Conscience Rule: What It Means to You and Your Patients
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued a final rule that implements 25 federal conscience laws and strongly protects the exercise of conscience freedom by health professionals and health entities in HHS funded programs. HHS had issued a proposed conscience rule in January 2018 and finalized the rule May 2 after reviewing some 242,000 public comments, including from the Christian Medical Association (CMA) and Freedom2Care, which strongly support the rule.
Read MoreReligious Students and Faculty Face Discriminatory Dogma
The cauldron of ideological hostility toward religious principles and people of faith at Yale Law School just boiled over, and its discriminatory policies targeting religious students threaten to ooze throughout academia and beyond.
Read MoreEssay 16: American Conscience Law and Principles Defy the Anti-conscience Movement in Healthcare
Health professionals today who hold to historically noncontroversial moral and ethical standards—such as not killing born or unborn patients—face increasing pressures to compromise those moral and ethical standards. The coercive pressures come from ideologues and activists within and outside medicine, from demanding patients and from the government.
Read MoreEssay 15: Medicine Needs Challengers
As noted in previous essays, a New England Journal of Medicine opinion piece entitled, “Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care,” by Affordable Care Act architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and University of Pennsylvania professor Ronit Stahl, advocates for limiting the exercise of conscience objections.
Read MoreEdict Aimed at Pro-Life OB/Gyns Shows what “Choose, You Lose” Looks Like in Practice
In a New England Journal of Medicine opinion piece entitled, “Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care,” Obamacare architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and University of Pennsylvania professor Ronit Stahl advocate ridding healthcare of conscience protections.
Eliminating conscience protections effectively would rid healthcare of doctors, nurses and other health professionals who rely upon those protections. Polling indicates that ethically driven physicians will leave medicine altogether, avoid the OB/Gyn specialty or restrict their practices rather than compromise their consciences.
Read More“Choose, You Lose” Scheme Threatens All Ethical Professionals
In his continuing series on conscience in healthcare, Vice President for Government Relations Jonathan Imbody discusses how the rationale for conscience protections in healthcare being undermined.
Read More