Posts by Jonathan Imbody
Coronavirus 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 MoreCan Transgender Activism Silence Science?
Vice President for Government Relations Jonathan Imbody discusses the lawsuit CMDA has been involved in regarding the transgender mandate, and how a new rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is expected soon.
Read MoreThe Pursuit of Truth—Not Politics—Should Guide Research
The contentious confirmation hearing of Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh mirrored a less outwardly raucous, though equally intense, conflict in the scientific and research community. Our country, our culture and the scientific community appear at a crossroads. We are determining the extent to which objectivity, evidence and reason—as opposed to bias, ideology and emotion—will shape our conclusions and our policies.
Read MoreIntolerance of Conscience Threatens Diversity in Medicine
In his continuing series on conscience in healthcare, Jonathan Imbody shares about a recent conference he attended with U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on religious freedom and how that impacts CMDA student chapters around the country.
Read MoreNot Your Mother’s Family Planning Program
In this week’s blog post, Jonathan Imbody shares how several federal grants awarded under a recent Title X funding opportunity illustrator the current White House Administration’s determination to ensure that faith-based and pro-life clinics, hospitals, pregnancy centers and sexual risk avoidance programs get a fair and legal chance to compete for federal funding.
Read MoreNew Federal Rule Protects Conscience and Opens the Door to Pro-Life Family Planning Programs
In this week’s blog post, Jonathan Imbody shares about a new proposed federal rule that, if finalized after a public comment period ending July 31, will allow pro-life medical professionals and programs to finally take advantage of family planning grants opportunities.
Read MoreAbortion and Sex Issues Incite Opposition to Conscience Freedom Rule
his is the eighth in a series of on conscience in healthcare, by Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations for the Christian Medical Association and Director of Freedom2Care. To find more from the series, visit www.cmda.org/thepoint or freedom2care.blogspot.com.
Read MoreConscience Freedoms Protect Against Ideological Agendas
This excerpt is the seventh in a series of essays on conscience in healthcare, by Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations for the Christian Medical Association and Director of Freedom2Care. To find the series, visit www.cmda.org/thepoint.
Read MoreNew HHS division, conscience freedom laws and policies protect patients and physicians
This excerpt is the sixth in a series of essays on conscience in healthcare, by Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations of the Christian Medical Association and Director of Freedom2Care. The essays respond to “Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care,” Ronit Y. Stahl, Ph.D. and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, New England Journal of Medicine 376;14, April 6, 2017.
Read MoreAre healthcare conscience laws needed?
This excerpt is the fifth in a series of essays on conscience in healthcare, by Jonathan Imbody, Vice President for Government Relations of the Christian Medical Association and Director of Freedom2Care. The essays respond to “Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care,” Ronit Y. Stahl, Ph.D. and Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, New England Journal of Medicine 376;14, April 6, 2017.
Read More“Patient autonomy” – The Trojan Horse assault on conscience freedom in healthcare
Just as the Declaration of Geneva’s original commitment in 1948 to honor pre-born life fell to new ideology, so did the original commitment to healthcare professionals’ conscience freedom. The relevant clause in the original Declaration of Geneva read simply, “I will practice my profession with conscience and dignity.”
Read MoreBedrock Oaths Vs. Zeitgeist Barometers
On the heels of World War II, with medical ethics in the spotlight following unconscionable Nazi atrocities, the World Medical Association (WMA) decided the Hippocratic Oath, which had guided medicine since around 500 BC, needed to be replaced. So the WMA developed a new oath that contained some of the principles of the ancient oath but opened the door to continual modernizing.
Read MoreAutonomy Quickly Translates to Tyranny
It’s one thing to expect physicians to do everything possible to advance healing for patients. It’s quite another to insist that whatever the patient wants, the patient gets—so the physician must provide it at risk of his or her career. Whenever one group gets its way regardless of the impact on others, that is not autonomy; that is tyranny.
Read More“Choose, You Lose” Prescription Threatens the Conscience Rights of Every Professional
Affordable Care Act architect Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel and University of Pennsylvania professor Ronit Stahl advocate barring from medicine all physicians who would decline a patient’s demand for morally controversial services such as abortion. However, a “patient comes first” rule turns medicine into a patient dictatorship with no checks and balances.
Read MoreExplaining at the Supreme Court Why Kids at Churches Need Public Safety Protection, Too
I spoke yesterday outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments in a court case over whether the Government can exclude kids who play on church-owned playgrounds from safety programs. The case could have broad implications across the nation for how governments treat faith-based institutions and individuals.
I really appreciated working together with colleagues from groups like Concerned Women for America (CWA) and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) to highlight the message that Government should not set up a religious test for which kids get safety protections.
Federal Policy Top Priorities in 2017
The Washington Office of CMDA focuses on the fundamental issues of the right to life and freedom of faith, conscience and speech, which serve as the foundation for all other rights and freedoms. Here are some of the top priorities for the new year.
Read MoreWhat you need to know and do about the new HHS transgender mandate
The transgender mandate, promulgated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the assumed authority of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), went into effect July 18, 2016.
Read MorePolitical Parties Contrasted on Life Issues
Both major political parties recently issued new platforms that communicate contrasting core values to the American people. Following is a breakdown of where each party stands on the life issues of particular concern to readers of this blog: abortion, sex education, embryos and stem cell research and assisted suicide.
Read MoreObama Advancing Gender Ideology Through Regulations
This proposed rule, if implemented, would endanger religious liberty and create concerns for the privacy and safety of our most vulnerable citizens: the homeless and other people seeking emergency shelter for the night.
Read MoreTrafficking Victims: No Health Professional Helped Me
Recent research indicates that more than 80 percent of trafficking victims in the United States have contact with the healthcare system in the course of being trafficked. Some are even brought to the clinic by their trafficker.
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