Jonathan Imbody, Author at Christian Medical & Dental Associations

The Washington Post recently published my commentary below in response to an article (“‘I’m still a zero’: Vaccine-resistant Republicans warn that their skepticism is worsening”) that examined the vaccine hesitancy of conservatives.

Conscience Freedoms Protect Against Ideological Agendas April 5, 2018

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.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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.

“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.

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.

If religious organizations kowtow to tyrants at the peril of religious freedom, why should the nonreligious even care?

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.”

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Autonomy Quickly Translates to Tyranny November 2, 2017

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Photo credit: American Life League on Visualhunt.com / CC BY-NC

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.

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.

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.”

Medical Ethics: Bedrock Oaths Versus Zeitgeist Barometers December 16, 2017

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.

Photo credit: Kurdistan Photo كوردستان on Visualhunt / CC BY-SA

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.

"Choose, You Lose" Prescription Threatens the Conscience Rights of Every Professional October 5, 2017

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.

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 January 4, 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.

Photo Credit: US Department of State by CC

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.

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.

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.

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.