Kerby Anderson

A few months from now we will know how the Supreme Court will rule in the Colorado cake case involving Jack Phillips. In previous commentaries, I have talked about how this case will certainly have some influence on other cases involving bakers, florists, and photographers. Wesley J. Smith in a recent column says it might also affect people in the medical field.

He believes it could have an impact on medical conscience rights. He says, “The law generally protects medical conscience in the areas of abortion and assisted suicide, although not pharmacists dispensing contraception. But those protections are under intellectual assault in bioethics in preparation for eventual attempts to change the law.”

People who want to reduce or eliminate medical conscience rights want to replace them with a “patient’s rights” approach to healthcare. In other words, if a medical procedure is legal, then the doctor or nurse MUST provide the procedure. It wouldn’t matter if the doctor or nurse had a moral or religious objection.

According to those who want this new approach to healthcare, nurses and doctors who cannot comply need to leave the profession. Ezekiel Emanuel was instrumental in crafting the Affordable Care Act, now known as Obamacare. He said as much in the New England Journal of Medicine. He argued that doctors who do not wish to perform elective procedures accepted by the medical establishment have two choices. They can find an area of medial practice (such a radiology) where their moral views will not be challenged. Otherwise, they need to get out of medicine altogether.

In the oral arguments in the Colorado baker case, one of the justices suggested the same thing. If you can’t bake a cake for a same-sex ceremony, you need to get out of the baking business. These two statements remind us that we may be moving into an era where government officials won’t even try to accommodate a person’s religious convictions.