The Bush administration on Thursday announced new protections for health care providers who refuse to perform abortion and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.

 

Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement on his department’s Web site “doctors and other health care providers should not be forced between good professional standing and violating their conscience.”

 

The controversial rule empowers federal health officials to cut off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, clinic, health plan, doctor’s office or other entity if it does not accommodate employees who exercise their “right of conscience.” The rule would apply to more than 584,000 healthcare facilities.

 

Conservative groups, abortion opponents and others considered the rule necessary to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways. It gives doctors or other health care providers to say no to perform abortion or other aspects of healthcare where moral concerns could arise such as birth control, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research and assisted suicide.

 

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Christian Medical Assn. and Americans United for Life praised the new rules saying that doctors committed to healing should not be asked to take the very human life that they are dedicated to protecting.

 

Of course, the rule has its critics too. Among them are women’s health and family planning advocates, abortion-rights activists, members of Congress and others who said it would create major obstacles to a variety of health services, including abortion, family planning, end-of-life care and possibly a wide range of scientific research. The American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Hospital Association are also opposing the rule for fear emergency room workers might withhold from rape victims information about emergency contraception. Or a doctor practicing the law might refuse to tell a pregnant patient that her fetus had a severe abnormality.

 

“This gives an open invitation to any doctor, nurse, receptionist, insurance plan or hospital to refuse to provide information about birth control on the grounds that they believe contraception amounts to abortion,” said lawyers for the National Women’s Law Center.

 

Sen Patty Murray (D-Walsh.), who with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) introduced a bill last month to repeal the rule, said: “We will not allow this rule to stand. It threatens the health and well-being of women and the rights of patients across the country.”

 

The rule takes effect the day before President George Bush leaves office. The Obama administration could revise the rule after he takes office January 20, but the process would probably be months long.

 

President-elect Barack Obama criticized the regulation when it was proposed last summer. Spokesman Nick Shapiro issued a statement that said Obama “will review all eleventh-hour regulations and will address them once he is president.”