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Dear Friends,

Time is short! If you haven't already sent comments to protect doctors, please do so today. Doctors and other health providers could lose their right not to participate in abortion and other controversial acts.

Please use the attached sample letter to submit comments to Secretary Mike Leavitt at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) at http://www.Regulations.gov by clicking on the link "Comment or Submission" and entering the keywords "provider conscience" or via e-mail to consciencecomment@hhs.gov. If asked for a docket number, enter HHS-OS-2008-0011.

The deadline to submit comments is September 25 at midnight.

Planned Parenthood is doing everything in its power to derail the efforts to protect health care providers' rights to follow their own conscience. Planned Parenthood accused the Bush administration of launching an attack on women and is flooding HHS with hostile comments.

Planned Parenthood is misleading people by claiming that the rule issued by HHS could threaten access to birth control and broader reproductive health care.

The simple truth is the regulation issued by HHS allows health professionals to follow their conscience and their Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm." If we don't stand up for pro-life health providers, it could lead to them being forced to either participate in or refer for abortions, physician-assisted suicide, or other controversial practices - or simply to leave the profession altogether.

That could mean that we, as patients, could lose the ability to choose pro-life health professionals.

If you sent comments to the HHS Secretary's blog - thank you - but you also need to submit comments to the official site at http://www.Regulations.gov by clicking on the link "Comment or Submission" and entering the keywords "provider conscience" or via e-mail to consciencecomment@hhs.gov. If asked for a docket number, enter HHS-OS-2008-0011.

Sincerely,

Wendy Wright
President

Sample Letter:

Dear Secretary Leavitt,

Federal statutes designed to protect the right of health care providers to refuse to perform services to which they have moral, ethical, or religious objections have existed for decades. Yet, members of the health care profession report being pressured in the workplace not to exercise their right of conscience. The regulations proposed by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are necessary to protect health care professionals who choose to exercise their moral or ethical convictions.

A health care provider should not lose his or her right of conscience upon passing through a pharmacy, clinic or hospital door. Members of the health care profession have the right to choose not to assist in the performance of the abortion or other controversial acts.

These proposed regulations will merely enforce existing law and create accountability for recipients of HHS funding. Members of the health care profession should not fear discrimination or loss of employment simply because they choose to follow their conscience and their Hippocratic Oath to "do no harm. These regulations must be codified in order to ensure that health care professionals have the right to refuse to perform services due to moral, ethical, or religious considerations.