The GOP War on the Doctor-Patient Relationship
From the moment he entered the White House, President Bush proclaimed the "doctor-patient relationship" the centerpiece of his policies when it comes to Americans' health care. Just not, as it turns out, for American women. As today's Supreme Court decision upholding the 2003 Partial Birth Abortion Ban Act shows, President Bush and his Republican allies don't care much at all about the doctor-patient relationship when it comes to women's reproductive health and safety.
A quick look back shows that "protecting the doctor-patient relationship" has been the Republican Party mantra for selling the full range of its health care privatization schemes. In May 2006, President Bush told an RNC gala:
"Ours is a party that understands the best health care system is when the doctor-patient relationship is central to decision-making. That's why we're strong believers in health savings accounts...And so we reformed Medicare. We said to our seniors, we trust you; we trust you to make decisions that meets your needs."
That same drumbeat has provided the rhythm for the entire Bush presidency. In March 2001, the President told the American College of Cardiology, "I want to talk about protecting the doctor-patient relationships with a patients' bill of rights." In 2004, the President Bush pushed for malpractice liability reform, claiming that "one of the most vital links of good medicine is the doctor-patient relationship." In February 2006, the White House introduced its ill-fated proposal "Reforming Health Care for the 21st Century" by claiming its intent to "strengthen the doctor-patient relationship." Pitching his plans two months later for association health plans, medical savings accounts and malpractice litigation curbs, President Bush declared:
"The best way to reform this health care system is to preserve the system of private medicine, is to strengthen the relationship between doctors and patients, and make the benefits of private medicine more affordable and accessible for all our citizens."
Government has a role to play...We have a major role to play in strengthening and reforming this health care system, but in a way that preserves the doctor-patient relationship."
But when it comes to the reproductive choices of American women, not so much.
From the beginning, the Republican war against so-called partial birth abortion sought to preclude American doctors from utilizing the extremely rare intact dilation and extraction procedure. Used to protect the health of the mother in only about 2500 of the 1.25 million pregnancies terminated annually, the viscerally gruesome procedure became a strategic marketing weapon for abortion foes to whittle away the reproductive options available to American women and their doctors. As President Bush erroneously claimed:
"As Congress has found, the practice is widely regarded within the medical profession as unnecessary, not only cruel to the child, but harmful to the mother and a violation of medical ethics."
The evidence, of course, as well as the American medical establishment, makes precisely the opposite point. For example, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposed the 2003 law, arguing its members must have the flexibility to choose the intact D&E procedure in those extremely rare cases when it is necessary:
"The intact variant of D&E offers significant safety advantages over the non-intact method, including a reduced risk of catastrophic hemorrhage and life-threatening infection. These safety advantages are widely recognized by experts in the field of women's health, authoritative medical texts, peer-reviewed studies, and the nation's leading medical schools."
During oral arguments before the Supreme Court on November 9, 2006, Planned Parenthood Federation of America's Eve Gartner concurred. "What Congress has done here is take away from women the option of what may be the safest procedure for her," Gartner said, adding "this court has never recognized a state interest that was sufficient to trump the women's interest in her health."
In her emotional dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginburg laid bare the Bush administration's unprecedented disruption of the relationship between a woman and her doctor:
"The Court's opinion tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. For the first time since Roe, the Court blesses a prohibition with no exception protecting a woman's health."
Sadly, Justice Kennedy's majority opinion joined the Republican Party in substituting the views of abortion opponents for those of a patient's doctor. Kennedy rejected that the 2003 Act "imposes an undue burden on a woman's right to abortion based on its overbreadth or lack of a health exception," adding:
"The Act is not invalid on its face where there is uncertainty over whether the barred procedure is ever necessary to preserve a woman's health, given the availability of other abortion procedures that are considered to be safe alternatives."
But as Planned Parenthood's Gartner protested, "This ruling tells women that politicians, not doctors, will make their health care decisions for them."
Which is to say, exactly the kind of decision to be made in the doctor-patient re.lationship President Bush and his amen corner claim to protect.
UPDATE: A Perrspectives' reader notes that President Bush no longer seems concerned that "too many OB/GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
|
You really got right to the heart of the hypocrisy here. Thanks!
Posted by Jim on April 19, 2007 8:23 AM