Patient-doctor relationships should be private!

There has been a proposed rule for the state’s Women’s Health Program that prohibits abortion counseling. The state wants to prohibit doctors that are affiliated with abortion providers from being part of the program and doesn’t want doctors referring patients to an abortion clinic, counseling women about an abortion, or providing patients with information about abortions.

The Texas Women’s Health Program provides low income women between the ages of 18 to 45 with screening for breasts, cervical cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, diabetes, and high blood pressure. In addition, the program provides birth control and family planning counseling. The program was recently almost-entirely funded by the federal government but the state plans to pick up the tab.

Since I was raised Catholic, I find abortion to be an extremely complicated issue for ethical reasons and I have come to find that even with my religious background I still do not have a clear standing on the issue. However, I am approaching this issue as a breach of a should-be-private patient-doctor relationship and I am not going to dwell on abortion itself.

First off, I feel that this proposed rule will give the state control in an area that, as I previously mentioned, should be private. It is important for doctors to be frank and direct with their patients in order to establish trust. Therefore, conversations between doctors and patients should be protected and outside the jurisdiction of government interference.

Ultimately, doctor’s ethical rights are being violated and as a result, many doctors will refuse to participate in the program which will in turn result in its failure. If the state succeeds in applying this rule it could even be argued that it is a violation on a doctor’s First Amendment rights. This would then lead to problems that could be avoided by either doing away with the rule in its entirety, making the rule extremely clear and specific, or making a few alterations to its provisions.

Patients should have the right to initiate a medical conversation with his/her doctor. It only makes absolute sense that someone who is seeking abortion information would pursue a doctor’s advice. Therefore, the rule should be altered to state that a doctor should only provide information and counseling about abortion if, and only if, the patient has initiated the conversation. This would be the best solution to the problem because the state is still limiting the flow of abortion information yet isn’t crossing the line too far by placing a complete road-block between the doctor and patient’s line of communication.