Advancing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
 

Striking a Balance Between a Provider's Right to Refuse and a Patient's Right to Receive Care

  • In the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, U.S. policymakers enacted "refusal clauses" to allow direct health care providers to refuse to perform or assist in abortions, and hospitals to refuse to allow abortions on their premises.

  • More recent refusal clauses have encompassed a larger range of health care providers (including pharmacists, ambulance drivers and hospital clerks) and services (including contraceptive care, counseling, referrals and even emergency care). In some cases, ANY service can be denied.

  • As of August 2005, 47 states had a policy allowing some providers to refuse to participate in some types of reproductive health services.

  • The professional codes of ethics that govern the health care profession clearly indicate that it is the responsibility of health care providers to act in the best interest of their patients and to do no harm. If taken too far, providers' right to refuse can impede patients' access to necessary information and services.

NEWS RELEASES

Health Care Providers Cross the Line When They Obstruct Women's Access to Legal Medication

New Laws Would Permit Increasingly Wide Range of Health Care Professionals to Deny Patients Information and Care

EXPERT STATEMENTS

"Health care providers' responsibilities to their patients must always come first," says Adam Sonfield, public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute. "A provider's right to refuse to provide certain services should never be confused with a right to obstruct a patient's access."

"A potentially problematic issue is pharmacies that prohibit the sale of emergency contraception, even when they sell ordinary birth control pills," says Cynthia Dailard, senior public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute. "There is no rational reason to single out emergency contraception for less favorable treatment than other contraceptive pills. Both types of pills work in the same way to prevent an unplanned pregnancy, and how they work depends more on when in a woman's menstrual cycle the pills are taken than on when the woman last had sexual intercourse."

To set up an interview, contact Rebecca Wind at 212-248-1953 or rwind@guttmacher.org.