1999/07/01 by Katherine A. White · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #American Constitutional Law and Politics #Legal Systems and Judicial Processes #Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies #Legislation #Health care #Compromise #State (computer science) #Religious organization #Abortion #Law #Conscience #Political science #Public relations #Business
paper · doi:10.2307/1229534
openalex publication_date 1999/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/03/20
In this note, Katherine A. White explores the conflict between religious health care providers who provide care in accordance with their religious beliefs and the patients who want access to medical care that these religious providers find objectionable. Specifically, she examines Roman Catholic health care institutions and HMOs that follow the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services and considers other religious providers with similar beliefs. In accordance with the Directives, these institutions maintain policies that restrict access to "sensitive" services like abortion, family planning, HIV counseling, infertility treatment, and termination of life-support. White explains how most state laws protecting providers' right to refuse treatments in conflict with religious principles do not cover this wide range of services. Furthermore, many state and federal laws and some court decisions guarantee patients the right to receive this care. The constitutional complication inherent in this provider-patient conflict emerges in White's analysis of the interaction of the Free Exercise and Establishment Clauses of the First Amendment and patients' right to privacy. White concludes her note by exploring the success of both provider-initiated and legislatively mandated compromise strategies. She first describes the strategies adopted by four different religious HMOs which vary in how they increase or restrict access to sensitive services. She then turns her focus to state and federal "bypass" legislation, ultimately concluding that increased state supervision might help these laws become more viable solutions to provider-patient conflicts.