Most Say Health Workers Shouldn't Refuse Care on Moral Grounds

The latest HealthDay/Harris Poll found most Americans disagree with President Trump's decision to further protect healthcare workers who deny treatment on religious or moral grounds, reports HealthDay News . More than 80 percent of more than 2,000 American adults surveyed do not think doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers should be permitted to refuse care for those reasons. Sixty-nine percent of respondents felt providers should not refuse care due to religious objections to an individual's sexual orientation, and 59 percent said they should not refuse to perform surgical procedures because of a religious objection. "What we're seeing here is that the American public understands the danger of allowing individual bias to impact the ability of health providers to do their job," says Families USA Executive Director Frederick Isasi. He is concerned the rule will discourage people to seek help from doctors. "The way this regulation reads, it feels like it's trying to provide a basis for a provider to not have to shield their bias, and to inject their bias into those very personal moments with patients," Isasi says. Meanwhile, Harvard Medical School's Dr. Robert Truog cites the regulation and similar rules as "focused more on scoring political points than on solving actual real-world problems."