Freedom of conscience and health care in the United States of America

Conflict Between Public Health and Religious Liberty in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Peter West-Oram

Health Care Analysis
Health Care Analysis

Abstract
The recent confirmation of the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) by the US Supreme Court has brought to the fore long-standing debates over individual liberty and religious freedom. Advocates of personal liberty are often critical, particularly in the USA, of public health measures which they deem to be overly restrictive of personal choice. In addition to the alleged restrictions of individual freedom of choice when it comes to the question of whether or not to purchase health insurance, opponents to the PPACA also argue that certain requirements of the Act violate the right to freedom of conscience by mandating support for services deemed immoral by religious groups. These issues continue the long running debate surrounding the demands of religious groups for special consideration in the realm of health care provision. In this paper I examine the requirements of the PPACA, and the impacts that religious, and other ideological, exemptions can have on public health, and argue that the exemptions provided for by the PPACA do not in fact impose unreasonable restrictions on religious freedom, but rather concede too much and in so doing endanger public health and some important individual liberties.


West-Oram P. Freedom of conscience and health care in the United States of America: Conflict Between Public Health and Religious Liberty in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Health Care Anal. 2013 Mar 29. [Epub  ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 23539432.

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