Negotiators Add Abortion Clause to Spending Bill

And it's about time! The law should never force a doctor or a hospital to practice medicine in a manner that violates their ethical precepts--especially when those precepts are as old as organized medicine itself. Hippocrates of Cos, the first person to promulgate a code of medical ethics, made his position quite clear:

I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.

The Physician's Oath of the Christian Medical and Dental Association says this:

With God's blessing, I will respect the sanctity of human life. I will care for all my patients, rejecting those interventions which either intentionally destroy or actively end the lives of the unborn, the infirm, and the terminally ill.

To expect any doctor who swears such an oath to violate that oath in his medical practice constitutes interference with the free exercise of religion. That's unconstitutional, or doesn't Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) know that?

Here's a good time for me to share the Oath of Saint Luke that I myself proposed as a replacement for the original Oath of Hippocrates, to avoid having to swear by Greek gods:

I SWEAR by the memory of Luke the physician, and in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, of whom I remain a faithful witness, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation:

1. To honor Him Who created me as the Author of life, to do all to His greater Glory, to grant to Him a tenth of my substance according to Holy Writ, and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art of Medicine to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others.
2. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.
3. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion.
4. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art, to the Glory of God.
5. I will undertake no procedure in which I be not properly trained, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of such work.
6. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of lawful residents and inmates.
7. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.

While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!