Dear ProLife Colleague, AAPLOG is very careful to not cry WOLF! Unless the Wolf is at the door. The Wolf is now at the door. He can sit there quietly for a year, or he can burst in the door on January 31 and savage your conscience rights. We need to start acting NOW, and keep on acting on behalf of our conscience rights. This Wolf does not plan to go away. Go to: http://www.freedom2care.org/action/message/patient Here you can express yourself regarding retaining your conscience rights by clicking on “Healthcare professionals-comment here” and signing the petition. It is common sense and simple. It is the least you can do for yourself and your colleagues in this vital contest of ideologies. But you can do more, much more: multiply yourself hundreds-fold by informing your patients of this crisis and this website. Patients can click on “Patients-comment here,” and sign a petition demanding their own right to have a Hippocratic physician. And you can go to: http://www.freedom2care.org/action/page/handout-protecting-conscience Here you can print an excellent handout for your patients that will inform them of the conscience crisis we all are facing. It is the least you can do for your patients. We strongly urge you to do these things now. The Wolf is at the door. AAPLOG Below, excerpts from Dr. Steven’s letter: Please read and respond today to this urgent request to protect your conscience rights: What is happening now: The Obama administration is preparing to get rid of the only federal regulation protecting conscience rights in health care. Court documents now indicate that the Obama administration plans to eliminate or replace the conscience regulation “as early as January 31, 2011, and no later than March 1, 2011.” That means we must act NOW. A brief history: When the Obama administration announced plans in 2009 to get rid of the only federal regulation protecting conscience rights in health care CMDA organized a coalition of nearly 50 organizations through its new group, Freedom2Care. Our groups helped enable healthcare professionals and patients to flood HHS with approximately 340,000 regulation-supporting comments….we published personal stories of discrimination…and we conducted national media interviews to stop the administration from getting rid of the good regulation. Such efforts apparently delayed the administration acting on its threat–until now. Federal conscience protections will have a significant impact on your ability to continue to practice ethical medicine. Don’t wait for someone else to stand in the gap on this one—take action yourself to protect your rights. Additionally, at the freedom2care website, you can submit your personal story of discrimination: Discrimination in health care may take subtle or severe forms. Students who express pro-life views may be denied admission or raked over the coals by hostile professors. Residents may be denied the privilege of scrubbing in on certain cases. Academic doctors may be passed over for promotions. Or you may be brought up on ethics charges, be denied privileges at a hospital or face an ultimatum to participate in an objectionable procedure or prescription or lose your job. Whatever discrimination you have experienced—whether subtle or severe—because of your conscience and convictions, we need to hear. Your story can significantly help us make the case for strong conscience protections in federal regulation and legislation. To log your story, simply visit the Freedom2Care Share page at http://www.freedom2care.org/action/page/tell-my-story. The brief form allows for 250 words. Dr. David Stevens, CEO, CMDA