Health employees could safely refuse services
Especially on the right, our politicians claim to be proud that the state government doesn't interfere with how business chooses to treat labor. Given that, it's a little surprising that last year the South Carolina House of Representatives passed the Freedom of Conscience Act (H.3408) — currently under debate in the Senate — that would make it illegal for a health care provider to fire an employee for refusing to participate in procedures that they believe could potentially harm a human embryo or developing fetus. On its surface, the law is aimed at abortion, but it's written so vaguely it could encompass fertility treatments and a range of birth control methods as well. "Participate" is defined broadly enough to encompass filling a prescription, making a referral or just telling a patient what her options are.
State law already allows health care workers to refuse to do these things. I wrote in this space two weeks ago about pharmacy workers in this state refusing to dispense emergency contraception. This is legal; I would say unfortunately so, but that isn't even the issue right now. In theory — but not as much in practice — current laws allow for the company employing those pharmacists and technicians to require them to sell the pill to anyone who can legally buy it and for the company to fire them if they continued to refuse.
Under H.3408, that wouldn't be possible. We'd still be an at-will employment state in most respects. You could still be fired for no reason at all, but, in certain circumstances, you couldn't be fired for refusing to do your job.
Last Wednesday, a subcommittee in the Senate voted to send this bill to the full medical affairs committee, but on Thursday the full committee kicked it back to a subcommittee for further discussion and consideration. Despite easily passing the House last year, its future now seems in doubt. Republicans who had been eager to vote for an anti-abortion bill are starting to find it difficult to reconcile the bill with their pride in having a "right-to-work state."
I'm not a fan of right-to-work or at-will employment laws that subjugate the needs of workers to the caprice of owners. I'd love to see these laws eroded and eventually destroyed, but not like this. This bill puts the rights of health care workers not only above those of their employers, but above those of the patients who rely on them.
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