Conscience Clause

A conscience clause is a statutory provision that permits individuals or institutions to refuse to provide or to pay for medical procedures on the basis of religious or moral beliefs. While conscience clauses protect the autonomy and religious freedom of health care providers and organizations from liability for refusing to provide or fund some services, they also affect patient access. Thus, conscience clauses should reflect proportionately serious moral convictions and be appropriately balanced so as not to coerce providers to conduct or to pay for objectionable procedures, but also not to discriminate against patients who seek those procedures. As of October 2000, the only two states in which Ascension Health has facilities that have conscience clauses are Illinois and Pennsylvania. Illinois has both a general Healthcare Right of Conscience Act and a specific conscience clause dealing with abortion, the Abortion Performance Refusal Act. Though Pennsylvania does not have a general conscience clause, it has conscience clauses that specifically address the issues of abortion and advanced directives, respectively Title 18, Chapter 32, §3202 and Title 20, Chapter 54, §5409 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes.

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