Title: Expressing the sense of the Congress in support of protecting patients' access to medically appropriate, evidence-based healthcare and information, and the ethical and professional obligations of healthcare professionals to provide that care and information.
Policy area: Health

Summary:
Recognizes that the health of the patient should always come first and that the patient should be able to rely on their medical providers for medically accurate and evidence-based information about the full range of health care options, including information about access to safe and legal abortion.
Opposes efforts seeking to limit access to reproductive health care options.

[Congressional Bills 115th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 915 Introduced in House (IH)]

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115th CONGRESS
  2d Session
H. RES. 915

Expressing the sense of the Congress in support of protecting patients' 
    access to medically appropriate, evidence-based healthcare and 
information, and the ethical and professional obligations of healthcare 
          professionals to provide that care and information.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 25, 2018

  Ms. DeGette (for herself, Ms. Lee, Ms. Judy Chu of California, Mrs. 
 Lowey, and Mr. Crowley) submitted the following resolution; which was 
            referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
Expressing the sense of the Congress in support of protecting patients' 
    access to medically appropriate, evidence-based healthcare and 
information, and the ethical and professional obligations of healthcare 
          professionals to provide that care and information.

Whereas since its creation nearly half a century ago, the family planning 
        program under title X of the Public Health Service Act has provided 
        family planning and related preventive healthcare services to those most 
        in need, and the program has enjoyed broad bipartisan support;
Whereas the title X program was created to assist in making comprehensive 
        voluntary family planning services readily available to all persons 
        desiring such services and to enable public and nonprofit private 
        entities to plan and develop comprehensive programs that provide these 
        family planning services;
Whereas the title X family planning program serves 4 million people each year, 
        many of whom would otherwise be unable to access this healthcare;
Whereas the title X family planning program helps ensure that every person, 
        regardless of where they live, how much money they make, their 
        background, or whether or not they have health insurance, has access to 
        basic, preventive reproductive healthcare, such as birth control, cancer 
        screenings, STD testing and treatment, and well-woman exams;
Whereas title X serves a racially and ethnically diverse patient base: at least 
        \1/3\ of patients are people of color and 13 percent have limited 
        proficiency in English;
Whereas for decades, people receiving services supported by the title X program 
        have been given the full range of information they need to make fully 
        informed decisions about their own pregnancy options, including access 
        to safe and legal abortion;
Whereas efforts to stigmatize abortion care and providers of abortion care 
        undermine patients' ability to make fully informed healthcare decisions;
Whereas the American Medical Association states in its Code of Medical Ethics 
        that providers should ``present relevant information accurately and 
        sensitively, in keeping with the patient's preferences'' and that 
        ``withholding information without the patient's knowledge or consent is 
        ethically unacceptable'';
Whereas the seminal 1982 Report of the President's Commission for the Study of 
        Ethical Problems in Medicine and in Biomedical and Behavioral Research 
        states that ``a physician is obliged to mention all alternative 
        treatments, including those he or she does not provide or favor, so long 
        as they are supported by respectable medical opinion'';
Whereas any policy that denies patients seeking care from title X-supported 
        providers full and accurate information on and referral for healthcare 
        services including abortion care violates basic medical ethics by 
        forcing providers to withhold healthcare information from patients, and 
        by denying patients' basic right to informed consent;
Whereas healthcare providers participating in the title X family planning 
        program must not have limitations on providing full and accurate 
        information in order to communicate freely and exercise the provider's 
        medical judgment to provide the safest and most beneficial medical 
        treatment to the individual patient; and
Whereas any policy that seeks to prevent healthcare providers participating in 
        the title X family planning program from providing full and accurate 
        information and referral for healthcare services threatens patient 
        health, discourages honest conversation, and undermines the vital 
        relationship between providers and patients, who rely upon their 
        providers for complete and accurate information: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) recognizes that patients' health should always come 
        first, including that patients be able to rely on their medical 
        providers to get medically accurate and evidence-based 
        information about their full range of healthcare options, 
        including information about access to safe and legal abortion;
            (2) urges the development and maintenance of trust between 
        patients and healthcare providers by protecting providers' 
        ability to give complete medical advice and information, in 
        order to ensure no harm to patient health;
            (3) encourages efforts to enhance patient quality of care 
        and access to confidential and safe care for all patients;
            (4) supports efforts to promote the healthcare safety net;
            (5) recognizes that any nationwide gag rule prohibiting 
        information flow between patient and provider represents a 
        radical departure from how healthcare has operated in the 
        United States, which fundamentally erodes patients' right to 
        informed consent, and providers' ability to provide appropriate 
        and adequate healthcare and information; and
            (6) opposes efforts seeking to limit access to and full 
        information on reproductive healthcare options in contradiction 
        with congressional intent for the family planning program under 
        title X of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 300 et 
        seq.).
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