The Washington Post ran an interesting story last week about what they describe as a small but growing number of faith-based OBGYN medical practices. The website of one of these practices (the one profiled in the WaPo article) describes its mission as "the restoration of the integration of the human person by combining the best of modern medicine with the healing presence of Jesus Christ.”
According to the article this clinic is
one of a small but growing number of practices around the country that tailor the care they provide to the religious beliefs of their doctors, shunning birth-control and morning-after pills, IUDs and other contraceptive devices, sterilizations, and abortions, as well as in vitro fertilization. Instead, doctors offer "natural family planning" -- teaching couples to monitor a woman's temperature and other bodily signals to time intercourse.
The faith-based doctors interviewed in the piece all say that they simply want to practice medicine in a way that doesn’t conflict with their religious and spiritual beliefs. A position that sounds peaceful enough, until you consider the fact that the argument can easily be extended to allow physicians to refuse services to homosexuals, Jews, people with disabilities…the list goes on. Mind you, faith-based clinics are clear to say that they’re open to everyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior.
It should be equally disconcerting that these doctors even consider what they do the practice of medicine, since they are ready to turn their back on science and empirical research when it conflicts with their beliefs. They often describe natural family planning methods of contraception as equal to hormonal birth control in effectiveness (which they aren’t) and they characterize hormonal methods of birth control as a form of abortion (which they aren’t).
I think my favorite comment on this article came from the Reproductive Rights Blog, which points out that these doctors aren’t actually practicing medicine, and “If your faith doesn't allow you to practice medicine, then don't be a doctor!”
Read more – Washington Post: Medical Practices Blend Health and Faith