Restricting Doctor–Patient Conversations in Federally Funded Clinics

Abstract

We have come to accept, as a matter of both law and medical ethics, that open and honest discussion is crucial to the doctor–patient relationship. We accordingly deplore the practice in Plato's Greece whereby, for slaves, "verbal communication between healer and patient was reduced to a minimum."¹ But restricting conversation between doctor and patient has now become a matter of government policy, again distinguishing patients according to economic class.In 1988 the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced radically revised regulations governing the 4000 family-planning clinics that had been receiving federal funding under Title X of the Public . . .