facebook twitter RSS
Menu
  • Home
  • About
    • Mission and Vision
    • History
    • Board of Directors
    • Board of Advisors
    • Contact Us
    • Close
  • Fellows
    • E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
    • Helen Alvaré, J.D.
    • Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.
    • Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D.
    • William E. May
    • Frank J. Moncher, Ph.D.
    • Steve Soukup
    • Dr. Pilar Calva, M.D.
    • Elyse M. Smith
    • R. J. Snell, Ph.D.
    • Close
  • Life
  • Human Sexuality
  • Marriage & Family
  • Bioethics
  • Religious Liberty
  • Blog
  • Contribute

How are we doing?

Most Viewed Blog Posts

  • The #MeToo Movement And Sexual “Morality”
  • A Constitution Made Only For A Moral And Religious People
  • Medical Health Risks of Contraception
  • Facebook And The Intellectual High-Ground
Subscribe
Thanks for signing up!

  >  Issue Briefs  >  Bioethics  >  29 Billion Tax Dollars and the Fed Owns Your Medical Identity

29 Billion Tax Dollars and the Fed Owns Your Medical Identity

Posted: September 28, 2012
By: Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.
Read  
Print This Post
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn

The Obama administration aim’s to create, by sequestration, a federal patient data bank where medical records of individuals will be stored on federally funded Health Information Exchanges. At an estimated cost of 29 billion taxpayer dollars and risk to personal privacy, we must also ask at what impact to doctor-patient “confidentiality” and to the right to maintain personal privacy?

We propose that personal medical data should be treated as an aspect of personal identity. The Pontifical Academy for Life defines personal identity as follows: “the relation of an individual’sunrepeatability and essential core to his being a person (ontological level) and feeling that he is a person (psychological level).”  The unique characteristics of personal identity are the unique characteristics of the person.  Those characteristics can be observed, itemized and recorded, which is what’s done when personal medical data is secured.  But the characteristics are still ofthe person.  The handling of personal records will in a morally relevant sense be the handling of the person, not of course ontologically handling them, as if they were physically present to us, but conceptually handling them, in the way we “handle others” when we think or speak well or ill of them.  So serious justice issues are at stake when dealing with the handling of personal medical information. 

Patient identity, confidentiality in the doctor-patient relationship along with patient consent are placed in peril when taken outside the necessary operations of medicine.  Arbitrary sequestering of patient records for non-therapeutic objectives are a violation to patient privacy and to the very nature of the doctor patient norm.

0

This entry was posted in Bioethics, Blog by Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.. Bookmark the permalink.

About Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.

jennifer_0Jennifer Kimball Watson joined Culture of Life Foundation as Executive Director in November of 2007. She is an Adjunct Professor of Bioethics at the Ave Maria School of Law in Naples, F.L.. Previous to her work with the Culture of Life Foundation Jennifer was a Wilbur Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal located in Michigan. Jennifer earned a Licentiate in Bioethics from the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum School of Bioethics in Rome.  Her prior undergraduate studies were in International Administration and Government Policy at the Evergreen State College in Washington State.

Jennifer’s areas of specialization include Eugenics in Artificial Reproductive Technologies, Heterologous Adoption and Transfer of Embryos, The Womb in Reproductive Technologies, and the Role and Significance of The Medical Act. She interviews with National Conservative and Christian Radio Syndicates as well as several foreign and secular reporters. Jennifer has spoken on the dignity of women and women’s social issues to various audiences since 1999 and has spent several years in advocacy work with various international organizations in the field of life sciences. From 2000 to 2006 she recruited and coordinated grass-roots social policy efforts that consisted of a public and private sector network of professionals and academics in the fields of Bioethics, Law, Science, Psychology and Media from various countries of Europe, North and South America and Africa to analyze, research and respond to social issues in bilateral and multilateral venues.

Jennifer was Executive Staff Member and International Project Assistant to the Secretary of State of the State of Washington from 1997 to 2000 where she chaired a Host Committee for the third ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization held in Seattle. She also served as research analyst and logistics coordinator for trade and development between the Russia Far East, China and North Korea facilitated by the office of the Secretary of State of the State of Washington jointly with multi-lateral organizations. Jennifer resides in Virginia with her loving husband. jennifer@culture-of-life.org

View all posts by Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L. →
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
  • LinkedIn
Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.
How are we doing?

Most Viewed Blog Posts

  • The #MeToo Movement And Sexual “Morality”
  • A Constitution Made Only For A Moral And Religious People
  • Medical Health Risks of Contraception
  • Facebook And The Intellectual High-Ground
Subscribe
Thanks for signing up!

Culture of Life Foundation
Contribute

About Us

  • Mission and Vision
  • History
  • Questions and Testimonials
  • Board of Directors
  • Board of Advisors
  • CLF Team

Issue Briefs

  • Most Viewed
  • Subscribe
  • Life
  • Human Sexuality
  • Marriage & Family
  • Bioethics
  • Religious Liberty

CLF Fellows Program

  • About the Fellows Program
  • Jennifer Kimball Watson, Be.L.
  • E. Christian Brugger, D.Phil.
  • Helen Alvaré, J.D.
  • Margaret Datiles Watts, J.D.
  • William E. May
  • Frank J. Moncher, Ph.D.
  • Steve Soukup
  • Dr. Pilar Calva, M.D.
  • Elyse M. Smith

Person and Polis Blog

  • About Steve Soukup
  • Most Viewed

Press Inquiries

P.O. Box 320637
Alexandria, VA 22320
(202) 289-2500
  • communications@cultureoflife.org

Culture of Life Foundation

PO Box 320637
Alexandria, VA 22320
(202) 289-2500

info@cultureoflife.org

Copyright © 2021 Culture of Life Foundation

 

Privacy Policy