by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
Staff Journalist
President Barack Obama issued a memorandum yesterday ordering all U.S. medical facilities that receive Medicaid or Medicare to extend hospitals visitation rights to same-sex couples, a move considered to be the most significant taken thus far in his presidency to expand homosexual rights in America.
The Washington Post is reporting that the president issued an order yesterday directing the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop new rules ensuring that hospitals “respect the rights of patients to designate visitors” and to choose the people who will make medical decisions on their behalf.
In the memo, Obama said hospitals should not be able to deny visitation privileges on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.
“Every day, all across America, patients are denied the kindnesses and caring of a loved one at their sides whether in a sudden medical emergency or a prolonged hospital stay,” he wrote.
Affected, he said, are “gay and lesbian Americans who are often barred from the bedsides of the partners with whom they may have spent decades of their lives — unable to be there for the person they love, and unable to act as a legal surrogate if their partner is incapacitated.”
At present, many hospitals bar visitors who are not related to an incapacitated patient by blood or marriage, and gay rights activists say many do not respect same-sex couples’ efforts to designate a partner to make medical decisions for them if they are seriously ill or injured.
The new law will also impact widows and widowers who are sometimes unable to receive visits from a friend or companion, and would also allow members of religious orders to designate someone other than a family member to make medical decisions.
But it is clear that the document focuses on gays, the Post reports, a constituency that has been vocal in its complaints that the president they helped elect has not done enough for them.
“We see this as part of our ongoing effort to encourage the administration to take action where it has the authority to act,” said David Smith, a Human Rights Campaign spokesman. “We’ve been working and pressing the administration on our legislative agenda. That work continues.”
Opponents of same-sex marriage question the president’s motives and say the move undermines marriage.
“In its current political context, President Obama’s memorandum clearly constitutes pandering to a radical special interest group,” said Peter S. Sprigg, a senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council. He said that his organization does not object to gays giving their partners power of attorney but that it questions Obama’s motives.
“The memorandum undermines the definition of marriage,” he said.
Until yesterday, this was one of many areas in which federal law still requires proof of marriage, including receiving Social Security benefits and in taxes.
“The General Accounting Office has identified 1,138 instances in federal law where marriage is important,” said one gay rights activist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity before the White House formally announced the directive. “We’ve knocked off one of them.”
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