On NPR this morning they were talking about how the Bush Administration wants to strengthen the protection of health care professionals who refuse to perform abortions based on moral objections.
To me this seems like this will cause a lot of pain and suffering, not only for women seeking abortions, but for lesbian couples wishing to raise a child who seek Artificial insemination.
This has so many philosophical ramifications that I would fear the ripple effect across the health care world. What do you think? Is this a good idea?
You seem to have a uselessly vaguely negative reaction, maybe, to a change which itself uselessly vague in that it does not actually defined what would actually happen. Therefore, no rational opinion or analysis can be offered.
Edit: It sounds as thought you think that doctors ought to be required to offer services which they feel are morally wrong.
What a can of worms. If a doctor doesn’t believe there is such a thing as rape, can they refuse to treat a rape victim? What about doctors who believe spousal and/or child abuse is justified? Could they refuse to treat a person whose spouse or parent beat the hell out of them? If the doctor believes gay bashing is okay or terrorism is okay or child molesting is okay, can they release to treat a victim?
Why should a Doctor be forced to be involved with an abortion? Let the person go to another Doctor. It’s not fair to force someone to violate their Hippocratic oath in a way that makes them morally uncomfortable. If you want to kill the child in your womb, it isn’t your right to have accomplices if you cannot find willing ones.
All of those are beyond silly. A doctor who objects to abortion would still treat an abortion patient who got sick or hurt herself, he just wouldn’t perform abortions.
I wonder how many docs have the training and equipment on site that would be necessary to perform an abortion who would then shy away from doing so on moral grounds? I suppose one could work in a clinic where abortions were performed, but why could they not just refer the patient to another doc who had no qualms about the procedure.
Surely there are no legal statutes forcing docs to perform abortions anymore than they are forced to complete any other procedures. Correct?
This is what I’ve never understood…it’s not like you can walk into ANY OB/Gyn’s office and get an abortion, anyway, because a lot of doctors don’t have the equipment for doing abortions at their offices. And if the doc has to send you to another facility for it, I assume there is going to be a doctor there who will do it.
To be more clear - I think if a woman goes to a doctor for an artificial incemination procedure and the doctor says “sorry, I cannot do that for you because you are a lesbian and my Christian beliefs will not morally allow me to assist you in your plight”…
Yes, in my mind that is wrong. Also the ruling would extend not only to doctors but also to nurses, volunteers, and all healthcare providers. In certain pockets of the US, this could mean a woman would ahve to travel at considerable expense to herself to get something as common as birth control.
I fail to see why a medical professional should be forced to do anything they have moral issues with. But that’s just me.
My brother is a GP doc. He does tons of well child exams, physicals, runny noses and general belly aching day to day. The most complicated procedures that he performs in his office are stitches. He should not be forced to do any procedures that he is not set up to do.
Getting back to my original point. If a doc has such a moral dilemma about ripping an unborn child out of the womb that they would refuse to perform an abortion, they would most likely not be associated with, nor work in a clinic that does not have such moral hang ups. If that is the case, what patient would see that doc for an abortion? Why they would need special protection is beyond me.
In that particular case, the doctor is discriminating based on sexual orientation, which is probably illegal, or at least ought to be. I agree that a lesbian couple should not be denied artificial insemenation for being lesbian.
I think that’s the point. In the NPR piece one speaker mentioned this scenerio specifically, as a possible extension healthcare professionals could make with this ruling.
One would assume. But I can’t figure out why someone would become a pharmacist and refuse to dispense birth control pills when it’s common knowledge that more than 10 million women in the country are on it.
The article is very vague, but what I really want to know is what sort of regular situations have occurred that make it necessary to have this piece of legislation? It seems from the article that there already are laws in place but they just needed ‘bolstering’. How often is a doctor required to perform a procedure at the risk of loosing his/her job with no other recourse?
This feels like politicians sticking their noses where they don’t belong.
In Ireland, GPs are allowed refuse to proscribe emergency contraception if they have a moral objection to doing so. Generally women just go to another doctor if one won’t proscribe the morning after pill.
Ok, so what? I mean sure it makes the doctor a dick, but why do we believe that a lesbian should have the right not to travel to get her artificial insemination? It’s always been a difficult and tortuous process to get artificial insemination. To me, it seems like it would be a good thing for the Doctor to be open and honest about it. Who wants to have a Doctor who holds them in contempt participate in the process of getting them pregnant? Personally I’d rather fly to San Francisco, than deal with a Doctor who doesn’t approve of me.
But like I said, it’s highly unlikely that a Doctor who does artificial inseminations would have those sorts of moral compunctions. People with those compunctions often times have a problem with artificial insemination as well. That scenario strikes me as almost as ludicrous as a plastic surgeon that refuses to work on old women.
That’s probably true. The Pro-Life lobby seems to be big on these kinds of excessive laws that change very little. I think they see it as gaining ground by inches.
If a pharm decides to open his own place and chooses not to carry any particular drug, it is hurting his or her own bottom line. As a business person, they should have the same right to not carry a birth control pill as they have the right to choose pepsi or coke in their cooler.
Now if that same pharm is working at the local Walgreens and has an issue dispensing BC pills, he has no right to complain as it was his choice to work there. Swallow your convictions dispense the pills and look for a new job. There is no need to make a federal (literal or figurative) case out of it.
I fail to see how any legislation is required to protect either situation.