Well… not really. Medicine is a science and shouldn’t be limited by religious dogma at all, be it for abortion or blood transfusions or whatever. Sure, there are economic factors (such as not living in the Star Trek universe) which mean not all hospitals will provide all services, but that’s not really the issue at hand. As far as I can tell, it’s a question of who can call themselves a medical practitioner or a hospital, while engaging in practices that run counter to the concept of, well, medicine.
Who can call themselves a medical practitioner as actually pretty well defined. Hence the discussion of practicing medicine without a license.
Doctors are free to make decisions about their practice that are informed by their beliefs with the exceptions that have been delineated earlier in this thread. Within the bounds of law and medical ethics, they get to decide what they think best practice of medicine is. You don’t get to define it for them. Even if you’re another doctor, or society of doctors, or a national board. (State medical board is another matter but having firm religious convictions is not grounds to lose your medical license)
Do people realize we are still publishing articles on the efficacy of distant prayer? Within the last ten years or so? In the @#$@ Annals of Internal Medicine? There’s a nontrivial portion of the medical community that thinks it might actually do something.
Well yes the OP posited some silly hypotheticals. He admitted as such. The point was to try to examine the reasoning behind the less silly hypotheticals people care about, I presume. Hospitals not having specialists on staff isn’t a hypothetical. Any smaller community hospital transfers patients to other facilities constantly for just this reason. If you live in a conservative, rural area, good luck getting any doctor to set up shop, much less one willing to provide abortions.
Are you serious? You think provision of abortion is the only issue in medicine that poses serious ethical, moral, and religious problems to hospital and doctors? If you really think that I would suggest you haven’t had much exposure to the medical field.
Speaking as a former Jehovah’s Witness, I don’t believe many devout Witnesses become doctors because the training is so intense that it would infringe on the time spent on worshipping, ministry service, etc that is required. Also the religion looks down on pursuing higher education, but that’s a whole issue I don’t care to get into here.
But let’s say someone who’s already a doctor converts to the Witness faith. Either that doctor would no longer administer blood transfusions, but would leave that procedure to other doctors to do so, or less likely, that doctor could administer blood transfusions with the reasoning that while he or she would never accept a blood transfusion, he or she does not have to prevent others from accepting it. Probably a doctor doing the latter would have a tussle with his or her congregational elders, but I doubt that the doctor would be disfellowshipped in consequence. I don’t know, the subject never came up when I was a member.
It’s like this. Suppose a Witness is a cook or a server in an ethnic restaurant which serves blood sausage, or blood based soup. Would the cook or server be compelled by their faith not to cook the meal or bring it to the customer’s table because there’s blood involved? No,
they can cook and serve it, just not eat it. I’m pretty sure that’s correct. There might be some Witnesses who would disagree with me. But it certainly would never reach the courts.
Your proposal makes slaves (of the paid variety) of doctors. Why can’t I decide how I perdorm my job (within the law)?
So the community will decided if the tradeoff between no doctor and doctor sans abortion is good enough.
No, I don’t. On this board, however, abortion -apparently- is the lithmus test of medical care: If you don’t provide it, you might as well rather get a KFC franchise because you have no business calling yourself a hospital.
Here at the UnSaint LaVey Satanist Medical Center, we believe a healing and nurturing healthcare process begins with the abject surrender of the patient’s soul.
Do you have family plans?
I kick lots of puppies, does it lower my premiums?
You describe hospitals as a limited commodity. True, but only because the government regulates the number of hospitals in a given area, number of beds etc… I am not a Jehovah Witness but I certainly think if a group of Witnesses wanted to start a hospital in an area they should be able as long as it is clearly identified as such. Patients can currently request to go to virtually any hospital in their area (at least in the Salem, OR area) and also request transfers to other hospitals or be transferred to hospitals which will meet there needs. Let the market sort it out. If they offered shorter wait times in there ER’s, decreased infection rates as well as decreased morbidity and mortality rates and in general greater patient satisfaction why would you want to deny them the opportunity? If not then they would quickly go out of business. If you are concerned about the inability to give blood if needed and patients would die, patients die every day in hospitals where blood is given. Open your mind to the straight dope.
No, it’s because they are expensive and a given area can’t support an unlimited number of them.
An attitude that leads to lots and lots of dead people when applied to medicine.
I think I’ll start one…patients get nothing except big doses of city tapwater-3 times a day!
Funnily enough Ralph, there are actually some homeopathic hospitals in the UK.
And they are funded by the NHS!
This is an ongoing source of irritation to many.
:smack:
:smack:
Yes, but not those patients who would otherwise have lived if a transfusion had been available.
Open your mind to the fact that blood doesn’t magically replenish itself when needed through either prayer or homeopathetic “medicine”.