August 24, 2008
In other words, Moe could've refused to re-insert the crayon into Homer's brain because he wasn't a snake-handler
Posted by pete at August 24, 2008 10:05 AM
"That's right, I'm an HHS Secretary."
The Bush administration proposed stronger job protections Thursday for doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions because of religious or moral objections.
Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said health care professionals should not face retaliation from employers or from medical societies because they object to abortion.
"Freedom of conscience is not to be surrendered upon issuance of a medical degree," Leavitt said. "This nation was built on a foundation of free speech. The first principle of free speech is protected conscience."
The rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.
Can anyone pursuing a career as a doctor or pharmacist please do the rest of a favor? If you're going to be one of these people whose religious convictions are so strong that they will cause these horrible crises of conscience, please consider another line or work.
Like, say, professional chainsaw juggler.
The 36-page rule seeks to set up a system for enforcing conscience protections in three separate federal laws, the earliest of which dates to the 1970s. In some cases, the laws aim to protect both providers who refuse to take part in abortions and those who do.
The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.
The underlying laws deal mainly with abortion and sterilization, but both the laws and the language of the rule seem to recognize that objections on conscience grounds could involve other types of services.
I used up my repository of oh-so-clever assholery in my other entry on this subject, so I'll just say I sincerely hope this blows up in these fuckers' faces. I hope a Muslim doctor at Bethesda refuses to treat Cheney's cirrhosis. I hope a Catholic pharmacist refuses to provide Viagra to any man married to a woman past child-rearing age. I hope a black surgeon refuses to perform life-saving surgery on Trent Lott.
More than that, I want it to be January right now so these psychos will be out of office for good.
“Can anyone pursuing a career as a doctor or pharmacist please do the rest of a favor? If you’re going to be one of these people whose religious convictions are so strong that they will cause these horrible crises of conscience, please consider another line or work.
Like, say, professional chainsaw juggler.”
Baylor College of Medicine, St Luke’s Episcopal, Methodist Hospital, The Christus System, Memorial Hermann…It would seem that “these people with religious convictions” are the ones who in the spirit of service to fellow mankind as dictated by those pesky “religious convictions” founded a great many of the hospitals around Houston and the country.
I get that you disagree this policy, and that’s a reasonable position. But to use it as a springboard for a snarky comment to attack the religious values that are largely responsible for the development of our medical system seems to discount the decades of service “these people” have provided a little too flippantly.
Were this implemented, I can see a tactic used against Planned Parenthood wherein anti-abortion activists would apply for jobs within the organization, be accepted, and then refuse to do their jobs owing to conscience objections. PP would be unable to fire such people, and the weight of the do-nothings would cause the organization to fail.
It would seem that “these people with religious convictions” are the ones who in the spirit of service to fellow mankind as dictated by those pesky “religious convictions” founded a great many of the hospitals around Houston and the country.
Don’t be obtuse. My post doesn’t criticize people for their beliefs (I have plenty of other posts for that); it criticizes those that allow their adherence to these beliefs to prevent them from providing the care and services that are part of their jobs.
I hate to say this. And I sooooo don’t want to get on Gran’s bad side. But say I hang out my shingle that says Peenman, MD. And this chick comes in and says, “I am a huge Julian Sands fan. I want you to cut off my arms and legs so I can feel like the girl did in Boxing Helena. If I don’t think it is right, then I have the right to refuse to do the procedure, regardless of the source (religion, hatred of Julian Sands, etc) of those convictions. I don’t think the government should mandate that I have to do things that I feel are wrong.
Nor do I feel the Medical Societies or my employers (if I work for someone else) should be punished for or prevented from calling me a dipshit if I have too many convictions to be effective.
Let the nutjobs, the medical societies, employers, and a free market slug it out and an acceptable equilibrium will be established.
This is just more big-government nonsense from our so-called conservative administration.
If your shingle says “Peenamn, MD - Cosmetic Amputation Clinic,” then you’re - at the least - being disingenuous by refusing to perform the requested procedure. But that isn’t a serious example and you know it.
On the other hand, it’s sort of in the job description of the pharmacist, or the ER doc, that they provide the service required by the patient. In a way, your Doc Who Isn’t a Big Prophecy Fan argument is on point, because it’s an example, albeit an extreme one, of the open-ended nature of the rule.
Invoking the “free market” is a nice dodge, but what the rule does is remove your ability to establish a competing pharmacy, because you wouldn’t be able to legally turn away pharmacist applicants who admitted an unwillingness to dispense morning after pills in the first place. Bad news for the rural rape victim whose only pharmacy within 50 miles is a CVS.
36-page rule … there is no way that this is ever going to get out of legal for a bazillion years. In my dealing with federal rules, the longer and more specific the rule, the more lawyers are involved and the less chance of it actually being implemented.