"Interesting" Legislation

[LARA]

"The Bush administration yesterday announced plans to implement a controversial regulation designed to protect doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who object to abortion from being forced to deliver services that violate their personal beliefs.  The rule empowers federal health officials to pull funding from more than 584,000 hospitals, clinics, health plans, doctors' offices and other entities if they do not accommodate employees who refuse to participate in care they find objectionable on personal, moral or religious grounds."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 03218.html

Considering the California ruling that required a fertility doctor to treat a lesbian for fertility problem despite his "moral" objections, this should be interesting.  I believe that doctor was a private practice physician as well and not even working for a hospital.

Will Jehovah's Witness doctors be able to refuse blood transfusions, too?  Can a doctor that converts to Scientology refuse to refer a patient to the psychiatric ward? How about the Jewish doctor who has objections to using porcine products in surgery?  Will a Hindu doctor now be able to refuse to use Bovine Serum Albumin in the cell culture medium at the teaching hospital he works at?

It's my opinion that if you object to a service, don't take a job at a place that provides that service and go into private practice instead.  Many people have to make difficult choices in their employment on a daily basis for religious or other reasons based on their own moral, ethical or religious concerns and I don't see why the people who are too blind to see the difference between a blastula or an embryo and a baby should get any special treatment.

Opinions on abortion aside, what's the point of law if one favored group is allowed to just make up their rules so they don't have to be subject to it?  Why is whatever Christian moral doctrine that's currently in vogue always held one level above the laws of The United States of America?

[Will]

It's my opinion that if you object to a service, don't take a job at a place that provides that service and go into private practice instead.

There's a problem with this. What if one becomes a doctor knowing that he or she will be in a position to prevent abortions and intending to "save lives"? These dishonest people are a serious issue.

I had a teacher in elementary school who didn't like children. At all. He hated them, in fact. He enjoyed mistreating children, and apparently chose his career in order to exact his ill will. Similarly, some fundamentalists may be in place to force their fundamentalist will upon people. It is for these people that the California ruling is necessary.

[rlrose328]

This legislation is so incredibly dangerous, imo, for all the reasons Lara states.  Though I take the if you don't like it scenario a step further.  If you don't like the things you'll be required to do in that job, DON'T TRAIN FOR IT.  Unless you can keep an open mind and practice science in a way that benefits all of your patients, then you have no business being a doctor.  Period.

Next, mail delivery people won't want to deliver a package from a company that doesn't represent their values or beliefs, so they can refuse to deliver it?  When will it stop?

[ONZero]

The word 'accommodate' is key.  Most likely, these health professionals are not the best in their field anyway.  They will opt out of doing their job and someone else will have to step in while they go pray.  You can bet they won't volunteer to treat an uninsured person in the meantime.  They will hang around and pontificate.  Their refusal can translate to about any task because of some moral inhibition.  What if doctors who are sued then refuse to treat lawyers?  They could rationalize that the legal eagles are evil and opt out of treating them.  These moral freaks are phoney and they know it.

[Faithless]

If there is something you don't like about a particular profession, DON'T GO INTO IT.  Seriously.  If you want to be a doctor but you don't want to do something you find morally objectionable, then be a dog trainer or, better yet, go work in a Christian day care center or something.  Leave the real work for people not afraid to use their brain.

I am so sick and tired of people demanding (and getting) special treatment because they have some sort of religious belief.  Like these Muslim women who don't want to take off those burkhas to get a driver's license picture taken.  Come on!  If you don't want to follow the rules, that's fine.  But if you don't, then you don't get a license!  It seems so simple to me.  It's like going to the airport.  I don't have to take off my shoes at the security checkpoint if I don't want to.  But if I don't, I don't get on the plane.  I don't like taking off my shoes, but that's the rule.  So I take off my shoes.  In the grand scheme of things, it's just as meaningless as which holy book someone subscribes to.