…and this is a 
Protecting the Right of Conscience?
Category: Politics • Reproduction
Posted on: August 20, 2008 5:48 PM, by PZMinion
Guest Blogger Danio, sneaking a few more posts in:
Remember that execrable HHS policy document that proposes an extension of the current protections for health care workers who refuse to provide or assist in treatments that they personally find morally objectionable? I did a little back-tracking on this issue, and followed the trail of HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt, who requested this regulation after a "disappointing" interaction with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He has since been unwavering in his support of the proposal--which he claims is not about abortion OR contraception, but about conscience rights--and has a recent blog post responding to the feedback he's received from pro-choice activists as a result of the leaked document.
Here's the money quote:
Is the fear here that so many doctors will refuse that it will somehow make it difficult for a woman to get an abortion? That hasn't happened, but what if it did? Wouldn't that be an important and legitimate social statement?
"Social statement?" I can scarcely get my mind around the fact that he is so openly, unapologetically endorsing a policy in which pious opinion would trump secular law. Once again, though, it shouldn't be a surprise. After all, he himself states that "The Bush Administration has consistently supported the unborn". Ah yes, even as they indiscriminately leech the quality of life (if not the life itself) from countless other self-aware, functioning humans on the planet, each and every blastocyst they encounter is ceremoniously wrapped in a mantle of sanctimonious protection.
Somehow even more disheartening are the numerous fawning, unctuous comments on Leavitt's recent blog entry. One wrote:
Secretary Leavitt,It is beyond my comprehension that anyone would be offended by a health care professional who valued human life. But the tragedy is our culture has regressed to a form of barbarism unseen in centuries where progress in technology and science has poisoned our minds, hearts and souls where the intentional destruction of innocent and vulnerable human life has become more important than saving it.
Those of us living and working in a society where human life is expendable by government dictate but fail to stand up to protect and cherish life at any and all costs will live to regret it.
You are doing the right thing Secretary by allowing those of us in the health care profession live our moral and ethical consciences rather than forcing us to choose another profession.
Choose another profession like....a PETA supporter working in a meat packing plant?An auto mechanic who doesn't support the use of fossil fuels?
Keep your eyes on this one. It has 'lame duck's parting shot' written all over it.
______________________________________________________________________________
UPDATE: Leavitt has a new blog entry up today announcing that the proposed rule is being filed in the Federal Register. Although the final draft no longer contains the specific language broadening the definition of "abortion" to include anything from "conception" onward, it still threatens to withhold Federal money if health care organizations don't allow their employees to exercise their rights of conscience.
Comments
Posted by: I am so wise | August 20, 2008 6:38 PM
I once knew a guy who dropped out of college because he did not expect to have to read as an English major. This crap is just more of the same, but stupider.
Posted by: thepetey | August 20, 2008 6:39 PM
Hopefully minds like the SC of CA will prevail in this medical fiasco waiting to happen.
Posted by: Thepetey | August 20, 2008 6:42 PM
Also, why are so many "pro-life" people also "pro-capital punishment"?
Posted by: Hap | August 20, 2008 6:45 PM
I would have figured Leavitt would have gone with the option that doctors can ignore the parts of the Hippocratic Oath that they don't like (like the part about doing no harm). It's worked out so well for W - just ignore those inconvenient laws and you're off to the races.
Actually, this would be a second try, the first being the suggested "catastrophic coverage" plan for health insurance - if nobody can afford to get care, you don't have to worry about abortions and other such procedures (other than those wealthy enough to afford it, and we all know they would never have need of such care). Nobody quite bought that one, but like roaches and drug-resistant bacteria, the Bush Administration does persist.
Posted by: SC | August 20, 2008 6:45 PM
More evidence that we can't ever let down our guard or stop working on the ground.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM | August 20, 2008 6:47 PM
Also, why are so many "pro-life" people also "pro-capital punishment"?
Because the right to life ends at birth.
Posted by: Glen Davidson | August 20, 2008 6:47 PM
I don't think you mean that.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Alex | August 20, 2008 6:51 PM
So wait...
What they're advocating is for anyone to be able to remain employed, holding a position where they consciously object to the duties they are getting paid to perform, while not performing those duties!
Are you all fucking crazy!? I'm voting for this one!! Hello lifetime of salary for not doing my job!! Here I come!!!
I wonder if these idiots understand the concept of THINKING.
Posted by: Kobra | August 20, 2008 6:53 PM
Yes, it is a social statement. A big one that says, "We hate women."
Posted by: Danio | August 20, 2008 6:55 PM
Gah! Thanks Glen. That's what I get for trying to post and troubleshoot the confocal at the same time. King of Typos, I have your dominion in my sights :)Posted by: Katkinkate | August 20, 2008 6:55 PM
I think part of the push to prevent abortions is economic. Today's economic system relies on continuous growth to stay up and running. A contraction of the population would contribute to a contraction of the economy, which is commonly called a depression.
Posted by: thepetey | August 20, 2008 6:58 PM
To play devil's advocate, I still say a doctor - in private practice - has a right not to perform any procedure they don't wish to perform. These doctors need to be very up front about it. I say they ADVERTISE it. This way all the religious nut-jobs will go to religious nut-job doctors and free up appointment space for me.
If a doctor is hired by a clinic/hospital though, and they refuse to perform a procedure that the clinic offers without sound medical reasons for refusing, they should be fired for dereliction of duty.
Also, if they perform the service for one, they need to perform it for all - or that is discrimination.
Posted by: Sui Generis | August 20, 2008 6:59 PM
The authoritarian rule of
fascism, patriarchytheocrats.Posted by: thepetey | August 20, 2008 7:00 PM
#11 Katkinkate
But that goes against Bush's jobs program / war in Iraq where he is opening jobs for people by killing off the soldiers who formerly held them.
Posted by: Leo B. | August 20, 2008 7:04 PM
I propose a mental experiment: a Jehovah Witness E.R. doctor that refuses to give injured people blood transfusions.
Posted by: Wowbagger | August 20, 2008 7:05 PM
I have trouble with decisions that make people have to perform tasks that they are strongly opposed to - and which I would also be paranoid about them performing them well if they were doing them unwillingly - so I think the best option is, as mentioned before (in this thread and the other), that anyone who isn't going to provide a full range of services is required to make that information public.
Where there's a situation such as a one-doctor or one-pharmacist town then it gets more complicated; maybe then some sort of law or regulation would help.
Posted by: Danio | August 20, 2008 7:05 PM
This is assuming that you live in a community large enough to have a choice. The episode of "Frontline" from a few years ago called "The Last Abortion Clinic" is a real eye opener on how scarce such practitioners are in parts of the US.
Posted by: Louis | August 20, 2008 7:14 PM
It is, perhaps controversially, an issue of choice and choice alone.
I'm a research scientist, my field is synthetic chemistry. I can make, and could be employed making, chemical weapons. I could work for the military in such a capacity. I don't. Why? Because such a job would strongly conflict with my personal ethics, so I haven't taken such a job. If abortion conflicted with my ethics (it doesn't), I wouldn't become a medic. Simple.
I never said it was an easy or nice choice.
These people need to either do their jobs or switch jobs. Sorry, but imposing their morality onto the people they are meant to serve is unacceptable.
Louis
Posted by: Newfie | August 20, 2008 7:22 PM
Choose another profession like....a PETA supporter working in a meat packing plant?An auto mechanic who doesn't support the use of fossil fuels?
The use of logic against illogical people is retarded. Until you actually have separation of church and state, and stop electing religious nutbags to public positions you will never stop having these same batshit arguments.
Posted by: SC | August 20, 2008 7:22 PM
Here's also another view, for anyone unfamiliar with the "global gag rule":
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/11/2/nigerian_doctor_and_reproductive_rights_campaigner
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=3648
Posted by: Jackal | August 20, 2008 7:26 PM
OT, but here's another poll to Pharyngulate. They want to know who John McCain should chose as a running mate. You'll need a junk email address to though, if you don't want to hear from the AFAsshats. Or you can just spam filter them.
Posted by: Alex | August 20, 2008 7:28 PM
"...I still say a doctor - in private practice..."
The private practice part is the crux of the matter. If you want to own and operate an auto-repair shop but choose not to do oil-changes, that's fine. It's your right and business decision. If you do oil-changes and hire a mechanic who refuses to do oil-changes, that person can take their sensitivities to their next employer. Moving this analogy to the medical field, or like Louis' post about chemical weapons, it's easy IMO to see where the lines should be drawn, employer versus employee. If you are a doctor that refuses to perform abortions working at an abortion clinic, then there are some questions about why you are working there.
Posted by: Josh K | August 20, 2008 7:31 PM
I disagree.
I think we can trace the roots of laws against birth control, abortion, homosexuality, masturbation...for brevity's sake, call them the 'pro-population laws'...all back to a time in which the name of the game was to outbreed the other tribe/ethnicity/sect/country.
While I would agree that large family sizes are a hedge against old age and high infant mortality, I think the actual laws originate from the desire to spread 'us' over 'them'.
I could be wrong; I've only got a handful of half-remembered histories to go on, so I'll listen if someone wants to cite sources otherwise.
Anyone else just have a flashback to George C Scott at the tail end of "Doctor Strangelove"? :)
Posted by: Qwerty | August 20, 2008 7:33 PM
I've read the only practitioners in South Dakota who will perform an abortion are in Sioux Falls. Makes it quite inconvenient if you live on the other side of the state.
Posted by: Danio | August 20, 2008 7:35 PM
I think this would be an easier situation to solve, actually. The complex reality is that you have doctors (and nurses, and technicians, and ambulance drivers, and pharmacists) refusing to fulfill their patients' requests for legal family planning procedures and prescriptions--not only refusing to do it themselves, but refusing to provide information on where to find someone who will, and often using their positions of medical authority to discourage patients from seeking these treatments at all. It goes way beyond what occurs within a designated 'abortion clinic'.
Posted by: skyotter | August 20, 2008 7:36 PM
i can't help but notice that the same level of support for "right of conscience" wasn't given to those Muslim cabbies who refused to provide service to people carrying (unopened) alcohol
where were these "right of conscience" heroes then, huh? they somehow condone their own refusal-of-service while condemning it in others. gotta love the irony
Posted by: Zar | August 20, 2008 7:42 PM
Josh K:
"I think we can trace the roots of laws against birth control, abortion, homosexuality, masturbation...for brevity's sake, call them the 'pro-population laws'...all back to a time in which the name of the game was to outbreed the other tribe/ethnicity/sect/country."
Bam! On the nose! I totally agree.
Surges in anti-family planning sentiment tend to happen alongside surges in immigration. They're afraid of the "wrong" people out-breeding the "right" people.
In the late 19th/early 20th century, abortion was sometimes called "race suicide"!
Posted by: Alex | August 20, 2008 7:43 PM
"...but refusing to provide information on where to find someone who will, and often using their positions of medical authority to discourage patients from seeking these treatments at all. It goes way beyond what occurs within a designated 'abortion clinic'."
Clearly an outrage. Withholding or misrepresenting information in an attempt to force another person to comply with your conscious is abuse of authority. I have a hard time imagining that law makers, or even existing practices, don't address this clear abuse of power. If that is the case, there is clearly some work to be done.
Posted by: ERV | August 20, 2008 7:45 PM
Whoa whoa whoa whoa.
This is NOT about 'forcing' doctors to perform procedures they are against. No one is holding a gun to a med students head and forcing them to specialize in 'abortions'. General OB/GYNs are never forced to perform abortions. It has nothing to do with what an MD does in private practice.
What Levtwitt is trying to do is make it okay for a doc not to refer their patient to a physician who does specialize in abortions.
Analogy-- You go to your general care provider with migraines. He thinks migraines are the result of demons, so he REFUSES to refer you to a neurologist. Without the referral, your insurance wont cover even a consultation visit. Without the referral, even if you have to pay out-of-pocket, you have no idea who to go see. Even if you find the name of a neurologist, theyre booked for six months because... you dont have a referral.
This is not about forcing MDs to perform procedures they dont agree with. Levtwitt appears to just be a pandering idiot "DURP! DOCTURZ HAZ A RITE TO CONCIOUSNESS!"
Posted by: NE1 | August 20, 2008 7:45 PM
I think your outrage is a little misdirected. We have tax breaks for houses to encourage homesteads and nuclear families. It is reasonable for the state to discourage/punish contraception when a) blastocysts deserve all the rights of humanity or b) it is deemed better for the country (see above) for the attitude expressed in throwing away seeds of life to be punished. Which would be an appropriate observation if society treated newborns without care or respect.
Here though, the cost is worse than the cure, because there is no disease.
Posted by: Zar | August 20, 2008 7:52 PM
I have no doubt these guys won't worry about their consciences once their wives/daughters/mistresses/girlfriends/etc. get knocked up:
"I was accosted by the Chief of the OB/Gyn service. He asked me, 'How many children are you going to kill today?' My response, out of anger, was a familiar vulgar retort. About three months later, this born-again Christian called me to explain that he was against abortion but his daughter was only a junior in high school and was too young to have a baby and he was also afraid that if she did have a baby she would not want to put it up for adoption. I told him he did not need to explain the situation to me. 'All I need to know', I said, 'is that SHE wants an abortion.' Two years later I performed a second abortion on her during her college break. She thanked me and pleaded, 'Please don't tell my dad, he is still anti-abortion.'" (Physician, Washington State)"
Posted by: Interrobang | August 20, 2008 7:53 PM
Well, of course they didn't support the Muslim cabbies, skyotter. First of all, those kind of Christians would never publicly agree with Muslims on anything, even though in private they're all taking notes on what they should religiously regulate next, and secondly, allowing conscientious objection to carrying unopened alcohol doesn't directly interfere with women's bodily autonomy, so there's no reason for them to support it. After all, 9.9 out of 10 religious nutjobs agree: you need to be told what you can do with your own body (that's 18 out of 10 if you're female).
Posted by: Michael X | August 20, 2008 8:02 PM
I suppose I should lobby all pious HIndus to take up work at the butcher shops in small town grocery stories. I bet entire communities would instantly be up in arms over their 'right to eat red meat.' But when it comes to a woman's right to control her own body, well...
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead | August 20, 2008 8:06 PM
I don't mind an OB/GYN who won't perform abortions due to their religion. What I have trouble with is an OB/GYN who won't refer a patient to an OB/GYN who does abortions when the patient asks to be referred. Personally, that is stepping over of the line into either malpractice, or forcing their religion upon the patient doing the requesting, which is even worse. The physician/pharmacist should then become responsible for the consequences of their actions. This means that they should help pay for the raising of the child that results from their malpractice/religious decision. If they aren't willing to face the consequences, time to change jobs.
By the way, most doctors pretend to be self employed, but most of their pay comes from insurance companies, so the line is fairly fuzzy.
Posted by: Tater | August 20, 2008 8:29 PM
Let's see him defend Policemen and Soldiers who believe in the Christian tenet of non-violence.
Yeah, that will be porcine aviation day.
Posted by: Max Verret | August 20, 2008 8:33 PM
Danio: comparing meat packing and fossil feuls with human life - shame on you.
ThePetey #3 "pro-life and pro-death penalty"? Yes, there are many people like that and frankly I wouldn't waste too much time with them. Yes, they do contradict themselves but through some sort of mental giration they value adjectives not nouns. They separate "innocent" life from "guilty" life. So life has to take a back seat to their adjectives.
Posted by: Monado | August 20, 2008 8:36 PM
Wow, Danio, what a quote! "Your right to wave your arm ends with my nose." Then "your right to make a social statement ends before ruining my life!"
I'm thinking a bad word at them.
Posted by: Monado | August 20, 2008 8:38 PM
It's not as if the fetus has had a chance to refrain from knocking over a bank.
Posted by: Michael X | August 20, 2008 8:43 PM
Max, it isn't to say that meat and human life are comparable, it's the logic that would justify each situation is what's comparable.
Posted by: Mold | August 20, 2008 8:55 PM
Oh great, just when the Chinese and the Russians discover the joys of rational thought, we get BibleBeleeeving KKKristians who want a return to the days of lynching, coathanger abortions, and legal snake oil.
Posted by: Screechy Monkey | August 20, 2008 8:58 PM
Surely we should also protect the right of doctors not to give referrals to oncologists? Cancer cells have a right to life, too!
Posted by: Steven Dunlap | August 20, 2008 9:00 PM
Hap @ #4
Actually, the wealthy do not care about the abortion issue because they can cross borders very easily. They can send their wives, daughters, girlfriends to another country for the procedure. It's like combining a brief vacation with an errand.
The law punishes the rich and the poor equally for the crime of sleeping under a bridge.
MAJeff, OM @ #6
"Because the right to life ends at birth."
Thank you for that one. It made my day.
Katkinkate @ #11
Have you ever heard of immigration? The U.S. population has increased more from immigration than from birth (at least North of the Mason-Dixon line) for the last 20 years or so.
As for economic growth, all we need to do to make sure we can take care of people in their old age is stop spending $2 billion a week killing brown people. Many of the Christians (not all by any means) have no problem with ending those lives (and lying about it afterwards). [Not intended as a blanket statement to insult all Christians everywhere - just the crazy ones. You know who you are].
Danio @ #17
Are the abortion clinics scarce because of the conscience issue or because the doctors don't want to get shot? Causation is a tricky question applied to any issue, this one even more so. (I have no idea which and could not even opine).
My own comment (feeling snarky today):
I wonder if maybe it's just easier to love a fetus. It has complete innocence. It has no opinions for you to hate (and by extension, the person holding them). It has no ability to mooch off the public assistance system (at least not on its own). It does not break into your house (at least not for a few years). It's just so much simpler to love it. And, (here's the great part) it can potentially be recruited into your cult (or religion - what's the difference again? I can't remember). However, once it leaves the womb but at some point comes to refuse to join your church and follow the dictates of your God ™ then it's OK for him/her to die. A fetus must have the chance to be "saved." It's a little like the Catholics in Eastern Europe who took in and hid Jewish children during the war but then refused to give them back to their parents who survived. Saving the children wasn't the main point. Acquiring more Catholics was.
Posted by: genesgalore | August 20, 2008 9:05 PM
human DNA is as common as snot.
Posted by: Nemo | August 20, 2008 9:15 PM
The thing that really shocks me about this is finding out that this guy has a blog. Are any other Cabinet members doing that?
Posted by: Patricia | August 20, 2008 10:09 PM
Thankyou Danio for this heads up. Well said MAJeff.
This is a subject that makes me mad as hell. Protect a gobbet of cells to the point of killing a doctor...but don't make sure the rest of us have health care, mental health care, housing or food. Let old sick people die, children starve and the veterans suffer from neglect. Well done Bushco.
I have no children, because in 1975 when I married I thought the world was going to hell, and no child of mine should suffer that. Since then about 300 natural spontaneous "abortions" - how about that christian freaks 300 living eggs "lost". It's called menstruation, god did it. Grrr! Stupid bastards burn me up.
This is pure religious hatred of women. Why women won't wake up and leave the churches en mass is beyond me. Shit, this is a rant. I beg your pardon.
Posted by: ice9 | August 20, 2008 10:29 PM
Conscience, I salute you.
No more taxes for me. And stop signs--they suppress my personal liberty to go. I won't be teaching any more gerundives--they go against my philosophy of the noun. No, my conscience begins where my fist hits whatever the hell it wants to hit.
ice
Posted by: Ames | August 20, 2008 10:42 PM
Danio, fantastic job covering this the first (and second) time it came around. If you ever want to post on similar issues again, you're welcome anytime you want on my blog :). We'd be lucky to have you (just e-mail!).
Posted by: Noni Mausa | August 20, 2008 10:45 PM
Speaking of people who are both "pro-life and pro-death penalty", it seems to me that the answer is even simpler than a biological drive to outbreed the competition.
I would say that what these have in common is a drive to control and limit the major life choices of others. Putting people to death (within a legal structure or not) is the extreme form of this. Forbidding or mandating marriage, childbearing, where one can work or live are all forms of enforcing control -- and because these are the most personal and visceral matters, the methods of enforcement must sometimes be very brutal, and success in such control would be a strong indicator of social power.
I see it mostly in men, where the urge to control sometimes drives individuals to actions which destroy others and themselves. But I have seen it in some women too, I'm thinking of a few savage miniature dragon ladies I have known (Filipino? Indonesian?) whose urge to control transforms them into scary, focused opponents in civil and small claims courts (where I have seen them) and doubtless at home and in their communities too.
I don't share this drive to control, it's foreign to me, which I guess makes me a golden retriever of the human world. Toss me a tennis ball and I'm happy for hours.
But I can see the social and economic benefit of having access to this sort of drive. They may be unpleasant, and some of the controllers self-destruct, but many achieve a far better standard of living than this golden retriever does, by sheer force of refusing anything less.
Of course there's more to the topic than this, but I hope this adds to the understanding.
Noni
.
Posted by: Keanus | August 20, 2008 10:48 PM
Abortion is not widely available. In only 87% of US counties can one find a clinic or hospital that offers abortions. Granted nearly two thirds of the population lives in the 13% of counties that have clinics offering abortions, but that leaves roughly 35% of the population without reasonable access. And I'm willing to bet that those counties not offering abortion are among the poorest. And, yes, Qwerty is right, South Dakota has only one clinic, a Planned Parenthood one, that offers abortion and it's in Sioux Falls, a good four or five hour drive from the Black Hills. The last local doctor working for Planned Parenthood had to quit under the threats of violence and constant harassment, leading to the clinic's current doctor being a retired ob/gyn who flies in weekly from Minneapolis. The pattern is repeated in every state in the nation. And intimidation, harassment, legal challenges, and actual attacks are the reason they are so scarce. Insurance also plays a part.
But back to the topic of the HHS draft order. I read the entire thing (you can find it here) In all forty of fifty pages (or whatever it's overly long length) it bleeds at length about the crisis facing people of conscience who currently have to support the delivering of birth control or family planning services to women who seek them. Not once does it express the slightest concern for the woman needing birth control, with an unintended pregnancy, or with any of the many other reasons for seeking an abortion. The patient is completely lost in the proposed paean on conscience just waiting for Leavitt's signature. If you don't like the proposed rule, then go to Leavitt's HHS blog, tell him you don't like it and tell him why. He's a dolt with one track mind.
Posted by: llewelly | August 20, 2008 10:57 PM
Keanus, #49:
I think you mean 'In 87% of US counties one cannot find a clinic or hospital that offers abortions'. Please re-check your figures. And link to a source.
Posted by: genesgalore | August 20, 2008 11:02 PM
i suppose the next thing this twisted society is going to do is prosecuted women who have not kept their vaginal tract squeeky clean with murder. yes, kill all those women who brought us fetal alcohol syndrome etc with murder... sheesh.... spontaneous abortions 30% or better????
Posted by: Kela | August 20, 2008 11:09 PM
I am a recent graduate from medical school and according to what we are taught, no physician is required/obligated to perform any medical procedure or service. A physician can refuse to write a prescription for any individual drug or class of drugs, they can not perform any procedure that they do not feel comfortable doing. For example, I plan to go into family medicine and, even though I am pro-choice, I will choose not to perform abortions in my office. I am well within my rights to do that and would still be even if I was an OB/GYN or a surgeon. What a physician cannot do is refuse to refer a patient to a physician who can/will provide that service. The same applies to pharmacists. Any individual can refuse to fill any prescription for any reason. Any pharmacy would be well within their rights to not hire or fire any pharmacist who refused to fill prescriptions because it would cost them business.
From my point of view this is a non-issue. There are no physicians writing prescriptions or performing procedures against their will. This is nothing but posturing that make the extreme christian right feel like they are doing something.
Posted by: kingjoebob | August 20, 2008 11:14 PM
"The patient is completely lost in the proposed paean on conscience just waiting for Leavitt's signature. If you don't like the proposed rule, then go to Leavitt's HHS blog, tell him you don't like it and tell him why."
Too bad this will have absolutely no effect on his decision. And the fact that they totally disregard the patient should be absolutely no surprise. Because for them its not what is best for society, it's what will make society conform to our beliefs?
People in this mind set are hell bent on forcing their version of morality down everyone else's throat. They have the same mind set in everything they do Might makes Right, and at the moment they have the might to do what they want and to be honest there is not a damn thing we can do about it.
The only thing we get to look forward to is the massive backlash when this is signed into law. And people thought the speakeasies in the 20's during prohibition were a problem. For some reason these people never learn that when they try and legislate morality it typically backfires in a grand way.
kjb
--
"The last capitalist we hang shall be the one who sold us the rope." Karl Marx
Posted by: Patricia | August 20, 2008 11:20 PM
OT - We haven't heard from PZ in too long. Are you OK PZ?
Posted by: Azkyroth | August 20, 2008 11:23 PM
Protecting the Right from consciences, more like.
Posted by: PZ Myers | August 20, 2008 11:37 PM
No. I'm dead, or wish I were. My brains are draining down the back of my throat, and my lungs are oozing up my throat, both meeting in a nasty knot of phlegm.
I'm seeing a doctor tomorrow, I think. Unless it's the undertaker.
Posted by: Thoracantha | August 20, 2008 11:43 PM
PZ,
What if the doctor as a moral objection to treating you?
As for the Leavitt's blog. It's typical Bushit. It looks like an open dialog, but it's obviously not. Notice how widely spaced in time the comments are. It would seem that there is a comment filter. None of the comments are critical.
Posted by: SC | August 20, 2008 11:43 PM
Oh, ouch. Get well soon. Drugs will help, I'm sure.
Posted by: lacrimose | August 20, 2008 11:48 PM
This is not a new strategy by the religious right. It started in the 80's with homeschooling to "protect" their children from the perceived evils of public school. Children were indoctrinated then with the idea that the founding fathers and the Constitution of the U.S. set up a Christian nation and that God's law trumps everything manmade. Because the voting booth has failed them to a certain extent, students are now encouraged to go into professions (like pharmacy, nursing and medicine), to infiltrate them, and then to protest doing their jobs when duties conflict with their beliefs. Since legislation supporting their position has floundered, Leavitt is only following the next step in the process.
It makes sense not to go into a profession where you might have to provide medicine or procedures that conflict with your beliefs, but that is not their goal. The goal is to force ALL Americans to adopt their beliefs. If we fail to understand this and plan our responses and actions accordingly, our already fragile individual civil rights for breathing-humans will be completely lost.
Posted by: zer0 | August 20, 2008 11:48 PM
5 bucks says they support the war 100%. Pro-life my ass.Posted by: gex | August 21, 2008 12:37 AM
Yes - there is an important social statement there. And it is that they think that people in positions of power should be allowed to restrict the rights and freedoms of others. It is the social statement conservatives and the religions always push, just couched in different terms.
Posted by: Rey Fox | August 21, 2008 12:45 AM
Dunlap:
The ever-insightful Tim Krider of The Pain had the same idea, and I think it's actually quite true. He said that's why they loved Terry Schiavo so much too, because she was a brain-dead blank slate that they could project their politics on.
Posted by: Patricia | August 21, 2008 12:47 AM
Oh shite PZ!
I know you don't believe in herbs and snake oil, but if I were anywhere near you I would offer you some tincture of Old Man's Beard. Scientific names Usnea barbata, U. longissima, U. hirta, U. florida, U. certina, and U. dasypoga.
Before you all jump me, and call me a three titted sow, there is evidence to back this up.
Usnea is used clinically for fungus infections, acute bacterial infection, lupus, trichomonas, mastitis, varicose and tropic ulcers, second-and third-degree burns, plastic surgery, athlete's foot, yaddah, yaddah - colds, flu, bronchitis, pleurisy, pneumonia, tuberculosis, sinus infections, staphylococcus, dysentery, and streptococcus. *Hale, Mason. The Biology of Lichens. New York: American Elsevier Publishing Co., Inc. 1974; Hobbs, Christopher. Usnea: The Herbal Antibiotic. Capitola, Calif.: Botanica Press, 1990.
Usnea species are very effective in the treatment of tuberculosis. In fact, usnic acid (one active component in usnea) "completely inhibited the growth of [TB] in dilutions of 1:200,000 - 1:2,000,000. *Hobbs, Usnea. Other sources put the effectiveness of usnic acid at one part per million* bringing it into the effective range of streptomycin. *Ahmadjian and Hale. The Lichens, New York: Academic Press, 1973. (One part per million!? That sounds like bullshit to me.)
The one warning I found while researching this lichen was to be careful if you have liver trouble.
OK - now the howling mob can string me up as a witch. It was good enough for my ancestors - I'll take it too.
Get well PZ! :)
Posted by: Zeno | August 21, 2008 12:53 AM
World-O-Crap has a lovely take on this "conscience" nonsense. Here's an excerpt, but check out the whole thing:
Posted by: Patricia | August 21, 2008 1:00 AM
Posting that Old Mans Beard info has worn me out after standing guard all day, as a proper French soldier, on the other thread for the catlicks & demons...I'll deal with your herbal defamation's and three titted sow insults in the morning.
Good night sweethearts!
(Keep breathing PZ!)
Posted by: Alan Chapman | August 21, 2008 1:11 AM
#3 Indeed, and pro-lifers tend to be overwhelmingly jingoistic and vociferous advocates of imperialist foreign-policy, embargoes, and war. They're pro-life only with respect to fellow countrymen. When it comes to dropping bombs and shooting people in other countries they express no outrage at the carnage, nor any concern over the high rates of infant mortality and squalid conditions in which children live. The abortion issue is contentious to be sure, but nobody likes a hypocrite.
Posted by: JB | August 21, 2008 1:18 AM
Should it not also "be part of secular law" that it is wrong to force someone to do something that is completely against his or her own ethics?
I do support the right to abortion. I also support the right for health personel to not participate if they feel it goes against their ethics.
I do not agree that it would be better that they don't treat people at all, just because it is one or two not directly health related (I'm not sure how to word this better) they feel is wrong to do.
Posted by: Nomad | August 21, 2008 1:45 AM
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It's an attempt to establish a de facto theocracy in the less cosmopolitan red counties. The series of attempts to insert creationism into public classrooms is an attempt to indoctrinate other people's children, to spread the influence of fundamentalism to other families. Court precedent forbids that, so they change the name and try to do it anyway.
In this case, having failed to sufficiently outlaw abortion (I know this isn't primarily about abortion, but it certainly figures into it), they act instead to deny access to it by filling doctor's offices with people unwilling to perform the procedures OR refer patients to doctors who will (which is a moot point once this goes far enough). Once they get the numbers down low enough they can let the Christian terrorists take over to persecute the few remaining providers.
Of course, as has been pointed out, that's already occurred in many places. So I find myself wondering if this is more about protecting the positions of those doctors who have already accomplished this. Perhaps both that and also expanding their influence into bigger cities, preventing pharmacies from "discriminating" against someone unwilling to fill certain prescriptions.
As for the attempts to quietly redefine things so that the typical, run of the mill birth control pill suddenly counts as abortion, that one puzzles me. Surely that will lead to a massive backlash. It doesn't maintain the sort of warm and fuzzy cloak that the right of conscience stuff does.
It's as if the Bush administration suddenly announced "in support of our abstinence only campaign we're outlawing the birth control method that allowed the sexual revolution to occur".
I'd expect people to stand up and take notice at such an attempt to turn the clock back.
Posted by: Equisetum | August 21, 2008 1:50 AM
Oh, yes it does happen.
The post is about emergency contraception, which is HHS is attempting to redefine as abortion, but the principle is exactly the same.
As for there being "an important and legitimate social statement," I would say it would be a significant and illegitimate social statement. The situation with the cabbies that Skyotter mentioned is exactly analogous to this, even though it doesn't have the devastating impact on people's lives. He's advocating tyranny of the majority.
Posted by: OldOne | August 21, 2008 2:03 AM
I am firmly pro-choice, but I'm not sure that the generality about moral objection is such a slam dunk. How about female genital mutilation? Australian aborigines once had a custom of slicing the penis end-to-end, OK? Castrating sex offenders? Electric shock treatment of mental patients? Arguing "do no harm" is difficult because the societies believe such practices are good. Moreover, anti-abortionists certainly believe abortion does harm.
Probably the best that can be done is to vote on what is allowable and not allowable, with the edge given to allowing the physician as much choice as is practical. We should not allow a pharmacy to decline to dispense drugs, but in general, I think moral objection should be allowed so long as it does not affect acute care significantly.
Posted by: hje | August 21, 2008 2:29 AM
It has 'lame duck's parting shot' written all over it.
Lame duck's parting shot: International crisis precipitated on or before November 1. Frightened sheeple vote in droves for more of the McSame.
Posted by: foxfire | August 21, 2008 3:50 AM
Well, I submitted my response to Leavitt's latest blog on this subject via a couple of questions at that website.
Leo B. in #15 captures the essence of the first question with a perfect "for example".
Thepetey in #3 and MAJeff in #6 reflect a question I've tried to understand. I haven't yet heard a good answer.
Personally, I think Josh K in #23 has a big clue in solving this equation, particularly in light of a recent study that hypothesizes the future U.S. population (OMG -the Mezicans and other dark people will take over!).
As usual, ERV in # 29 cuts through the crap:
I wish I'd seen #29 before I posted on Leavitt's blog because THAT really gets to the point: refusal to perform as a matter of conscience does NOT alleviate a medical practitioner from referring their patient to another medical practitioner who might be willing to perform a procedure.
Posted by: Clemens | August 21, 2008 4:34 AM
Dawkins in "The God Delusion" points out that the states with the highest rate of abortions are the more conservative states...
You'd expect abortion rates in secular hellholes like the Scandinavian countries or the Netherlands to go through the roof, but no, it's illegal abortions in Poland and Portugal.
Posted by: Dana Hunter | August 21, 2008 4:41 AM
Poor PZ. See what you get for leaving a tropical paradise and coming back to a place that's, well, not? ;-) Summer colds suck. Here's to finding a doc who'll make you want to live again!
And, Danio, when PZ's up and running at full capacity... you and your fellow minions could, you know, sorta sneak some posts in here. I'm sure the blog owner wouldn't mind...
Posted by: MH | August 21, 2008 5:01 AM
Juicy story:
Pastor Michael Guglielmucci spun gospel of lies
Posted by: SEF | August 21, 2008 5:02 AM
There needs to be a crack abortion squad - the A-team. "If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team." They could be reachable by telephone and then zoom in by helicopter to air-lift the oppressed pregnant woman away to safety to have the abortion she wants/needs carried out by fully qualified and sympathetic staff in a state-of-the-art medical facility in some secret location.
Posted by: Logicel | August 21, 2008 5:26 AM
Wowbagger writes: ...that anyone who isn't going to provide a full range of services is required to make that information public.
______
Then those dogmatic, pious nuts won't be able to be a position to make a woman wanting an abortion feel quilty, perverse, and awful, while they have her cornered in their office. How can you deny them the right to push their agenda on others?
Posted by: Logicel | August 21, 2008 5:36 AM
foxfire writes: refusal to perform as a matter of conscience does NOT alleviate a medical practitioner from referring their patient to another medical practitioner who might be willing to perform a procedure.
____
There needs to be an information plaque in the lobby of these pious nuts stating that they do not do certain procedures because of their asshattery and present a list of competitors that do.
They will resist this, because as I said earlier they will no longer be in a position to intimidate patients in their office with their nonsense, and in addition, they will lose business to others.
Posted by: Michael | August 21, 2008 5:47 AM
Keep your eyes on this one. It has 'lame duck's parting shot' written all over it.
Just a lot of hot air and hype in this story, if one goes to a heart specialist but needs his toenail removed, they are referred to the right doctor. If the doctor objects to performing an abortion, the patient goes to another doctor. So what is the problem? Is it like 10 people complaining, their doctor refused to give them birth control or an abortion because he or she don't believe in those things? This is really a non-issue. The doctor has every right to practice his or her religion. It doesn't mean we all have to agree with it, but they have that right.
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