On "legacy" (or screwing up lives so somebody will love you.)
The thing to remember about legacy is that it's not written by neutrals. Legacy is defined by those who still support a public figure long after the fight is over, when no one else cares enough to argue back.
So, little moves like this, especially right at the end, have a huge legacy impact.
That's right. Bush is passing a rule saying pharmacists and healthcare workers can refuse to distribute birth control.
(Maybe Kevin Bacon can once again teach a town to dance.)
So, little moves like this, especially right at the end, have a huge legacy impact.
The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new "right of conscience" rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion and possibly even artificial insemination and birth control.
That's right. Bush is passing a rule saying pharmacists and healthcare workers can refuse to distribute birth control.
(Maybe Kevin Bacon can once again teach a town to dance.)
posted by mikevotes at
7:52 AM
13 Comments:
I really hate this man....
Congress needs to pass a law.
By
-epm, at 8:45 AM
I have zero sympathy for Bush about pretty much everything, but come on, Mike. How will this rule "screw up" anyone's life? Anybody who wants birth control will still have many ways to obtain it.
Back when we had a draft, people who had conscientious objection to military service (Quakers etc) had a way out, or were at least permitted to serve as medics etc. Some people feel equally strongly about birth control, abortions, etc.
Or is it your position that people should be required to violate their conscience as a condition for employment in the field for which they have been trained?
By
Patrick, at 9:43 AM
Patrick, you run into the "small town" problem. Let's say a pharmacy as policy refuses to distribute contraception, condoms, etc.
Then, you've got the likelihood of kids in the town more likely to get pregnant and transmit STD's.
And, yes, in theory they could drive, but the places this is likely to happen are regional, so the drive could be prohibitively long out in Kansas, Oklahoma, or Appalachia.
As for your parallel, it's not a direct parallel. Conscientious objectors weren't placed in a foxhole with a gun and expected to shoot. Doctors, for example, could do back room work, hemotology, radiology, whatever. Pharmacies could guarantee one staff person who would handle the meds.... There's alot of ways.
As a different parallel, it would be like a building inspector who believes that buildings of more than 5 stories are an abomination and didn't want to grant permits. Would Manhattan have to employ this guy?
Also, this is "new law." It's a change from the status quo, so those people have been prescribing/treating, and got into the field knowing that was part of the job.
Yeah, I get your point, but I just think the social implications are pretty big.
By
mikevotes, at 10:45 AM
And nobody likes Footloose?
By
mikevotes, at 10:45 AM
Good point about small towns, but it works the other way, too: If having quick access to contraception (or anything else) is so important to someone, maybe they shouldn't choose to live in a place where there are few places to shop.
As for kids, is that really a problem? Most places condoms seem to be readily available in schools and so forth. The challenge is less availability than getting them to use what they already have.
By
Patrick, at 11:54 AM
Correct. I don't like Footloose.
You cannot have people who provide services to the public to simply make up their own standards of public policy. Doctors, nurses, EMTs, pharmacists, etc, cannot be allowed to have their personal "morality" trump a patients legal ability to receive medical services.
As an EMT would I be permitted to refuse to treat women because I held religious convictions that a man should not touch a women who is not a close family member? Would a PETA-supporting pharmacist be permitted to refuse to dispense any medications tested on or made from animal research?
This is an awfully slippery slope. We are a civil society with civil laws, based, hopefully, on reason and the general welfare. No one is being conscripted to dispense drugs or devices. No one is being drafted to be an OB/GYN.
By
-epm, at 11:55 AM
Actually, it doesn't sound like this is new law. From the story you linked:
Since the 1970s, Congress has said no person may be compelled to perform or assist in performing an abortion or sterilization. One law says no person may be required to assist in a "health service program or research activity" that is "contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions."
This appears to have been non-controversial, and non-problematic, for decades. We haven't had problems with EMTs refusing to touch women. The new rule just clarifies a law that was already in place.
By
Patrick, at 12:21 PM
I gotta be frank, I'm not an expert in this, so I'm probably not the best one to argue, but my reading is that it does represent an extension from the accepted practice of those laws. They are , at least perceived to be about abortions, and extending them to contraception would mark "new law."
Really, this blurb wasn't the intended point of the post. The point of the post was supposed to be a lame duck president giving away gifts to his most core constituencies to guarantee their loving him as he leaves office.
I could have just as well used the coal or oil lease giveaways, but this topic always sticks in my craw.
By
mikevotes, at 12:48 PM
But it's the slippery slope. We move from someone being forced to perform an abortion to allowing a pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription. And I do believe this is open ended enough to allow a pharmacist to deny providing HIV medications for a "gay" disease, or hormone replacement therapy to women, or *gasp* viagra!
I realize some individuals have strong religious convictions that call for them to believe certain thing, behave in certain ways, and even see themselves of special agents charged by their god to impose these faith-based prescriptions and proscriptions on secular society. But that's not the American way. Our tradition of respect of individual religious freedom should not be perverted to the point where personal religious dogma is given veto power over another individuals ability to receive unobstructed medical services.
Insofar there needs to be accommodations for kosher dietitians to work in pork factory, so to speak, we should be very specific with the individual religious exception is that we're making. It's unacceptable to cast the unbounded, undefined net of "contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions."
In America, it should be harder for a stranger to make me live by their religious constrictions than for me to access legal, ethical medical services. Be it an abortion or a pill.
By
-epm, at 1:00 PM
I tend to agree with you. Again, these people went into these fields understanding this was a requirement.
By
mikevotes, at 1:16 PM
In reality, this is all about one thing: the morning-after pill.
That drug didn't exist until just a few years ago, so plenty of people have spent long careers in in medicine or pharmacy without facing moral quandaries.
That's why it is suddenly an issue.
By
Patrick, at 1:33 PM
Again, these people went into these fields understanding this was a requirement.
By and large, I don't think it's career people how are pushing this. I think it's outside "reformers" (coupled with a few token insiders) looking to wedge into these fields as a means of subversive social engineering. I see this much in the same way as fundamentalists running for school boards to "reform" science curriculum. Or the stacking of politicos in executive brand departments and agencies... more to push agendas than actual, you know, Justice or Environmental Protection.
I'm quick to caution here that I base my suspicious and cynicism largely on my gut... But my cynicism is based on observations of past practices of right wing conservative and religious extremists.
There is a line, somewhere, between supporting an individual's personal religious conviction and cracking the door to, potentially, a kind of Talibanism (if taken to the unchecked extreme). Somewhere between protecting an employee from being forced to assist an abortion procedure, and allowing a pharmacist, or even cashier, to withhold any medication from another individual, I think that line is crossed.
By
-epm, at 1:55 PM
Patrick, fair point, but this Bush ruling extends beyond that.
....
EPM, There are outside actors at work here, but there are real pharmacists who have signed onto the documents, for instance, beyond the one or two that have tried to launch court battles.
And, again, I think the answer is to offer an opt out so long as someone else is on duty to supply.
Yes, that would put a bit of an onus on the refuser, to find a job somewhere large enough to carry two folks, but it would seem to meet both demands.
By
mikevotes, at 3:31 PM
Post a Comment
<< Home