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How Much Religious Freedom Should Your Gynecologist Have? |
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| Worker’s rights come face to face with religious freedom, and things get messy. | ||
 by Tamar Fox, August 1, 2008 |
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Imagine going to the doctor for a morning after pill or an abortion, and being told that you can't have the prescription or the procedure because of the doctor's religious beliefs. Sounds kind of absurd, right? Well, pretty soon it might be the norm. The Bush administration has launched a proposal that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that doesn't enable employees from opting out of providing care that runs counter to their personal convictions. This means that it could get a lot harder to get birth-control pills, IUDs, the Plan B emergency contraceptive, and of course, abortions.
Christian Doctors: tough decisions
The Washington Post reports:
Conservative groups, abortion opponents and some members of Congress are welcoming the initiative as necessary to safeguard doctors, nurses and other health workers who, they say, are increasingly facing discrimination because of their beliefs or are being coerced into delivering services they find repugnant.
But the draft proposal has sparked intense criticism by family planning advocates, women's health activists, and members of Congress who say the regulation would create overwhelming obstacles for women seeking abortions and birth control.
There is also deep concern that the rule could have far-reaching, but less obvious, implications. Because of its wide scope and because it would -- apparently for the first time -- define abortion in a federal regulation as anything that affects a fertilized egg, the regulation could raise questions about a broad spectrum of scientific research and care, critics say.
"The breadth of this is potentially immense," said Robyn S. Shapiro, a bioethicist and lawyer at the Medical College of Wisconsin. "Is this going to result in a kind of blessed censorship of a whole host of areas of medical care and research?"
Apparently there are numerous reports of health care workers having to violate their conscience “by providing or assisting in the provision of controversial medicine or procedures,” and the Department of Health and Human Services wants to ensure that there isn’t discrimination against those with strong religious convictions in the health care profession.
Is it me, or is the answer to this problem just that Conservative Christians shouldn’t go into gynecology? Or, if they do, they need to make it clear to their patients that there are certain procedures they won’t perform, and if the patient needs an abortion, or the morning after pill, she’ll just have to go somewhere else to get it.
Being religious means making some sacrifices. As someone who keeps Shabbat, I know I can never run a night club, and while that’s sad for me, it’s not like there aren’t any other options out there. A Conservative Christian doctor can easily choose to be a pathologist, a urologist, or an oncologist without having to compromise his or her religious priorities. If you can’t perform the duties of a certain job it’s not discrimination when you don’t get promoted.
I’ve always been a champion of religious freedom, but in this case I don’t see much of a conflict.
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bluespapa
So far none of my doctors have been in Christian Science.
Morganfrost
"A Conservative Christian doctor can easily choose to be a pathologist, a urologist, or an oncologist without having to compromise his or her religious priorities. If you can’t perform the duties of a certain job it’s not discrimination when you don’t get promoted."
A gross oversimplification, if not a downright distortion. Is a doctor supposed to switch off his ethical concerns merely because someone has directed him to perform a particular act? I thought that was why doctors had codes of ethics. If your doctor is not disposed to assist with the killing of your unborn child (and good for your doctor, if he's not), then find one with lower standards.
As of yet, doctors are not generally agents of the government, but retain the right-- and the duty-- to exercise their ethical and medical judgment to do what is right. For many doctors, what is medically and ethically "right" may not include killing babies. Hardly grounds to take their licenses or force them out of their specialties.
The Supreme Court may have discovered a mysterious constitutional right for you to have an abortion, but that does not impose on your doctor the obligation to perform one. The Constitution also gives you the right to an attorney-- it doesn't mean that you have the right to compel a particular attorney to represent you against his will, now does it?
zbird
I don't think anything is stopping an extreme pro-life doctor (I say extreme because this law doesn't refer to abortion at all, but to the morning after pill) from being a gynecologist. He/she could always go into private practice or work for a company that respects his/her right to refuse to give treatment. He/she just couldn't work for a company that didn't.
--Z
Mr. Hott Stuff
but I came across a story and thought you could give your spin on it. ... and yes, I read your work(s). :)
Here's the link: http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/campaign-2008/2008/08/holding-the-line-on-destructive-racial-and-religious-politics-in-memphis/
Anonymous
Yo, FrostyMorgan - get your terminology straight. An "unborn" anything is a fetus, or an embryo, or a zygote. Not a "baby" or a "child". Such bizarre reverse-vampyric vocabulary might be in vogue among the anti-biologists out there. But anyone who has enough knowledge to address even the most basic of medical concepts knows these words are best reserved for fans of lycanthropes and their fellow travelers.
Morganfrost
An "unborn" anything is a fetus, or an embryo, or a zygote. Not a "baby" or a "child".
I take it that you don't have any children. For the record, having been at both sonograms and births, I can tell you, most emphatically, that the little "zygote" in a womb looks astonishingly like a baby. It also functions like a baby. Generally speaking, the medical professionals I've heard speaking on this subject tend to refer to the unborn child as a "baby." Also, in my own training as an emergency medical technician, I can tell you that we tend to refer to unborn babies as "babies" (one does not, for example, ask an expectant mother if she has recently felt her "fetus" or "zygote" kicking).
From your screed, I gather that your view here is that this "zygote" should be treated as nothing more than a discretionary matter subject to termination until it magically becomes human upon emerging from the womb-- is that it? What about when the baby is actually in the birth canal? How about a moment after the baby comes out, but still has an umbilical cord? Zygote or person? What about the day before the baby comes out, when the baby happens to be perfectly viable and capable of breathing on his or her own, but the mother hasn't gone into labor yet? Zygote or person?
The "zygote" has fingers, toes, eyes, ears, etc., and moves and responds to stimuli, in much the way you do, only without the juvenile sarcasm and half-baked ad-hominem attacks passing themselves off as arguments.
Seriously, if you can't produce better arguments than that, perhaps you should exercise your right to have yourself aborted.
Anonymous
An "unborn" anything is a fetus, or an embryo, or a zygote. Not a "baby" or a "child".
That's what I said when a friend, having had a miscarriage, tearfully told me that she had "lost [her] baby." Weirdly, it didn't go over well with her. Huh.
Anne
I wouldn't want my obstetrician to be this way, either - for fear that he or she would hold the fetus' health above mine, risk my health or life to save the fetus. I think that if doctor's are unwilling to perform procedures on their patients (the woman is the patient of an obstetrician and a gynecologist, the baby gets a pediatrician when it arrives, they are more and more able to combine care, to do procedures on the fetus while it is in utero, as they have been able to find some problems earlier that can be addressed) then they should make their restrictions publicized, that if you go to them, they will not do everything available to help you, that certain options will not be available through them - I would definitely want to know this, because I wouldn't want them as my doctor. It's as if a mechanic said that they would work on your car as long as it didn't involve using any wrenches - or they would take care of you as long as the problem wasn't in the driving mechanism. Or more specifically, a brake mechanic who refused to work on the brake lines. No thanks. I would need a mechanic who could look at the entire system, or sub-system, and use all the tools available to fix it.
It is easier to say baby, and a woman who wants a baby likes to think of her fetus as her baby-to-be though there are many uncertainties before this occurs. If the medical profession refer to the fetus as the baby, it is only because it is easier to do this and more comforting for the mother in most cases. (At some point, the mother begins to think of it as her baby as well, and this may help with the bonding of mother to child eventually.) Calling a fetus a baby, however, is definitely a flattering promotion. And a baby just born is called a newborn.
Anonymous
We caught our baby sucking his thumb en-utero on the ultrasound. It's so easy for some 20 year old single college kid to be all pro-choice.
Regardless, I think you are 100% correct about forcing a doctor, or anyone put into a position of having to think on his/her feet to decide to do what the patient wants or abide by his/her religious beliefs. It's not always so simple as, "Well choose a different profession!" In the medical field, there are always unforeseen ethical dilemmas. Our country believes in religious freedom, except the atheists and liberals.