No worries.
I'll also add that regardless of the contents of the Hippocratic oath, people have a legal right to access to all legal, approved medical procedures. This right should first and foremost be preserved.
No worries.
I'll also add that regardless of the contents of the Hippocratic oath, people have a legal right to access to all legal, approved medical procedures. This right should first and foremost be preserved.
PANDAS
If you don't like them, then get the fuck out.
Originally Posted by Think
Why is the legal right to all legal medicine and procedures more important than the right to your personal beliefs in cases not involving mortality?
Are drugs available by other means? i.e. without a doctor's prescription
No, but there are other doctors, and if they revise in a mandatory referral clause it will be easy to find them too.
You guys are talking like every doctor is going to refuse to give contraception. They are in the vast minority. Personally, I think anybody should be able to do anything they want to their body, but not at the expense of the rights of anyone else.
Well, I'd agree with this, but essentially doctors monopolise the distribution of drugs, such as the morning after pill. Refusing a prescription surely is an imposition of the doctor's will over your own; you don't want his skills or expertise (such as when it comes to performing abortions), just his signature so you can get a drug that isn't otherwise available.
I grant you that going to another doctor is a possibility, but I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of blocking one person's wish to have access to a drug merely because the intermediary - the doctor - has moral views in opposition.
The thing is though that they aren't blocked, just temporarily inconvenienced.
You're going to have to explain what you mean by this
Because they are DOCTORS, not independent service providers, like a massage therapist (in a state that holds no laws or credentials necessary to practice). Health care is a highly regulated field, just like law, or professional engineering. If your FAITH gets in the way of the legal rights of patients, you are free to not practice medicine. It comes with the medical license. All legal treatments should be available. If you disagree with them too bad. Do not practice medicine. If/When I get married, I want to trust that my doctor gives us all the options available for any pregnancy issues that come up, if they do, and not just the ones he personally feels right doing (not just abortion, ANYTHING, like assisted pregnancy). That is not for him/her to decide. If he has a problem performing those duties, then quit.
This doesn't work elsewhere, a firefighter couldn't say "nah, I'm not going to put out this fire because the owner is an atheist", or a police officer can't choose to not-enforce domestic abuse laws because his religion says it's ok to beat women. If your faith or personal beliefs interferes with your DUTIES, then do not perform that career.
Last edited by MrTroy; 04-09-2009 at 06:43 PM.
Here's a particularly scary effect of the "conscience clause": When a woman is raped, one thing she should do ASAP is go to the hospital, where she will be treated with something called a rape kit, or sexual assault evidence collection kit. This is basically a collection of equipment that a caregiver (usually a nurse) can use to collect any biological evidence that may be useful in catching/prosecuting the rapist; it also includes various items that may be used to treat any injuries that the woman has sustained as a result of the attack. One thing that it often contains is emergency contraception drugs (morning-after pills), for obvious reasons. Under Bush's additions to the "conscience clause", a caregiver would be protected from punishment if the hospital employing that caregiver includes emergency contraceptive pills in their rape kits, but the caregiver decides not to give the rape victim the pill, or even tell the victim that the kit includes a pill at all and that they have the option of taking it.
Fuck. That.
These are elective procedures.
You're substituting your morality for the doctor's; you're trying to compel him to do something he doesn't want to do or believe is right. There are other doctors who would be more than happy to make a few bucks to perform the elective procedure; if I don't agree with it, let the patient find one of them.
Abortions are rarely more elective than boob jobs. The obvious exception here is rape/incest, in which case the law needs to protect victims first. Unfortunately, the majority of abortions aren't intended to protect a victim as much as they are intended to protect an irresponsible behavior.
This situation is not in any way different than a group of Christian conservatives trying to pass into law their code of morality. All you've done is spun it under the guise of progressiveness and undermined the doctor's rights to be benefit of no one.
If the doctor does not want to perform legal procedures in his field, then he should not be practicing medicine. My general practitioner is not a surgeon or able to perform abortions. If you are against abortion, then do not practice medicine in a situation where you would be asked to perform an abortion, or to recommend a doctor or place to go that would if you are not qualified to do it yourself. There are distinct specialties in the medical field, not everyone can perform open heart surgery. If you do not believe god would want you to join sperm & egg in a lab and put them in a woman, then by all means do not practice medicine. Doctors have no right to subject there restrictive religious code on patients. You took an oath and got a license to practice medicine. That's what practicing medicine is, not "pick and choose".
If you are an electrician, you can't pick and choose which codes to meet or not. If your work does not meet the code, then you will no longer be a certified electrician. You can't do things "your way" just because you want to in these types of fields like law and medicine. If your personal beliefs get in the way, then you are in the wrong field... you need to fit the industry, the industry should not mangle itself to meet your beliefs. Do you think meat packing plants would change their operations if a few vegetarians joined the staff? No, of course not... if the vegetarian does not like what comes with that position, then leave.
MrTroy, even though my sympathies are with your side of the argument... where is it written, anywhere at all, that a doctor must be willing to perform any and all medical procedures? Does it say so in any of the legislation that regulates the medical profession, or in any other laws for that matter? Does it say so in the Hippocratic Oath or anything like that? Does it say so on their license to practice medicine, or on their med school diploma? If not, your comparison to electricians refusing to follow code (for instance) is invalid.
Also, prompted by what ephekt said, I've been reading up on who exactly performs abortions. Ephekt was right; it's not just specialists, and doctors who specifically specialize in abortions and work at abortion clinics aren't the only ones who may be asked to perform one. A woman might well walk into the office of her regular doctor and ask him to perform an abortion. So it's not really accurate to compare it to open-heart surgery or other procedures that are ONLY performed by specialists who have chosen to perform that kind of work.
Last edited by Syme; 04-10-2009 at 12:19 PM.
Since you seem to be unable to read regular size text, again:
THIS IS YOUR OWN FUCKING OPINION THAT YOU ARE SUBSTITUTING FOR FACT,
it is a matter of legal and medical debate, and you are coming out of left field now by adding that in the case of rape or incest abortion is suddenly less of an "elective procedure" than it would be otherwise.
Yes, if someone was deformed in an auto accident or due to a birth defect such as cleft palette, then it is obvious that the plastic surgery neccesary to correct these deformities would not be merely elective since their features are grossly far from normal, and the plastic surgery would be an attempt to bring their features closer to normal so that they can function normally or not be ashamed of their appearance in public. There is a definite and obvious physiological distinction to be made between the condition of the person needing non-elective sugery and the condition of person with features clearly in the range of what's considered normal that just wants to look prettier.
However, whether the child was concieved in a consensual sex act or by rape, there is no difference in the physiological condition of the pregnant woman. The act of abortion would still be just as elective (or non-elective) in either case because the initial physiological conditions are indistinguishable.
MrTroy is making the same error in his argument that I made earlier. Doctors don't have to make available every legal medical procedure. They must make available every non-elective , "neccesary" medical proedure. The argument is then one of whether abortion is a neccesary medical procedure or not.
It is obvious that some medical procedures which merely but profoundly affect quality of life are considered non-elective, such as the correction of non-life-threatening but abnormal facial defects or the prevention or correction of conditions that threaten hearing and sight. So should abortion be considered non-elective? Plan B? Contraception? That is not so clear and is hardly a moot point.
Last edited by sycld; 04-10-2009 at 02:40 PM.
PANDAS
If you don't like them, then get the fuck out.
NO THE FUCK THEY DO NOT.
You cannot name a single goddamned country where this is the case because it is fucking retarded.
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