When the ambulance driver won't take you, because you write porn;

[Pure]

What to do when s/he asserts that to drive you to the hospital would violate his or her conscience.

Should Viagra be available to single men? Let your Catholic doctor and pharmacist decide.

For Some, There Is No Choice

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; Page A06

When the dispatcher called, Stephanie Adamson knew this might be the run she had feared. But it wasn't until her ambulance arrived at the hospital and she saw the words "elective abortion" on the patient's chart that she knew she had to make a choice.
"I just got a sick feeling in my stomach," said Adamson, an emergency medical technician from Channahon, Ill.


Adamson called her boss to say she could not transport the patient to the other hospital where the procedure was scheduled.

"I just knew I couldn't do it. I've never been for abortion -- I've always been against it," Adamson said. "I was brought up in a Christian home and always believed life was precious."

Adamson's supervisor fired her on the spot and dispatched another ambulance to transfer the distraught young patient.
"It was a very long drive home," said Adamson, who sued the ambulance company in May 2004, charging religious discrimination over her 2003 dismissal. "I pretty much cried all the way. I was very upset and scared."

Many religious health workers find no conflict between their beliefs and their jobs. But others describe what amounts to a sense of siege, with the secular world increasingly demanding they capitulate to doing procedures, prescribing pills or performing tasks that they find morally reprehensible.

Beginning in medical and nursing schools, some health workers describe struggling over where to draw the line. Will they refuse to perform an abortion or a sterilization, to fill a prescription for a morning-after pill or to pull the plug on a terminally ill patient? Will they refer patients to health workers who will? Or is that tantamount to being complicit in an immoral act?

Many will discuss their experiences only with a promise of anonymity, fearing being reprimanded, fined, denied promotions or fired. Often they will speak publicly only when they have new jobs.

"I've run into major conflicts with my colleagues who don't understand my belief system," said Jan R. Hemstad, a Catholic anesthesiologist in Yakima, Wash., who will not participate in sterilizations. "I've had a colleague threaten to call the police to say I've abandoned a patient who wanted an elective sterilization."

Ultrasound technician Donald Grant of New Richmond, Wis., was fired by a Minneapolis clinic in 2002 after he prayed with a patient to try to persuade her not to get an abortion.
"I'm not a rabid pro-lifer, but I know what I believe," said Grant, also a pastor at a small Pentecostal church. "I was not condemning in any way. But I had no choice but to speak my conscience."

Pharmacist Gene Herr was fired by a drugstore in Denton, Tex., in 2004 after refusing to fill a rape victim's prescription for the morning-after pill.

"This was the worst-case scenario," Herr said. "This was the hardest decision I ever made. The heinousness of a rape is a horrible thing. But I don't think you should punish a child for the sins of the father."

Fertility specialist James D. Madden, a Catholic, will treat only married couples using their own sperm and eggs.
"I believe the optimal circumstances for a child is to have a mother and a father. They contribute different things to the offspring," said Madden, of the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. "I've sort of picked my way through these ethical issues my whole life, and that's one I haven't gotten comfortable with."

Patrick Pullicino, a Catholic neurologist from Newark, has never agreed to withhold patients' food and fluids.
"I've had many occasions where relatives of stroke victims come up to me and say, 'She's suffering and wouldn't want to live in this state, and we want to withdraw all care,' " Pullicino said. "I've had to tell them, 'You'll have to find someone else.' I couldn't sleep at night if I did some of those things."

He also refuses to work with embryonic stem cells. "I believe it's destruction of a human life. It's wrong."

Family practitioners and obstetrician-gynecologists describe moving from town to town and being shunned by colleagues because they do not want to dispense birth control or morning-after pills or perform sterilizations or abortions. Nurses and physician assistants refuse to dispense the morning-after pill.

Some doctors risk the ire of unmarried men after refusing to prescribe them Viagra.
"I am convinced that God made human beings for man-to-woman marriage, and that is where the sexual relationship should be," said an evangelical Christian who works as an internist in Baltimore. "I will not help foster that relationship outside of marriage."

=====

A Medical Crisis of Conscience
Faith Drives Some To Refuse Patients Medication or Care

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, July 16, 2006; Page A01

In Chicago, an ambulance driver refused to transport a patient for an abortion. In California, fertility specialists rebuffed a gay woman seeking artificial insemination. In Texas, a pharmacist turned away a rape victim seeking the morning-after pill.
Around the United States, health workers and patients are clashing when providers balk at giving care that they feel violates their beliefs, sparking an intense, complex and often bitter debate over religious freedom vs. patients' rights.


Legal and political battles have followed. Patients are suing and filing complaints after being spurned. Workers are charging religious discrimination after being disciplined or fired. Congress and more than a dozen states are considering laws to compel workers to provide care -- or, conversely, to shield them from punishment.

Proponents of a "right of conscience" for health workers argue that there is nothing more American than protecting citizens from being forced to violate their moral and religious values. Patient advocates and others point to a deep tradition in medicine of healers having an ethical and professional responsibility to put patients first.
The issue is driven by the rise in religious expression and its political prominence in the United States, and by medicine's push into controversial new areas. And it is likely to intensify as doctors start using embryonic stem cells to treat disease, as more states legalize physician-assisted suicide and as other wrenching issues emerge.
"What constitutes an ethical right of conscience in medicine, and what are the limits?" asked Nancy Berlinger of the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank. "This keeps getting harder and harder for us."

For Debra Shipley, her duties as a nurse began to conflict with her Christian faith when the county health clinic where she worked near Memphis required she dispense the morning-after pill.

"I felt like my religious liberties were being violated," said Shipley, 49, of Atoka, Tenn. "I could not live with myself if it did it. I answer to God first and foremost."

But Paige Gerson, 37, of Leawood, Kan., believes doctors and nurses should never let their personal values interfere with patient care. Her doctor refused to give her the morning-after pill, citing religious objections.

"I was incredibly angry and just scared to death," Gerson said. "I think it's absolutely wrong to impose your religious beliefs on someone else."

The debate over the right of conscience in health care is far from new. After the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, many states passed laws protecting doctors and nurses who did not want to perform abortions. Oregon's 1994 legalization of physician-assisted suicide lets doctors and nurses decline to participate.

The clash resurfaced with antiabortion pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill. But recent interviews with dozens of health-care workers, patients, advocates, ethicists, legal experts and religious and medical authorities make it clear that the issue is far broader. Many health-care workers are asserting a right of conscience in many settings.

"This issue is the San Andreas Fault of our culture," said Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations. "How we decide this is going to have a long-lasting impact on our society."

Some anesthesiologists refuse to assist in sterilization procedures. Respiratory therapists sometimes object to removing ventilators from terminally ill patients. Gynecologists around the country may decline to prescribe birth control pills. Some doctors reject requests for Viagra from unmarried men.

The conscience debate has a flip side: Some health workers chafe at requests to take extraordinary measures for terminally ill patients or object to Catholic hospitals' bans on abortions, sterilizations and the morning-after pill.

The issue has become acute for some religious workers, especially devout Christians, for whom the concept of "conscience" plays a particularly prominent role. One development after another has challenged their values: treatments using fetal tissue; physician-assisted suicide; the RU-486 abortion pill; the morning-after pill; fertility clinics discarding thousands of excess embryos; and now a looming wave of therapies derived from embryonic stem cells.

"Medicine today is being asked to do all sorts of things that are in conflict with its fundamental healing traditions," said William B. Hurlbut of Stanford University, a member of the President's Council on Bioethics.

The controversy is part of the larger struggle over religion's place in society, mirroring in some ways the fight over teaching alternatives to evolution in schools.
"What the conscience debate, the euthanasia debate, the stem cell debate and the evolution debate all have in common is this collision between a religiously inspired view of life and state regulation," said John C. Green of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, a nonprofit research center.

The issue of refusals in medicine has mostly percolated quietly. Many conflicts are settled informally. Some health-care workers avoid or transfer out of jobs that present moral quandaries. When a conflict arises, co-workers typically step in. Patients often never know it happened.

But confrontations do occur when, for example, hospitals or clinics are unable or unwilling to accommodate a worker's objections. Or an employee refuses to refer patients elsewhere, or is on duty alone or gets drafted to fill in for someone else. Problems sometimes arise after a worker undergoes a religious awakening.

In response, hospitals and other facilities, along with medical groups including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, are crafting policies to defuse potentially explosive run-ins. Lawyers, ethicists and advocates are sparring over how to balance the conflicting rights.

"Freedom of conscience has been central to our political notions since even before the United States existed," said Loren Lomasky, a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia. "People should not be forced into doing things that they find morally odious."
Lomasky and others liken religious objections to abortion, sterilization, and euthanasia to conscientious objections to the Vietnam War and the recent refusal of anesthesiologists in California to participate in executions.

"Why is it that some people would have no compunction in forcing a doctor to participate in an abortion, but if it's painful death by lethal injection, they suddenly find religion?" asked Lynn D. Wardle of Brigham Young University's J. Reuben Clark Law School.
Some argue that health workers should not even be required to refer patients elsewhere for care they find objectionable.

"Think about slavery," said physician William Toffler of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. "I am a blacksmith and a slave owner asks me to repair the shackles of a slave. Should I have to say, 'I can't do it but there's a blacksmith down the road who will?' "

Others say that professional responsibility trumps personal belief.

"As soon as you become a licensed professional, you take on certain obligations to act like a professional, which means your patients come first," said R. Alta Charo, a bioethicist and lawyer at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "You are not supposed to use your professional status as a vehicle for cultural conquest."

Religious objections can be dangerous in emergencies and when health workers refuse to refer patients or inform them about other options, especially in poor or rural areas where there are fewer options.

"It's a very disturbing trend," said Lourdes Rivera of the National Health Law Program, a nonprofit patient advocacy group.
Doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who cannot find a way to fulfill their responsibilities should chose other professions, some say.

"If your religious orientation is such that you can't discharge your professional responsibilities, then you shouldn't take on those responsibilities in the first place," said Ken Kipnis, a philosophy professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. "You should find other work."

Others are less sure where to draw the line.
"The bottom line is, this is a vexed question," said John A. Robertson of the University of Texas School of Law. "There's not some clear way through this thicket yet."

 

[impressive]

Wwjd?

 

[rgraham666]

I'm pretty much on the side of "If your religious orientation is such that you can't discharge your professional responsibilities, then you shouldn't take on those responsibilities in the first place".

Still I have some admiration for those who stick to their principles regardless of what it costs them.

 

[English Lady]

Personally, I think it's fine to have your beliefs as you have them, but it's not right for you to then enforce them on other people. Others have to make their own choice and therefore you should respect those choices. Maybe voice your opinion if you think it's right, but that's as far as I think it should go.

I think it is brave of these folks to take their beliefs to the extreme -I'm just not sure I think it is right.

But Imps reply is right,

WWJD?

It's not easy to stand up for something, especially when you suspect it will loose you your job, but then should you be in a job where part of it involves doing something you don't believe in? hmmm, questions in questions, in questions.

 

[TheEarl]

But others describe what amounts to a sense of siege, with the secular world increasingly demanding they capitulate to doing procedures, prescribing pills or performing tasks that they find morally reprehensible.

Damn right the world's demanding it of them. You take on a job, you take on all aspects of it. You can't do all aspects, then maybe you're in the wrong job.

I think I'd make a great hospital doctor. I don't particularly like the thought of people dying though, so I'll only treat the patients with a positive prognosis. And even then I reserve the right to bail if it looks like they might be getting worse. Plus, I believe that paperwork's a waste of time, so I won't do the bits of the job that involve that either. It's okay; I can pick and choose the bits of the job that I will and won't do. That's fair, right?

I admire them for standing up for their beliefs, but the sense of moral outrage which the article tries to give is ridiculous. Standing up for your beliefs is laudable, but don't be overly surprised when you refusing to do your job results in a P45. Ethical dilemmas are part of being a doctor. You can't do it? Don't be a doctor.

The Earl

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I think this is an indication, and a strong one, that there are casualties in the grey area. It really rather tragic, but necessary. One shouldn't be in a position they can't fullfill--one also shouldn't be expected to fill a position they can't fully do.

 

[impressive]

I think this is an indication, and a strong one, that there are casualties in the grey area. It really rather tragic, but necessary. One shouldn't be in a position they can't fullfill--one also shouldn't be expected to fill a position they can't fully do.

So, the solution is disclosure -- on both sides of the equation -- from the start.

Employer:

"You may be required to _____."

Employee:

"If required to _____, I will ______."

And an agreement to notify the other if these things change. Simple contract.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

So, the solution is disclosure -- on both sides of the equation -- from the start.

Employer:

"You may be required to _____."

Employee:

"If required to _____, I will ______."

And an agreement to notify the other if these things change. Simple contract.

That would be a great way to simplify matters. A job is a job and shouldn't, I think, be expected to contradict someone's essential belief structure in a morally compromising way--similarly, one should not opt out of duty agreed to in light of that. Communication is key.

Would it be that we'd see health care organizations or providers that practiced medicine without indulging in birth control or abortions or whatnot? Possibly. Would this be a sin or a crime? No, I don't think so.

I think we should have a free enough society (and believe we may have it now) where we can support the choice of conviction we want in our doctors. It doesn't make a doctor any less good at what he or she does because they don't want to prescribe birth control. As long as all parties know that's where it ends, I don't see a conflict.

 

[Guest]

Warning -- Soapbox rant forthcoming.

This is one of my hot buttons.

I am of the belief that if one cannot fulfill all the responsibilities of one's job, it's time to look for another job. If the requirements comes as a surprise, perhaps you have grounds for protest, but in these cases such a surprise seems unlikely. This is a person revising their responsibilities after accepting employment and entering in an agreement. None of them, I note, speak about the need to maintain one's word (a contract for employment being a manner of bond and promise), but feel their "conscience" gave them the right to not only dictate behaviors to others but to renig on a promise.

Jesus talks constantly about being responsible for one's own actions and letting other people be responsible for themselves. If you do not agree with abortion, reproductive procedures, etc., you should not use them. It is not up to you to prevent others from using them. That is merely being obstructionist. If you truly walk in the path of your faith, you should take a POSITIVE action. For example, offer to care for a woman who wants to abort a child and to adopt her child after it is born.

That comes to mind because of the blacksmith example. In that, the blacksmith is merely being passive about his beliefs about slavery. He doesn't want to do the work, and he doesn't want anyone else to do it either. But he's not trying to help that slave. He's not offering to buy the slave and set him free. He's not willing to ACT POSITIVELY. He's only willing to sit on his ass and be obstructionist, safe in his own sense of self-rightousness. He only wants not to be involved himself and to prevent others from performing acts he finds objectionable by being an annoyance. Inas much as slavery was a legal institution at the time, the man holding the slave was not acting illegally (yes, slavery is wrong. That's not the point.) nor by that light requesting anything illegal or by his own beliefs, immoral. (Of course, we all know how the Bible feels about slavery. There's just all KINDS of it.)

The person who can quietly live with their faith and beliefs, accepting the difficulties and being an example by her life, is not the person forcing her choices on others nor making choices for them. That is the person who, as soon as she realizes she has taken a choice of action that brings her into conflict with her beliefs, calls her boss and says "Please send down another driver. I can't be an ambulance driver anymore and I must end my contract." Or, as Imp suggests, such things should be discussed and specified before the contract is created.

 

[cloudy]

Warning -- Soapbox rant forthcoming.

This is one of my hot buttons.

I am of the belief that if one cannot fulfill all the responsibilities of one's job, it's time to look for another job. If the requirements comes as a surprise, perhaps you have grounds for protest, but in these cases such a surprise seems unlikely. This is a person revising their responsibilities after accepting employment and entering in an agreement. None of them, I note, speak about the need to maintain one's word (a contract for employment being a manner of bond and promise), but feel their "conscience" gave them the right to not only dictate behaviors to others but to renig on a promise.

Jesus talks constantly about being responsible for one's own actions and letting other people be responsible for themselves. If you do not agree with abortion, reproductive procedures, etc., you should not use them. It is not up to you to prevent others from using them. That is merely being obstructionist. If you truly walk in the path of your faith, you should take a POSITIVE action. For example, offer to care for a woman who wants to abort a child and to adopt her child after it is born.

That comes to mind because of the blacksmith example. In that, the blacksmith is merely being passive about his beliefs about slavery. He doesn't want to do the work, and he doesn't want anyone else to do it either. But he's not trying to help that slave. He's not offering to buy the slave and set him free. He's not willing to ACT POSITIVELY. He's only willing to sit on his ass and be obstructionist, safe in his own sense of self-rightousness. He only wants not to be involved himself and to prevent others from performing acts he finds objectionable by being an annoyance. Inas much as slavery was a legal institution at the time, the man holding the slave was not acting illegally (yes, slavery is wrong. That's not the point.) nor by that light requesting anything illegal or by his own beliefs, immoral. (Of course, we all know how the Bible feels about slavery. There's just all KINDS of it.)

The person who can quietly live with their faith and beliefs, accepting the difficulties and being an example by her life, is not the person forcing her choices on others nor making choices for them. That is the person who, as soon as they realize they have taken a choice of action that brings them into conflict with their beliefs, calls their boss and says "Please send down another driver. I can't be an ambulance driver anymore and I must end my contract." Or, as Imp suggests, such things should be discussed and specified before the contract is created.

Hear, hear.

 

[TheEarl]

Hear, hear.

I'll second that acclamation.

The Earl

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Regrettably, I don't entirely agree with this... its not personal, I just have some problems with some of the parts.

Warning -- Soapbox rant forthcoming.

This is one of my hot buttons.

I am of the belief that if one cannot fulfill all the responsibilities of one's job, it's time to look for another job. If the requirements comes as a surprise, perhaps you have grounds for protest, but in these cases such a surprise seems unlikely. This is a person revising their responsibilities after accepting employment and entering in an agreement. None of them, I note, speak about the need to maintain one's word (a contract for employment being a manner of bond and promise), but feel their "conscience" gave them the right to not only dictate behaviors to others but to renig on a promise.

Is it not the fullfillment of their position, especially for doctors, to judge whether they want to participate in elective procedures?

Jesus talks constantly about being responsible for one's own actions and letting other people be responsible for themselves. If you do not agree with abortion, reproductive procedures, etc., you should not use them. It is not up to you to prevent others from using them. That is merely being obstructionist. If you truly walk in the path of your faith, you should take a POSITIVE action. For example, offer to care for a woman who wants to abort a child and to adopt her child after it is born.

He also talked constantly, and I would say more so, about the need to care for each other. And the Bible in general gives a definitely strong line to the will of God as an arbiter of many questions and intentions. They're not failures in their faith or religiously questionable for the decisions they're making--and I really do consider that an important problem with your point.

That comes to mind because of the blacksmith example. In that, the blacksmith is merely being passive about his beliefs about slavery. He doesn't want to do the work, and he doesn't want anyone else to do it either. But he's not trying to help that slave. He's not offering to buy the slave and set him free. He's not willing to ACT POSITIVELY. He's only willing to sit on his ass and be obstructionist, safe in his own sense of self-rightousness. He only wants not to be involved himself and to prevent others from performing acts he finds objectionable by being an annoyance. Inas much as slavery was a legal institution at the time, the man holding the slave was not acting illegally (yes, slavery is wrong. That's not the point.) nor by that light requesting anything illegal or by his own beliefs, immoral. (Of course, we all know how the Bible feels about slavery. There's just all KINDS of it.)

Not participating in things one finds morally questionable is far from either a sin or a crime.

The person who can quietly live with their faith and beliefs, accepting the difficulties and being an example by her life, is not the person forcing her choices on others nor making choices for them. That is the person who, as soon as she realizes she has taken a choice of action that brings her into conflict with her beliefs, calls her boss and says "Please send down another driver. I can't be an ambulance driver anymore and I must end my contract." Or, as Imp suggests, such things should be discussed and specified before the contract is created.

Contracts would be good.

 

[oggbashan]

Nuremburg

The Nuremburg War Crimes Trials established the principle that you should not obey orders if those orders require you to commit an illegal act.

However, the incidents quoted are not about illegallity but about personal conscience. If you can't do your job for everyone, then you should resign.

During the Second World War, doctors and nurses, in Europe, treated enemy combatants with all the skill and resources they had even if moments before the combatant had been trying to kill their troops. They didn't stand aside and say: "I can't treat this man. He is wearing the uniform of the SS."

Police officers involved in a shoot-out with a drug dealer would not stand aside and let him bleed to death once he had been shot and disarmed. They would try to save his life.

Once you pick and choose who you help, you are putting your personal wishes above service to the community and you should not remain in a job that you cannot do for everyone.

Og

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

The Nuremburg War Crimes Trials established the principle that you should not obey orders if those orders require you to commit an illegal act.

However, the incidents quoted are not about illegallity but about personal conscience. If you can't do your job for everyone, then you should resign.

During the Second World War, doctors and nurses, in Europe, treated enemy combatants with all the skill and resources they had even if moments before the combatant had been trying to kill their troops. They didn't stand aside and say: "I can't treat this man. He is wearing the uniform of the SS."

Police officers involved in a shoot-out with a drug dealer would not stand aside and let him bleed to death once he had been shot and disarmed. They would try to save his life.

Once you pick and choose who you help, you are putting your personal wishes above service to the community and you should not remain in a job that you cannot do for everyone.

Og

But, how does that relate to pure elective, non-life-threatening, non-disease related medical products or procedures? It does, obviously, in part. But the comparison between a doctor saving the life or treating the injury of an enemy of the state is not the same as a doctor refusing to prescribe birth control.

The cases of medical personnel not participating in some of these things (abortion, birth control, morning-after pills, etc.) has more in common with a cosmetic surgeon who refuses to work on breasts or a pediatrician who only prescribes grape-flavored medications than a police officer shooting a citizen and letting them die.

 

[TheEarl]

But, how does that relate to pure elective, non-life-threatening, non-disease related medical products or procedures? It does, obviously, in part. But the comparison between a doctor saving the life or treating the injury of an enemy of the state is not the same as a doctor refusing to prescribe birth control.

The cases of medical personnel not participating in some of these things (abortion, birth control, morning-after pills, etc.) has more in common with a cosmetic surgeon who refuses to work on breasts or a pediatrician who only prescribes grape-flavored medications than a police officer shooting a citizen and letting them die.

I'd say refusing to supply a rape victim with the morning after pill is bordering on intolerable cruelty.

The Earl

 

[matriarch]

...I also tell them that I have simple standards, clear rules, and if they don't want to or can't work by them that I don't need them and they won't work for me.

I am looking for (and repeatedly so, the comment earlier about hiring for labor is really apt) someone who'll do the job, exactly the job, fully the job, perfectly the job, consistently the job... and do so for what they agreed to get in payment for it. In return, they get exactly what was promised--a business relationship that pays them money for working.

Doctor, nurse, paramedic.......they are all just jobs. Admittedly very specialist and important, but to go by Joe's ethos in the employee thread, no different in responsibility to the employer and the requirements of the post as any other.

You are employed to do a specific job, with certain parameters and requirements, if you can't perform them, then you should not be doing the job.

Religious beliefs and ethics that can interfere with the job (like Vick, in the recovering of the child's bed), then you leave the job.

NO-ONE has the right to tell another human being what they can or cannot do with their body. Even if it kills them, even if it goes against every fibre of your being, your conscience, your religious beliefs, the choice is THEIR's, not your's.

I was always taught, when you go to work, you leave your personal life, problems, highs and lows behind you. You are there to do a job of work, the one you're paid for. Do it.

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I'd say refusing to supply a rape victim with the morning after pill is bordering on intolerable cruelty.

The Earl

Then again, from the other side of the fence, killing the child would be intolerably cruel. I think of all the solutions for "pro-life/pro-choice", I find the one where the objectors participate in it none at all and the promoters participate in it as they want is a decent solution.

We may have some growing pains getting there though, and situations like these.

Doctor, nurse, paramedic.......they are all just jobs. Admittedly very specialist and important, but to go by Joe's ethos in the employee thread, no different in responsibility to the employer and the requirements of the post as any other.

You are employed to do a specific job, with certain parameters and requirements, if you can't perform them, then you should not be doing the job.

Religious beliefs and ethics that can interfere with the job (like Vick, in the recovering of the child's bed), then you leave the job.

NO-ONE has the right to tell another human being what they can or cannot do with their body. Even if it kills them, even if it goes against every fibre of your being, your conscience, your religious beliefs, the choice is THEIR's, not your's.

I was always taught, when you go to work, you leave your personal life, problems, highs and lows behind you. You are there to do a job of work, the one you're paid for. Do it.

But, especially in the case of some of the doctors, ethics come into play willfully and appropriately. A doctor doesn't have to do (in these elective situations) what he doesn't want to do... and one can't hold him morally or professionally responsible for one's desire for the amputation of a foot that has no medical imperative.
Several of these situations are ones where there is no imperative, no "duty", but an area of personal choice. If the grounds for that choice are unnacceptable to a person, they can go somewhere else that doesn't have that objection.
You don't like that Chik-Fil-A isn't open on Sundays (because the founder always believed in a Christian-esque Sunday off)? You don't get to sue, because you need nuggets.

 

[Boota]

A Constitutional guarantee of freedom FROM religion would satisfy me as an American. Maybe some Christians need a don't ask-don't tell policy.

I'm on the same page with most here. Do the job or get the fuck out. If you let people establish that they simply don't have to fulfill aspects of their jobs due to their moral or religious objections it can't be long before they start refusing WHO they'll work on. How long before someone says, "I don't work on Jews. They killed my Lord and Savior."

 

[Stella_Omega]

Wwjd?

What Would Jessica Do?

I hope she would do her job. Like Boota, I would like a guarantee of fredom from religion.


It seems to me that these people are, in a sense, handicapped for their job, and have just found it out.
If you were to take a warehouse job, and all of your packages weighed twenty punds, you would have no trouble lifting them. But when the fifty-pound boxes starrted coming in, and you couldn;'t handle those- what do you do at that point? Of course, if a fifty pound box sits on the floor for a while, it won't mind- We humans don't appreciate sitting on the floor for any length of time.

 

[impressive]

What Would Jessica Do?

Um, I was being sarcastic.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Um, I was being sarcastic.

Me too!

 

[Pure]

Joe The cases of medical personnel not participating in some of these things (abortion, birth control, morning-after pills, etc.) has more in common with a cosmetic surgeon who refuses to work on breasts or a pediatrician who only prescribes grape-flavored medications than a police officer shooting a citizen and letting them die.

P: i think that's stretching it a bit, Joe. perhaps sometime when a condom breaks and your girl friend, wife, or daughter is going to the pharmacy for a morning after pill, you will see a refusal that is of a LITTLE more import than the plastic surgeon that won't give women bigger boobs.

and you yourself, Joe. if god forbid, you should have a heart attack, i hope that the ambulance driver does not say, "he wrote SM porn and frequented a website that promoted filth and flouted God's commandments; i cannot in conscience possibly help to undo the punishment God has rightfully handed out to him."

 

[Stella_Omega]

I am NOT going to argue with Joe about abortion.

It's still legal, and we need to keep it that way, that's all.

 

[3113]

Several of these situations are ones where there is no imperative, no "duty", but an area of personal choice.

My problem is with the religious hypocrisy. Much of Christianity emphasizes freedom of choice--that it is essential that people be able to choose good from evil. So, fine, these people are making their choice...but they are doing so at the expense of the other person's choice.

It's one thing to say, "I won't perform an abortion." Okay, that's a moral choice. But "I won't give a woman morning-after pills that she may or may not use as is HER choice, the choice God gave her and SHE alone must make...."

As a philosopher, I'm sure you see the difference. While morning-after pills are most likely to be used for preventing pregnancy, they do have benefits for other types of patients (cancer I believe). So if the pharmicist refuses to give it to a patient, how do they know if they're refusing to give a person a "choice" to *maybe* stop a pregnancy (if the person is not pregnant, the sperm didn't take, then the pill is going to do nothing. There's another sticky issue) and saving a life (cancer)?

And if a woman is in a situation where it's abort or she dies...then isn't the ambulence driver or nurse or whoever still killing? They're just deciding they want the mother to die instead of the baby--so isn't that murder now on their hands, since they took the decision out of the hands of the mother/father? Why are they allowed to follow their conscience...but the person they're deciding for IS NOT allowed to follow their conscience?

Isn't that going against God's will that we all be allowed to make a choice?

Of course, I predict that now that the subject is who gets Viagra, there will be stronger laws about this sort of thing. People will look the other way and even sympathize if such folk deny women morning after pills...but to deny men Viagra! That's just wrong!

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

My problem is with the religious hypocrisy. Much of Christianity emphasizes freedom of choice--that it is essential that people be able to choose good from evil. So, fine, these people are making their choice...but they are doing so at the expense of the other person's choice.

Much more of Christianity emphasizes religious duty and spiritual congress with divine mandate. I mean, if we're going to get scholarly... lets. Freedom of choice is not a Christian tenant (its a political tenant, maybe an American tenant, maybe a democratic tenant), however the preservation of life is a strong tradition (most especially with regard to conception and birth) in the Christian faith.

It's one thing to say, "I won't perform an abortion." Okay, that's a moral choice. But "I won't give a woman morning-after pills that she may or may not use as is HER choice, the choice God gave her and SHE alone must make...."

There are other places for her to get the elective thing she wants, it would be a gross violation of the rights of a doctor to FORCE him to give people optional things (and especially those things he's free to exclude himself on personal or moral grounds).

As a philosopher, I'm sure you see the difference. While morning-after pills are most likely to be used for preventing pregnancy, they do have benefits for other types of patients (cancer I believe). So if the pharmicist refuses to give it to a patient, how do they know if they're refusing to give a person a "choice" to *maybe* stop a pregnancy (if the person is not pregnant, the sperm didn't take, then the pill is going to do nothing. There's another sticky issue) and saving a life (cancer)?

As a philosopher, I have to acknowledge that a pharmacy is a business and there are rights every businessman or woman retains that I strongly agree with--notably, the right to refuse service. While I can appreciate the woman's desire for a morning after pill, I cannot fault a private citizen running a business for electing not to participate in that. It's not a matter of "he's ruining her FREEEDOM!!!!", its a matter of she is still free to go somewhere else--he is, however, not free to conduct business as he sees fit if we force him out of the decision making process.

And if a woman is in a situation where it's abort or she dies...then isn't the ambulence driver or nurse or whoever still killing? They're just deciding they want the mother to die instead of the baby--so isn't that murder now on their hands, since they took the decision out of the hands of the mother/father? Why are they allowed to follow their conscience...but the person they're deciding for IS NOT allowed to follow their conscience?

I would say that saving the lives of people is the hardest and most primary duty of the medical profession. You'll note, at no point have I said yet that people should be allowed to shirk their responsibility to necessary medical procedures--just elective ones.

Isn't that going against God's will that we all be allowed to make a choice?

You're making a False Dichotomy (and several others here are), so I'll explain this clearly...
It isn't a denying of her ability to choose by a private citizen not helping, both parties have the ability to choose in that instance and freely. Your choice, however, cannot FORCE someone to do something they don't want to do--that's where the conflict exists. If I want a Coke and you sell Coke, and I tell you that I want to buy one of your Cokes and that I'm a diabetic in a bad way (and let's not get hung up on the trivia, it can be any other reason why you say "no" from "not WANTING to sell another Coke today" to "I don't like your face")... you don't have to sell it to me. That leaves me freely with the ability to go somewhere else for my Coke.
Me FORCING you to sell me the Coke would violate the essential premises of free choice by telling you that it doesn't matter what you want, what you own, what you're concerned about, how you want to run your business, what morals you have, or otherwise... you will do this unnecessary non-life-saving non-essential thing because I MAKE you do it, because it'd be a lawsuit if you didn't.
If we open the door to deny people the right to NOT do perfectly optional things, we are bringing about questions of civil liberty at its heart.

I am NOT going to argue with Joe about abortion.

It's still legal, and we need to keep it that way, that's all.

I think we need to keep it that way, as well. Improve much of the infrastructure, social climate, and protection for it, too.

P: i think that's stretching it a bit, Joe. perhaps sometime when a condom breaks and your girl friend, wife, or daughter is going to the pharmacy for a morning after pill, you will see a refusal that is of a LITTLE more import than the plastic surgeon that won't give women bigger boobs.

Oh, I knew it was stretching it... I was making a rather dramatic point there. Are you telling me that a morning after pill being not sold by a freely operating businessman is the same as a Police officer shooting a crook and letting him die? Or do you think ogg was stretching a bit as well?

Important question, there.

and you yourself, Joe. if god forbid, you should have a heart attack, i hope that the ambulance driver does not say, "he wrote SM porn and frequented a website that promoted filth and flouted God's commandments; i cannot in conscience possibly help to undo the punishment God has rightfully handed out to him."

So... if I understand you... CPR, nitro, possibly a bypass is in the same category of imperative medical treatment as a morning after pill?