Ohio Passes Controversial Conscience Clause for Doctors
Opposed by LGBT and pro-choice advocacy groups, the measure allows doctors to refuse to perform treatments on moral grounds
Last week, Ohio Republican Gov. Mark DeWine signed Ohio's budget into law with a controversial "conscience clause" intact. This provision gives medical practitioners the freedom to refuse medical services that violate their "moral, ethical, or religious beliefs."
The conscience clause is opposed by some progressive and pro-choice organizations, who argue that it will make it more difficult for LGBT people and women seeking contraceptives or abortions to get the medical care they desire.
The provision reads: "Notwithstanding any conflicting provision of the Revised Code, a medical practitioner, health care institution, or health care payer has the freedom to decline to perform, participate in, or pay for any health care service which violates the practitioner's, institution's, or payer's conscience as informed by the moral, ethical, or religious beliefs or principles held by the practitioner, institution, or payer."
It also specifies that "exercise of the right of conscience is limited to conscience-based objections to a particular health care service," as opposed to protecting practitioners who object to serving a patient entirely.
At a news conference last Thursday, DeWine said, "I think we have to respect people's rights and people's abilities to make those decisions." He said the conscience clause "simply puts in statute what the practice has been anyways. Let's say the doctor is against abortion, the doctor is not doing abortion. If there's other things that maybe a doctor has a conscience problem with, it gets worked out, somebody else does those things."
Not everyone agrees.
"This bill would effectively give medical practitioners of all kinds the license to discriminate against patients, including LGBTQ people, denying them medically necessary, often life-saving care," said Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David in a statement. "Nobody deserves to be denied medical care for any nonmedical reason. This cruel effort threatens to impact more than 380,000 LGBTQ people in Ohio, one of the largest LGBTQ populations in the country."
LGBT advocacy organization Equality Ohio, along with Planned Parenthood Ohio and NARAL Pro-Choice Ohio, also stated their opposition and staged a "Not Our Ohio, Not Our Budget" protest against the measure last Tuesday.
Similar conscience protections already exist at the federal level for health programs and research receiving federal funding.
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But you still have to bake the fucking cake, right?
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Wouldn’t refusing to perform a procedure someone didn’t need or that was unsafe for them fall under moral reasons? I thought the hippocratic oath fell under moral belief.
given the trans insurgency into decent American life, I am surprised the Hippocratic Oath is even still considered relevant. if butchering someone to make them mimic the appearance of another gender isn’t harmful, I don’t know what is.
Don’t worry, it isn’t. It literally makes medical practitioners swear and affirm that they won’t give fatal drugs or perform abortions and that they must be financially responsible for their teachers and offer gratis instruction in medicine to their teacher’s children as well as their own. Everything in the Hippocratic Oath is nearly the antithesis of modern medicine. And physicians haven’t taken the oath for centuries.
And physicians haven’t taken the oath for centuries.
That may be true, but certainly physicians taught in US schools know and firmly believe in the oath that the first job of a doctor is to do no harm.
the perversion of gender revultion.. er revision s/b against all moral laws and the doctors could be prosecuted as criminals.
Chipper Morning Wood————————————————————————–
May.26.2021 at 6:29 pm
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Libertarians have more in common with Marxism than with modern conservatism. It’s sad that it’s come to that, but here we are.
“life saving care” = “indulge my delusions, or I’ll kill myself”
Well if we can achieve the ultimate progressive vision, if you carve your body up and things… you know, don’t work out as you’d planned, the state will help you kill yourself! It’s a wonderful, compassionate world we can look forward to.
Verhelst was euthanized by the state.
Being clear, Verhelst neither wanted nor accepted this ‘treatment’ correct? The story seems to suggest or doesn’t clearly rule out that Nathan/Nancy welcomed death and the state simply obliged. I mean, end state-run medicine, but IDK that the story gets significantly better if Verhelst pays the Dutch Dr. Kevorkian out of pocket.
Verhelst requested suicide. The snippet I took doesn’t show that, and the article doesn’t pretend to suggest otherwise. The story (from a biography from Verhelst ximself, if I’m correct) is designed to show the absurdity of our culture:
)
I have cited this case before, not in an attempt to impugn transgender people, but quite the opposite: To indicate that these people often deserve compassion and respect.
But here is a case of someone who went through a wrenching psychological identity crisis, likely brought about by the cruel indifference of her family and felt that a radical gender transformation would fix it. Instead of dealing with the higher level meta issues, she was rushed, without question into a series of possibly botched or substandard surgeries in an attempt to fix something that was bound to not make her (hence him) not feel any better about himself, and when the reality of that was in plain site, he felt he had no choice but to kill himself. To add insult to injury, Verhelst will be included in “suicide statistics” for “transgender people”, which is always done with a cynical suggestion that its their oppression that’s the root cause of their depression, and not the hast in which we indulge their confusion without hesitation which may actually produce results which are infinitely more cruel.
It’s possible a man having gender reassignment surgery thinks he will be turned into a stunning 18 year old model. Likewise, a woman having the same surgery might think they will be turned into a teen Adonis. If I had implants added and my junk cut off, make no mistake about it, I would be a 59 year old 6 foot tall woman. Not to be insensitive, but there might be some delusional thinking going on.
If I had implants added and my junk cut off, make no mistake about it, I would be a 59 year old 6 foot tall woman.
I would be a fifty-hmm-hmm year old 6’2″ dude with fake breasts and my junk cut off.
So you really are a Paul and not a Diane?
@Diane Reynolds
So are you saying that they should have just euthanized him and not tried anything else first? It’s unfortunate that medical transition didn’t fix this person’s depression, but it’s understandable why they’d try that before euthanasia. Medical transitions have helped a lot of other people feel better about themselves, so they probably thought it was worth a shot.
To name another, less extreme example, a lot of people with colitis or Crohn’s disease try a number of medications that don’t work before eventually having a significant portion of their large intestine removed. But it’s still smart to try medication first. Some people respond to medication, so it’s smart to try that first, even if not everyone does. Ditto for sex-reassignment surgery. It doesn’t work for everyone, sometimes gender dysphoria is comorbid with regular major depression. But it works for enough people that it’s worth a shot.
I am also not sure why it’s cynical to suggest that the majority of suicides by trans people are caused by oppression. That’s just being accurate. It’s true that, just like cis people, trans people sometimes commit suicide for reasons unrelated to their gender or society’s reaction to it. But the fact that they have a fairly high suicide rate indicates that oppression causes a large chunk of it, especially since that rate is lower for those whose transitions are more successful.
No you fucking one shot wonder, that’s not what Paul is saying, and you know it.
You’ve wandered into the den of the shit stirrers, amateur, prepare to be eaten.
He’s saying that the state should have tried a bit harder to deal with the underlying psychological issues that a person whose mother, upon their death, was quoted as saying ‘When I saw “Nancy” for the first time, my dream was shattered. She was so ugly. I had a phantom birth. Her death does not bother me. I feel no sorrow, no doubt or remorse. We never had a bond.’ might very well have.
It’s not transphobia or a suggestion that trans people be euthanized outright to point out that a person with that sort of home background might have other issues.
So in the example YOU give, other methods to remedy, alleviate or manage the condition are tried first before the most radical option. Now this may be crazy, but that appears to be the suggestion here to deal with the underlying rejection& self-worth issues instead of jumping right into the gender reassignment nuclear option.
Medical transitions have no noticeable improvement to the trans community suicide rates.
We don’t stop the mental issues of anorexic by starving them first.
Frontal lobotomies would reduce suicide rates, though! /sarc
So are you saying that they should have just euthanized him and not tried anything else first?
If that’s what you got from my comment, I fear that reading the rest of your comment will be an utter waste of time, and not worth the reply.
Really? Where is the evidence that they ever help?
I’m not aware of any “oppression” of trans people in our society. Can you give specific examples?
But the fact that they have a fairly high suicide rate indicates that oppression causes a large chunk of it
yeah, not the obvious mental illness (or symptom thereof) of believing your body is “wrong”.
that couldn’t possibly explain it.
Yes. Verhelst’s problem wasn’t a botched sex change operation; plenty of men live rich and fulfilling lives after penile cancer, accidents, or paraplegia. His family and his community failed him, and no sex change could fix those problems.
Did they fail her, or did they simply not pander to her delusions?
If healthcare is a right, you can’t refuse to provide it– and that goes all the way down to the individual, not just the institution. End of discussion.
While some may say it’s a right, that doesn’t impose an obligation on a specific practitioner.
If it’s a right, someone has to provide it to you. It’s not like freedom of speech that you have in the absence of the state. This is a positive right, and positive rights don’t provide themselves.
Any positive right will turn into a wrong at the point of enforcement.
It apparently imposes a right to bake a cake or take pictures…
Access to Healthcare is a right. Someone providing you Healthcare is a resource they can choose to offer up.
Like the second amendment, the right to healthcare is subject to common sense controls. Not being treated like a slave and forced to do certain work is one of those controls.
The Second Amendment protects your right to keep and bear arms, it doesn’t give you the right to keep and bear arms and it certainly doesn’t compel the government to give you a free gun if you are unable to afford one. Yet.
That’s why it’s not a right- because someone will have to provide the labor for it, and no one has a right to anyone else’s labor.
You forgot the generally accepted faggot, tranny, and darkie exception to every libertarian principle.
This ^. Why do so many people not understand this basic concept. Last time I checked, slavery was still illegal.
This is controversial because of the pro-abortion (it is ridiculous to call them “pro-choice” on this issue) and the Trans Activists totalitarian stance on what they want.
It’s a pretty nasty commentary on how far we’ve gone in rejecting liberty, that something like this would be controversial at all.
So doctors in Ohio will be able to refuse treating Covid patients who refused to get vaccinated?
yes.
Not sure how a Survey by the UK health system of UK doctors is relevant to a law on the practice of medicine in a US state.
If healthcare becomes a right, we will be having the same discussions. Today, for now, it’s mostly live and let live…. but If your tax dollars paid for other peoples’ healthcare because it’s a right, you might start caring about what others do to their bodies.
It also specifies that “exercise of the right of conscience is limited to conscience-based objections to a particular health care service,” as opposed to protecting practitioners who object to serving a patient entirely.
Right there. In the article.
Oh, and side note, suggesting “treatment” of COVID patients might get you unpersoned from the internets.
Vaccination is the ONLY “treatment”.
“So doctors in Ohio will be able to refuse treating Covid patients who refused to get vaccinated?”
Because not getting a poorly-tested cytotoxic mRNA vaccine is exactly the same thing as demanding to be castrated or having a limb amputated to indulge a fetish.
I identify as a fit person. I need my beer gut amputated.
“This bill would effectively give medical practitioners of all kinds the license to discriminate against patients, including LGBTQ people, denying them medically necessary, often life-saving care,”
Is this implying medical professionals will deny care simply because someone is LGBTQ? Or are they claiming specific procedures will be denied?
Presumably – both sides assume the worst. Court cases will indicate what happens.
One side has already acted on the worst. The trans community sued a doctor for not performing a hysterectomy on a male.
I’m failing to see how this comes into being much in the normal, good faith actor course of medicine outside something specific and general like early abortion. Outside that everything is specialized so outside bad faith actors there shouldn’t be much to grab onto.
Please give specifics, not “sky is falling” activist handwaving.
Bad faith actors, sure. I can see activists going to a GP and demanding their body dysmorphia diagnosis and accompanying surgical treatment knowing their faith, but should patients be able to compel doctors to a diagnosis and/or treatment? Are their any gay/lesbian specific treatments outside conversion therapy (which I’m assuming the activists aren’t championing)?
The conscience clause is opposed by some progressive and pro-choice organizations, who argue that it will make it more difficult for … people … to get the medical care they desire.
Indeed, what better way to get the care you desire than by forcing an unwilling provider?
Yeah, I just don’t get why people think it’s a good idea to force a medical provider to perform procedures they have moral objections to.
Perhaps some day we may get to the point where we recognize freedom of association as a basic human right and that engaging in commerce does not abrogate that right. I realize that “gentleman farmers”, the landed aristocracy, looked down upon tradesmen as only one step removed from the peasantry, people that were forced to work for a living, and therefore beneath contempt, but maybe some day we’ll be willing to grant that even poor people should have rights. Not as many rights as our moral and intellectual superiors, of course – let’s not be absurd – but perhaps more rights than they currently have bestowed upon them through the magnanimity of their betters.
“Perhaps some day we may get to the point where we recognize freedom of association as a basic human right and that engaging in commerce does not abrogate that right. ”
Perhaps some day we will reach the point that a Reason writer will celebrate legal recognition of this principle. Not write a nail biting milquetoast recitation of a few details.
Perhaps some day we will reach the day where Reason loses its billionaire sugar daddies and a real libertarian magazine can take its place.
The left’s objection to it is that they believe you are a cog in the wheel of society and if you don’t do what they tell you then you have failed their loyalty test and may be shunned or worse. Left democrats don’t believe in rights except to extend them to privileged castes.
In the meantime you bet they want to force medical practitioners to perform abortions and give young people harmful drugs. This law is a good first step to deny the violent left what they want.
The conscience clause is opposed by some progressive and pro-choice organizations, who argue that it will make it more difficult for LGBT people and women seeking contraceptives or abortions to get the medical care they desire.
ORLY? No gay doctors who would deny care to conservatives? No ‘both sides!’?
Dr. Gay M.D.: “Mr. Conservatard I’m going to have to advise you to seek treatment from someone else, as I do not think I can provide adequate care to someone I do not agree with.”
Mr. Conservatard: “Well, ok. Thanks for your honesty.”
Every time I’ve heard this discussion brought up, the question immediately turns to EMTs. Frequently, there’s at least one (pro-)gay EMT that’s pretty overt about saying they wouldn’t treat Christians if it was an option. Somehow the devout Christian EMTs never turn up to say similar.
2 things strike me as odd about the issue; 1. that at the higher abstract level, the exact opposite appears to be true and 2. the ‘medical care is a human right’ crowd, appear to really mean that abortions, sex transitions, and addiction treatment is a human right. The wrong kind of people who need emergency medicine through no fault of their own can go fuck themselves.
the exact opposite appears to be true
Or is presented as true.
Wouldn’t refusing to perform a procedure someone didn’t need or that was unsafe for them fall under moral reasons? I thought the hippocratic oath fell under moral belief.
Ohio population 2020 – 11,799,448
Claimed LGBTQ population – 380,000
0.3% should be able to dictate the work done by others, just like they are slaves? I think not.
It’s actually 3%.
That includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans and everything else.
3% would be over 3 million – I doubt their numbers reach such heights in Ohio.
L’OMGWTFBBQ-+*?!
Aren’t these assholes always screaming about democracy or something?
I wonder what medical care gay men and women would be unable to get. When LGBT comes up in these discussions, don’t they usually just mean the T?
I’m sure you could fit the people who identify as dragons or are sexually attracted to same in there. Though they’re probably more looking for a psych eval coming back clean, or at least mostly harmless rather than treatment.
Nobody should be coerced to do anything for anybody, but Physicians with ethical, moral, or religious objections to certain procedures should make it above-board and specified in their advertisement or directory listings, along with their palette of services offered and (best of all) their prices.
This would save everyone a lot of trouble, as well as bring price competition to medical practice.
I disagree.
1. There’s a ton of shit that a doctor could *potentially* do. Is every doctor who chooses to limit his practice in some way then be required to put out a 500 page document listing everything he won’t do?
2. We already have a solution to this.
“Doctor, I want you to do this.”
“Sorry, I don’t do that.”
Then you go and call another doctor.
3. If this can be applied to doctors, why could it not be applied to everyone else. List all the things you won’t do for money because of ethical, moral, or religious objections.
The short is you don’t need to cite reasons why you don’t do something. “ I am not qualified in that procedure” is just fine. Every doctor has what they do or not.
The question only arrives when we are talking about when you do something for one patient and not another based on your belief or faith. Medical ethics has long held out against that and even religious belief gives it a pass.
From the oath of Maimonides.
“May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain.”
That is a rock solid foundation. It has served the profession and trust in it for thousands of years.
I do not know if this law erodes that trust. It is certainly politically motivated and not necessary.
You seem to think the bill is to allow discrimination of patient when what it does is allow discrimination of which procedures they might do. There are federal laws requiring doctors and other places of business (like real estate) to not be able to discriminate against potential clients – this law cannot supersede the federal law.
In any event, if anyone read the constitution anymore, or of people who called themselves libertarians, and took it [document/philosophy] seriously, doctors should already be allowed to discriminate against any patient they wish for any reason they wish, but that’s considered ancient history.
& since now they’re saying words are violence…. I think even by arguing freedom of association on some social platforms would earn one a quick suspension, followed by a ban if it didn’t stop.
Intriguing individual who would lawyer a doctor into performing surgery on their junk.
Maybe find another doctor, ace?
Its controversial because ‘freedom of association’ is controversial to libertarians nowadays.
Now, shut up and bake the fucking cake.
Progressive philosophy has become a religion. A fucking puritanical, fundamentalist, and violent religion. Their drive to make us all submit is putting Islamic extremists to shame.
And much like cancerous groups like ISIS, we may be forced to spill blood.
I do love all the cake references. He couldn’t be forced to make a cake that he didn’t want to make, but if he had the cake in stock he does have to sell it, even if he dislikes the customer. I think this logic should apply to doctors. If it is a quick visit and the doctor can do these things without preparation, like writing a prescription for Ritalin ( which I would object to as I think this is dangerous medication that is over prescribed), it is reasonable to expect the doctor to do it anyhow. After all, doctors have made themselves the gatekeepers to accessing medicine in the USA, even though most of think that is crazy. But, I get why somebody might object to being forced to complete a surgery or complicated procedure for something they believe is not helpful to the patient and/or immoral. Back in the day, many doctors were told to perform lobotomies on patients, basically sticking an instrument through the nose or eye and scrambling part of a person’s brains, as a way of helping. Nowadays we see this as completely nuts, but they thought they were being morally responsible at the time. I would hope that if I was a doctor and lived in that time that I would have objected to that type of procedure and would have refused to perform it. And I would hope that nowadays doctors wouldn’t lose their medical licenses over refusing to complete acts that they thought were similarly repugnant.
“I do love all the cake references. He couldn’t be forced to make a cake that he didn’t want to make, but if he had the cake in stock he does have to sell it, even if he dislikes the customer. ”
And there is the point of the leftist propaganda. He DID sell cakes to anyone.
What he objected to was artistic creation (aka speech) of a political position he disagreed with by DECORATING the cake to celebrate sin.
doctors have made themselves the gatekeepers to accessing medicine in the USA
In the past 5 yrs. I’d put my visits to doctors to visits to RNs or NPs at about 1:5.
Had a bit of a medical mystery that I went to see the doctor about (that resolved without conclusive diagnosis). Otherwise, it would’ve been exclusively RNs and NPs over the past 5 yrs.
” If it is a quick visit and the doctor can do these things without preparation, like writing a prescription (for any medication)”
That statement says more about your ignorance of the practice of medicine than just about anything else. And I’m first in line to call them out over their arrogating authority over the use of drugs. But that does not mean I also ignore what is actually going on in making a decision to treat.
But, in a sense it is entirely unsurprising that someone who eitehr does not understand, or does not value mental efforts would make such a mistake.
It already does – this bill is just trying to make sure it continues to be that way.
Though as a libertarian, I personally believe doctors should be able to discriminate against a person or a procedure for any reason at all, even irrational ones.
That pesky freedom of association….
So it’s a moral travesty for Facebook to have to abide by the rules of its own platform and treat Democrats and Republicans similarly, but conscripting doctors to perform abortions and sex reassignment surgeries is not only kosher but any law interfering in this conscription is authoritarian and “controversial”.
It’s too bad doctors don’t have their very own “first amendment of medicine” that supersedes the actual first amendment like tech oligopolists have their “first amendment of the internet”.
“It’s too bad doctors don’t have their very own “first amendment of medicine” that supersedes the actual first amendment like tech oligopolists have their “first amendment of the internet”.”
Ever get the impression that the main reason the editors here use these drive-by twits to write these sorts of article is specifically to avoid having their noses rubbed in their own steaming piles of hypocrisy?
Shouldn’t a doctor be allowed to not perform a procedure they don’t want to?
If I was a dentist and a Mormon came in wanting a cavity filled I’d tell them to get Heavenly Father to do it.
Or if I was sure I wouldn’t get caught I’d kill them, but that probably wouldn’t happen…
Oh no! I guess it’s a good thing you’re a self-confessed homeless, unemployed, drug addict, alcoholic welfare queen venting his impotent rage and murderous violent fantasies on the internet despite being too much of a pathetic pussy to accept the fight you were challenged to and instead tried to get Tulpa to fuck you at a Ministry concert, sarcasmic. Whew, that was a close one!
I’m not sarc.
You probably should change your password then, because he’s accidentally outed himself while using your account on at least 10 different occasions.
2 flags for the asshole
In libertarian philosophy, yes, you can be the bigot you’ve always wanted without government interference.
But since bigots like you are just low life pieces of shit who cannot overcome their anti-race/anti-religion, you would be rightfully shunned by libertarians and most other humans. Because you’re a piece of shit bigot.
The only good thing about you is that you willing and openly share with everyone what a bigot you are. It helps others know who to avoid in the future.
This is the current state of Ohio? Or in other words, THE Ohio state.
You’re hilarious Gumby!
I fucking hate Ohio State though
You hate every place populated by people more intelligent than you, sarcasmic. Unfortunately that gives you a very, very narrow range of acceptable places. Mostly in sub-saharan Africa.
3rd asshole flag
“I fucking hate Ohio State though”
Go buckeyes!
Good for them.
Now if only I could do the same with my taxes.
If you are a gigantic media company running a social media site that has global impacts, you don’t have to serve all customers. You can pick and choose.
Even better, if you do choose to accept a customer, you can change the terms of that contract at whim.
And even better than that, you can selectively edit that customers published thoughts should you so choose, presenting that customer’s public face in a manner of your choosing.
And this, to the vermin that call themselves ‘Libertarians’ at Reason, is just fine.
But, be open and up front and tell a customer that you cannot help them, for reasons unacceptable to progressives (and this is important, because it’s perfectly fine to figuratively punch ‘nazis’), and that, to the scum that write at Reason, is the only crime they’re not opposed to using capital punishment to cure.
Figuratively? I think it goes a bit further than that.
Excellent point: Reason and the gaggle of non-libertarians who call themselves libertarians have argued endlessly that social media companies can pick and choose customers based upon any reason they want, even if they are actively discriminating against a subset of people based upon their shared beliefs.
But if you’re a doctor, or even worse a baker, those rights suddenly disappear.
Bravo Reason – you are now as worthwhile to read as Paul Krugman.
PS: While I joke about it, Reason used to be a beacon of libertarian thought and by being dedicated to a single philosophy, things like this used to never happen. It’s sad to see the destruction of their credibility happen so quickly when it took decades to gain the well-deserved credibility Reason once enjoyed. Credibility high enough that they set a standard for other media companies to follow – not any more…. 🙁
We really need a moratorium on rights vs. privileges.
If your imagined “right” grants you the ability to infringe upon another persons natural rights, it is a privilege, not a right.
Compelling someone to violate their beliefs and sin is not a right. If you don’t like that a doctor can be devout, move to another country that forces you to choose between your occupation and your beliefs.
Whether we call them privileges or civil rights does not matter to me. So long as we recognize what you note – when they bump up against a natural right, such as free association, or contract, or privacy (which includes the right to be left alone) they lose.
Anytime your ‘right’ requires the participation of another it is not an actual right, it is a social construct.
Healthcare is not a constitutional right.
I will say the same thing here that I say about bakers. Would you want to have a doctor do a procedure that you forced them to do? I would think their heart wouldn’t be in it and in the end it might not go well. Just like, would you eat food you forced someone to make for you against their will.
Why would you want to force anyone to do anything for you when there are doctors and bakers that will gladly take your business.
Exactly, who exactly is this going to protect? Besides, would this only apply to requests from a patient? What if it was an insurance company, employer, next of kin, or government asking you to do something that you found to be not only inadvisable, but morally reprehensible? Yeah sure, forced sterilization would go against my personal beliefs, but I can’t object because well, this person with temporary power of attorney asked me to. Guess I have no choice.
Forcing doctors to do what they find morally objectionable is scary AF. If we assume that just because someone has a legal power to do something, they must obviously have the best interests of the patient at heart.
How about we keep politics out of business and medical transactions and we can all leave our bigotries at home?
Antidiscrimination laws exist because society had a discrimination problem. “Just go to a restaurant that will serve you, what’s the big deal?” There might be one in the next state.
Looks like progressive and pro-choice organizations have to be concerned about being canceled. Welcome to the world.
Seems like redundant grandstanding, but in today’s environment I could see this evolving into a complete obliteration of the physicians’ duty of care. The right not to treat a heart attack on a plane if the guy is Muslim, etc.
Should that happen, I demand one minor amendment to the social contract: Doctors have to be called Mister and Ms., because the only reason they’re entitled to be called “Doctor” is so that you can shout at them from across a room, under the assumption that they are duty-bound to treat the guy choking to death.
Otherwise they are not, as is sometimes assumed in American money-obsessed culture, at the top tier of the traditional social hierarchy. They are at the level of lawyer and priest, technicians of the person if you will, the ones who show up to deal with the aftermath of your life.
That’s why professors, whose occupation is one of leisure, are higher ranked, and thus err ironically when they adopt “Doctor,” which they mistakenly assume is an upgrade.
But this all comes from England where leisure was considered a noble pursuit. That’s why they kicked out the Puritans, from whom we inherit the cultural practice of working until we drop, lest we find time to masturbate.
Normally I never respond to anything you say.
I will try it just once.
I am a medical doctor.
And I would refuse to assist in performing an abortion.
And I would refuse to assist in any procedure that removes healthy tissue, like a sex change operation.
(Without getting too deep into the weeds,I do assist in prophylactic mastectomy in women with the BRCa breast cancer gene)
This law would prevent the hospital from firing me for my refusal.
Even though I object to these procedures, I would of course help in life saving surgery for anyone who presented to the hospital.
There is no medical person who would refuse to treat LGTBBQ people who require routine or life-saving treatment.