Posted on 06/16/2005 9:01:37 AM PDT by hocndoc
N.Y. hospitals to deny choice on abortion training
At least the left is honest enough to let us know their real intentions.
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physicians, nurses, and pharmacists are increasingly claiming a right to the autonomy not only to refuse to provide services they find objectionable, but even to refuse to refer patients to another provider and, more recently, to inform them of the existence of legal options for care.
This raises the question of what medical care may be refused under the cover of concience. Abortion seems the main one discussed; perhaps birth control pills; maybe blood transfusions. Could a doctor refuse to prescribe a particular drug because she considers the drug company to be sleazy? How about denying care to illegal aliens, smokers, drunks, drug addicts, soccer fans? (That's a bit different, one isn't denying care under because the care is problematical but because the patient is.)
Actually, I do know a Pulmonologist who will not care for people who continue to smoke.
However, matters of conscience are not that complicated: the first priority is to do no harm, while the second is to do good. *Elective* abortion is not done to save life, while abortion to save the life of the mother (rare as they are) and blood transfusions are.
Even in the case of ectopic or tubal pregnancies - when treatment is an emergency and not elective - the doctrine of double effect has long led physicians to remove the entire fallopian tube. The child dies as a result of this action, but his death is not intended. Newer techniques intended to preserve the mother's fertility (opening the tube and removing only the child or administering drugs to kill the child in place) turn out to be more dangerous for the mother and more likely to result in later, repeat tubal pregnancies or infertility.
And, of course, Charo begs the question as to whether or not "emergency contraception" is "emergency," "contraception," or, whether in fact, it causes an abortion.
I believe that when you compel healthcare providers, especially physicians who took some version of the Hippocratic Oath, from which the clause, "First, do no harm", has been distilled from the Latin, "Primum non nocere", to act against their conscience is the essence of tyranny.
Compelling actions by healthcare providers which is against their conscience is different from discriminating which patient is worthy of treatment.
I remember reading a story in the British Medical Journal about a smoker who needed coronary artery bypass surgery whose surgery was delayed because the patient still smoked. After the patient managed to quit, the patient died shortly before the scheduled surgery.
Personally, I believe in free will, and that we are all sinners.
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It would have been great if Nazi Germany had doctors with consciences.
"Personally, I believe in free will, and that we are all sinners."
And so does Alta Charo, or she wouldn't constantly be trying to change things. She just doesn't recognize her own bias - or the natural source.
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