Religious Beliefs of Health Care Workers to Trump Those of Patients
Ronald Bailey | November 18, 2008, 10:42am
That is, if new "religious discrimination" regulations being rushed through by the Bush administration stand. President Bush and his minions evidently don't believe that they've done enough damage yet, so they are trying (as prior administrations have done) to impose new regulations before they return to a well-deserved exile in the private sector. In this case, as the New York Times reports:
A last-minute Bush administration plan to grant sweeping new protections to health care providers who oppose abortion and other procedures on religious or moral grounds has provoked a torrent of objections, including a strenuous protest from the government agency that enforces job discrimination laws.
The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and drugstores from requiring employees with religious or moral objections to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” financed by the Department of Health and Human Services.
reason warned that this was coming:
Can pharmacies, stem cell labs, or abortion clinics refuse to hire people who believe their activities are evil? The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t think so. The agency is circulating draft regulations that would outlaw employment discrimination on the grounds of religious and moral beliefs by any entity that receives the department’s money.
Since Washington’s subsidies are so ubiquitous, the rule would apply even to local pharmacies, because the feds pay for some prescriptions. In effect, the government’s money is serving as a Trojan horse for the administration’s moral agenda.
The tension between the moral choices of health professionals and the interests of their patients has never been resolved. After Roe v. Wade affirmed a woman’s right to obtain an abortion in 1973, Congress quickly passed the Church Amendments, permitting health care providers that receive federal funding to refuse to perform or assist abortions or sterilizations on moral or religious grounds. This means, for example, that Roman Catholic hospitals don’t have to offer these services but can still receive government money. The Church Amendments also prohibit employment discrimination against health care providers who object to abortion.
Fortunately, there is a way out for people who find that certain medical treatments offend their consciences:
“Religious freedom is an important part of the history of this country,” Richard S. Myers, a professor at Ave Maria School of Law, told The Washington Post. “People who have a religious or moral belief should not be forced to participate in an act they find abhorrent.” Myers is correct. But why should the religious beliefs of others trump those of patients and employers? People who don’t want to participate in medical procedures they find abhorrent have a simple solution: They can choose to work elsewhere.
Whole New York Times article here.
John | November 18, 2008, 11:37am | #
This post doesn't make any sense. On the one hand there is
"The proposed rule would prohibit recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and other health care workers who refuse to perform or to assist in the performance of abortions or sterilization procedures because of their “religious beliefs or moral convictions.”
But on the other hand there is
"The tension between the moral choices of health professionals and the interests of their patients has never been resolved. After Roe v. Wade affirmed a woman’s right to obtain an abortion in 1973, Congress quickly passed the Church Amendments, permitting health care providers that receive federal funding to refuse to perform or assist abortions or sterilizations on moral or religious grounds. This means, for example, that Roman Catholic hospitals don’t have to offer these services but can still receive government money. The Church Amendments also prohibit employment discrimination against health care providers who object to abortion. "
How is the rule anything new if the Church Amendment already prohibits people from being compelled to perform abortions? Maybe it goes beyond just that. But the NYT article seems to imply that prohibiting the discrimination on the basis of refusing to perform an abortion or sterilization is something new. Which is it?
Beyond that anyone who thinks that a hospital should have the right to force its doctors to perform abortions or lose their jobs is a whackjob. The medical field is a large field. People ought to be able to opt out of things that violate their beliefs without losing their jobs. To take the liquor store example above. The medical field is not a liquor store it is a grocery store. If you ran a grocery store that sold beer and wine and a few of your otherwise good employees said they can't handle the beer and wine section for religious reasons, if you were anything but an intolerant dickhead, you would say fine and just put them to work doing other things.
Admittedly there is a limit to this kind of thing. If accommodating people's religion would end a particular lawful service, like being able to take a dog in a taxi or sell liquor in a store that only sells liquor, then that is a problem. So if these regulations really would make it impossible for hospitals to carry out lawful function, versus just making a reasonable accommodation for a few people who object, then they are bad. But the article doesn't make that clear. It just lists out a bunch of accusations made without support.
How would having a religious person working at a pharmacy prevent that pharmacy from giving out birth control? Can't you just have someone else give out the birth control pills? Is there really going to be a wave of religious people trying to get hired by pharmacies to overwhelm the system and keep them from issuing the stuff? I doubt it. It seems more likely that most people won't care and this will just make pharmacies make an accommodation to the occasional objector.
Maybe this is a bigger deal that it appears. But there are no hard facts in either the article or Radley's rant to indicate why it is.
Formerly Jennifer | November 18, 2008, 5:29pm | #
A customer has a reasonable expectation that his or her request to purchase or consume a legal product or service will be honored, if that product or service is available.
If you went to a seafood restaurant, you would expect that your shrimp alfredo entree would be delivered to you to eat; even if, by some highly unlikely coincidence, the only available server were an observant Jew who keeps Kosher. If you went to a grocery store, you would expect that the cashier would allow you to purchase your coffee and wine, even if the cashier was a Mormon.
How is this different? Oh, yeah, it's about women pursuing happiness by having sexual relations with other people without the fear of the life- and liberty-changing effects of pregnancy. (BTW, even tubal ligation is only 99.9% effective! http://www.ccli.org/nfp/contraception/tubal.php)
In some places, the physical effect of denying a woman birth control is small, although the mental effect may be greater. OTOH, in rural areas, where you have to drive 40 minutes to get anywhere and the nearest town is a gas station, firehouse, five-and-dime and two churches, this is likely to be a substantial hardship.
a girl pointed out upthread that birth control is not only about contraception - my Catholic best friend took the pill for years to mitigate the symptoms (including severe pain) of her endometriosis.
An aside: do these (unfortunately NOT hypothetical) pharmacists dispense Viagra or Cialis? Wouldn't that be just as immoral? Or would they follow the lead of many insurance companies, who cover Viagra but not BC?
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/colb/20010103.html
My first insurance plan (before there was Viagra) covered the cost of childbirth or abortion, but not birth control.
Formerly Jennifer | November 18, 2008, 11:25pm | #
I don't remember anyone except J sub D saying anything about forcing pharmacies
to stock medicines they currently don't, or hospitals to perform procedures they
have made known in advance that they don't do.
My problem is with someone claiming a moral objection to handing a customer
something that is on the shelf behind them.
J sub D, I completely agree with your 9:07 post. The owner should be able to
decide what products to carry and what services to perform. The employee should
follow those guidelines or be subject to termination. The article you linked
above seemed to say that a major part of the insufficient pain relief for
minorities is the refusal of doctors to prescribe the medication in the first
place, citing a belief that minorities are more likely than whites to be
abusers. This is directly relevant to the original post. The failure of local
pharmacies to stock the drugs to begin with, and whether they should be forced
to by law is, IMO, not. (Although it IS interesting :))
TAO, I don't think that anyone said that pharmacies must carry BC; some of us are saying that IF the pharmacy DOES carry BC, an employee should NOT have the right to refuse to dispense them on some vaguely worded "moral grounds".
I brought up ED drugs to point out the sexual double standard. These drugs allow a man to enjoy sex with another person. BC make it easier for a woman to enjoy sex with another person. (Believe me, the fear of pregnancy tends to sour the mood.) Is it more immoral for a woman to enjoy sex than it is for a man? If so, why?
Apparently substantial hardships are just fine if they only apply to women. Would you be saying the same thing about the overnight cashier who refuses to sell you condoms, because your lack of a wedding means that you are intending to have extramarital sex, which is "immoral"?
Honestly, I think that denying women access to birth control materially violates their constitutional guarantees of liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
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