Conscience Clauses - not just for birth control anymore

[neadods]

I've raged often enough in my LJ about women who are denied birth control by pharmacists who won't dirty their moral righteousness by their duty to their customers.

Well, remember that slippery slope that I kept bitching about? How it wasn't going to just stay birth control, how this was the wedge to start denying all sorts of things on religious grounds? It's begun: A California appeals court last week sided with the doctors, Christine Brody and Douglas Fenton, saying they can claim religious liberty in refusing to treat a patient who was gay because it was against their Christian beliefs.

We're sliding down that slippery slope, people, and we're picking up speed. Both sides admit that this case is exactly what it looks like it is - not a discussion about fertilization or right to life, but the test case on "whether a doctor can choose who to treat based on religious beliefs."

The doctors are claiming that they didn't refuse to treat her because she was gay, they refused to treat her because she wasn't married. Discrimination based on marital status, y'see, is not prohibited by law. Except for that charming Catch-22 that there is no gay marriage in her state...

Comments

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

This is so disgusting, I can barely wrap my brain around it.

Some people are so wicked they take my breath away.

I hope it gets appealed, and is slammed.

What I hate most about this is how it fuels the anti Christian rhetoric. If this is the kind of behaviour these people think Christ would indulge in, there is no hope for them. And there's little hope for religious tolerance, because they are so intolerant.

No wonder you foam at the mouth. I would too.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

What I hate most about this is how it fuels the anti Christian rhetoric

In America, being a "Christian" who makes the rest of the world hate Christianity is a cottage industry. Phelps, Falwell, Robertson, Dobson... they're all modern Pharisees. And then they've got folks like O'Reilly pumping his "War on Christmas" because of course, true religion is found in how they greet you at Target when you go to worship the almighty dollar, not in church.

It's particularly bad right now because of the conflation of religion and politics. Our government has fallen to the control of dominionist pharisees and the rest of us were so terrified by 9/11 that we handed everything over to them.

The best grim hope I have is that the pendulum always swings - and that our gov't has built in a peaceful uprising every 2 years and a relatively peaceful revolution every 4...

[karenmiller.livejournal.com]

An interesting corollary to this question:

does a doctor have the right to refuse to perform an abortion because it's against their code of ethics?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Yes, and many are refusing to even learn any of the abortion procedures in med school (nevermind the number of women who need D&Cs because the fetus died in utero and hasn't passed...)

However, the preferred tactic appears to be harassing the clinics out of existance and stalking doctors.

If I sound unsympathetic, it's because I've become so. People should not be forced to do anything that they consider deeply immoral. But at the same time, health care providers, be they pharmacists or doctors, have to realize that their rights do not trump their customer's rights to get legal services. This sort of thing has become a hot button because doctors and pharmacists aren't just saying "I cannot do that due to my beliefs" but destroying prescriptions or, as in the case cited above, sending the patient through months of treatment before getting around to saying "by the way, I won't finish the job."

The old "your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins" also applys to health care, but you wouldn't know it from the "my religion uber alles" attitude of the cases that keep hitting the paper.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

If the Jewish Anti-Defamation League doesn't jump all over this one, they're missing a trick. Gays today, Jews tomorrow...

[neadods.livejournal.com]

It was women first. Now they're heading on to the gays...

[peggin.livejournal.com]

I can't tell you how much this pisses me off... but how little it surprised me.

I wonder if the court would have given the same decision if the doctor had refused to treat someone because they were a Christian. Somehow, I doubt it.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Some folks are howling over the term "holiday" instead of Christmas (which only goes to prove they don't know what holiday actually means.) IMAGINE the furor if someone didn't get treatment because of their religion!

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Russ suggests that, since they strung her along thru thousands of dollars of tests before dropping the bomb, she may have a case for a "bait-and-switch" contract-law suit in federal court...

[moropus.livejournal.com]

That's a very good point. Why did they put her through all those tests and take her money if they weren't going to inseminate her?

[neadods.livejournal.com]

If they rejected her at the door she could have claimed discrimination (earlier.) I think that by treating her in all ways but the important one the doctors thought they were covering their butts against a denial of care suit.

Except for the unfortunate part where they did finally deny care...

[elasg.livejournal.com]

That just SO disgusts me I can't even begin to tell you.