Hippocratic or Hypocritical?
| By meganjbrock - Jan 30th, 2006 at 10:37 am EST |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
This makes me sick.
OK, so the first part of that is nothing new - conservatives have been trying to protect pharmacists who don't want to give out birth control or the morning after pill since Priscilla Owens' notable case a few years ago.
But what was that last part? "perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians". Has our nation slid so far that we will legislate people into second class citizenry? I thought we got rid of that.
Thanks again to Phyllis Schlafly and to all of those she convinced to give up their rights to equal pay, equal health treatment, and marriage to whomever they please in fear of the unisex bathroom.
The proposed legislation goes from the highly politicized to the somewhat mundane:
It threatens to deny all of us - men, women, and children alike - basic medical services that have been in common practice for decades.
Has politics infected one of the most widely necessary professions in the country? Are we so blinded by homophobia and politics that we can't see it fit to provide someone access to basic health services?
More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients' rights.
About half of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control and "morning-after" pills because they believe the drugs cause abortions. But many are far broader measures that would shelter a doctor, nurse, aide, technician or other employee who objects to any therapy. That might include in-vitro fertilization, physician-assisted suicide, embryonic stem cells and perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians.
OK, so the first part of that is nothing new - conservatives have been trying to protect pharmacists who don't want to give out birth control or the morning after pill since Priscilla Owens' notable case a few years ago.
But what was that last part? "perhaps even providing treatment to gays and lesbians". Has our nation slid so far that we will legislate people into second class citizenry? I thought we got rid of that.
Thanks again to Phyllis Schlafly and to all of those she convinced to give up their rights to equal pay, equal health treatment, and marriage to whomever they please in fear of the unisex bathroom.
The proposed legislation goes from the highly politicized to the somewhat mundane:
Doctors opposed to fetal tissue research, for example, could refuse to notify parents that their child was due for a chicken pox inoculation because the vaccine was originally produced using fetal tissue cell cultures, said R. Alto Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin.
"That physician would be immunized from medical malpractice claims and state disciplinary action," Charo said.
It threatens to deny all of us - men, women, and children alike - basic medical services that have been in common practice for decades.
Has politics infected one of the most widely necessary professions in the country? Are we so blinded by homophobia and politics that we can't see it fit to provide someone access to basic health services?
!
Comments are closed for this post.
It should be a goal of Progressivism to eliminate label-based legislation that seeks to label and then discriminate based on that label.
Sure, there are appropriate labels for distinguishing between humans (age, for one); but race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and the like do not warrant legislation aimed at explicitly providing or denying these groups specific rights that are guaranteed for humans without the labels.
Legislation that seeks to create a right for religious groups to deny serving people that violate their religious beliefs is certainly "respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." Essentially, this legislation allows Americans to use their religious tenets against other Americans by denying them services that they expect. Whether or not you like it, Atheists, Agnostics, Scientologists, and Wiccans are all religious groups that deserve the same freedom of religion as Christians.
This is especially detrimental in rural communities, where there may not be more than one pharmacist to choose from, forcing women to travel much further to acquire the same birth control that the Supreme Court has established as a protected extension of our right to privacy. This means that the pharmacists religious beliefs takes precedent over a woman's right to easily access birth control, and that definitely establishes the religion above the woman's needs and rights.
If a business doesn't want to serve gays and lesbians, or blacks, or Jews, or unmarried women who want birth control, I think the best answer to that is boycotting, bringing economic pressure to bear, or even the simple act of selecting another company.
I'll be a firm believer in the value of equality and a tolerant society until the day I die, but I don't see how legislating to force the decisions of private businesses to be what we'd like is the answer.
...That seems the type of thing that would be very easy to handle with disclosure laws, much the same as we mandate a certain level of information on food packaging.
If a doctor wants this exemption/immunity for not telling you about one of your health options? He should have to let you know that that's what he's doing.
Similarly, doctors must be willing to give that information up over the phone, before you come in for a visit.
I think this sort of progressive legislation, combined with the "freedom of choice" legislation the Right is proposing, would prevent some of the more dire circumstances you describe without the state commandeering the selling decisions of the health sector.
I hate to bring up the subject of "urbanite elitism" on a site like this, since it's frequently a right-wing smear against the left, but I have to ask what the smallest town you've ever live in is. For me, that's Albion, Michigan, with just around 11,000 people and declining. There are three places in Albion to get a 'script filled. One is the Rite-Aid, which does not guarantee it will fill contraceptive prescriptions. One is Felspauch Grocery and Pharmacy, which hasn't made its position public and is too small to have a website. The third is a local drug store that serves much of the Albion College community called Parks Drugs, which currently offers EC but may, as an independent retailer, change its mind depending on local pressure. That means there could be a community of over 10,000 people, including over 5,000 at a college, without access to birth control or emergency contraceptives.
The nearest town of any size to Albion is Jackson, MI, literally the birthplace of the Republican Party. It's more than 15 miles, and as Albion is a fairly impoverished town (the steel industry left in the '80s), many people lack transportation (not to mention that, in mid-Michigan, the roads are often undrivable during winter months).
Now, Albion is far from a unique community. Think about how many Deep South and Midwestern towns are similar in having few pharmacies and accessibility issues. Do you honestly feel that preventing the people in those communities from receiving their prescriptions and adequate medical care is an ethical or conscionable decision?
Interesting parallel: think about how many people will not be able to access abortion providers if Roe is overturned and it becomes a state-level issue. The immediate impact is that many women will lose the right to choose overnight, as many areas simply will not have any providers left (think Alabama).
We're not talking about some abstract concept of entrepreneural liberty: we're talking about the people's ability to receive medical care.
Let me apply free market economics here...
Many would say stakeholder theory is wrong, which is when companies try to appeal to many constituencies (employees, stockholders, community members, etc.). Some argue that stakeholder theory does not work because when you try to appeal to many different entities the company fails.
In the value maximization principle, companies try to improve their stock value and therefore increase everyone's interest in the long-term.
So, I would argue on the basis of free market economics and the value maximization principle, that doctors are in business to help patients, not themselves and certainly not any other interests. If they dont want to help their "stockholders"/patients then they should be put right out of business.
On a more pragmatic less theoretical basis, do you know what would happen to healthcare in the red south if we said that this was ok? I would argue it might be very difficult for women to get even birth control pills. Thoughts?
Wouldn't this then create an economic incentive for doctors and other services to spring up offering these pills? Or otherwise make other parts of the country comparatively more desirable to live in, attracting away the disproportionately well-off and productive females who regularly purchase birth control?
To me, this seems almost like if the New York government mandated that New Yorkers weren't allowed to be rude to one another. Sure, I'd rather New Yorkers were nice to me when I visit, but is it the business of the legislature?
I guess I am very concerned about the possible minority of women that would lack access to birth control. If Griswold v. Connecticut is overturned, then state legislatures may make things like emergency contraception illegal and god forbid, regular birth control. (seems outlandish, but then again aren't the rest of the arguments we're having with the religious right outlandish as well? i.e. No, really we were once the third guy from the left on the evolution chart)
Maybe there would be migrations to more liberal populations in the long-term, but we must think about the short-term. Young women, particularly teenagers, lack the mobility to gain access to birth control if it is far away.
Also, I cannot imagine what it would be like to go and pick up birth control pills and be shamed. Now I would jump over the counter, but that is just me. Many women would be fearful to return or perhaps fill their prescription elsewhere.
If for some reason this sort of legislation passes where pharmacists are somehow "protected" from women seeking birth control, then companies with those sorts of policies must fully disclose their practices. I'm not talking about some little footnote in their financials or in the bottom corner of paperwork, I'm talking about banner in front of the pharmacy that says, "We may not fill your birth control pills depending upon the personal beliefs of our pharmacists." That is pro-consumer and is by no means putting a burden on the pharmacy.
I want to express my indignation that this debate is even occurring. )*$&%()$*&!
That said, I think that whenever humanly possible, forcing businesses to engage in transactions that they don't want to do is not a good way to fix the problem.
How about tax incentives in these areas, for instance?
I guess my fundamental thought is this:
I think it's unconstitutional, and illegal, to ban a woman from buying contraception.
I don't think, however, that if nobody is willing to sell a product, we should force a company to sell it.
The same with women who buy birth control being intimidated.
You can't legislate people being nice to one another.
The only sustainable solution is to change the culture that causes that intimidation.
On this principle, we fully agree.
Builders' boycott kept facility from being constructed Link
Lack of providers (even where it's a protected right)
Link
Abortion providers targeted on a "hit list":
Link
As for making other parts of the country more attractive--you know that many people who consider the likelihood that they or their children may have a medical emergency requiring an abortive procedure when choosing where to live (not to mention the millions too poor to move themselves to more hospitable climes).
Call me a rank sentimentalist, but the "disproportionately well-off and productive females who regularly purchase birth control" aren't my main concern. The 19 year-old girl scraping by working double shifts that can't afford a child is slightly higher in my priorities list--that's why I support across-the-board equal access protected by law.
Equal access how? Let's find ways to ensure equal access without using the government to directly tell companies which products they should sell.
Or, like I already suggested, we ensure that Medicare and Medicaid dollars cannot be spent in those businesses that do not adere to the concept that pharmacists dispense what doctors privately tell patients they need.
Another issue--you treat the patient on the table, period. If a doctor has a problem rendering care, or if a pharmacist thinks that prying into your medical history is more important than filling a doctor-issued prescription, then they're in the wrong business.
My suggestion: threaten to cut Medicare and Medicaid dollars to any pharmacist or health-care provider that discriminates. Our tax dollars shouldn't be used to advance a bigoted agenda (and I think we can all agree that this certainly constitutes a bigoted agenda).
Who's to say whether they're in the wrong business or not? The government? That's the sort of logic that leads to state commandeering of the economy.
If their employer thinks they're in the wrong business, they can fire them.
If their customers think they're in the wrong business, they can (assuming the above ways I talked about of information-sharing) choose not to do business with them.
Business transactions are choices. Forcing people into business transactions is, as a general rule, a terrible blow to individual liberty.
I'm not up on the specifics of how these programs dole out dollars, so I can't comment with certainty on whether or not this would work, but on its surface this sounds like a very sensible proposition.
No, it's the sort of logic that defends the state's ability to mandate protections for workers in the first place. There is a vested state interest in maintaining the provision of certain industries and practices for the public good ("promote the general welfare," as it were).
Medicine is not some rank-and-file industry. They're not making widgets. They're charged with offering care and treatment when called upon to do so--that's the oath they take. As to whether or not pharmacists should have to distribute what a doctor prescribes for a patient--how can you protect the essential liberty of doctor-patient confidentiality if a pharmacist, lacking in the medical training required to dispense medical advice or counsel, seeks to interject himself into that protected relationship, then it's a hollow protection.
That and they better not be giving out VIAGRA!!!!!!!!!!! I'd love to see some liberal moles go protest viagra as the Christian right to prove a point. It'd be funny to see the reaction to that one.
In terms of federal dollars to bigoted vendors or government entities, it's Title SIX, not seven, that I meant to cite. I apologize and admit my error. Good catch. (Always ironic when that happens while someone is chastising someone else about a dearth of knowledge, n'est-ce pas?)
As to Title VI, however, the only exemption that pertains here is "abortion neutrality," and since no pharmacist performs abortions in the US, it doesn't particularly apply to them. Like I said, this could be done through Medicare and Medicaid disbursements. But that takes a legislative majority, so here's looking towards November.
The other thing I was raising about Title VII, which if I'm wrong about, please correct me - it seems as if Title VII is all about the relationship between the employer and the employee.
Has there been some court precedent that the words of Title VII are also applicable to the relationship between the business and the customer?
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. -Modern Hippocratic Oath