This sounds like legalese wrangling, but it's still not cool.
This sounds like legalese wrangling, but it's still not cool. I also find it bothersome that the articles both use "abortion" throughout.
While it is technically correct that any pregnancy termination, spontaneous or otherwise, or anything that fails to complete its development or growth is termed an "abortion", iirc these were women who were having miscarriages, or had had incomplete miscarriages, and the appropriate care for that includes a D&C, which is a procedure where you have to surgically remove any remaining tissue so it doesn't become septic and harm the mother (or kill her, although that fortunately rarely happens now in the US). Unfortunately, the same technique can be used to end a viable pregnancy, at least early on, so apparently it has become lumped in under the heading of anything that involves touching the uterus.
As far as forcing people to act against their religion, do you really want everyone to start demanding that their religion take precedence over pretty much every other sort of ethics? For one thing, we'd have to close hospitals all the time, except for emergency care, just to accommodate all the potential religious holidays. And what about religious dietary requirements in a hospital? Trying to provide kosher food alone would probably drive people nuts. Although, this would be another reason to kick people out of the hospital as soon as they are semi-conscious. Oh, are they eating, now? Get 'em out of here, it's costing money.
I don't know what the legal wording has to be, but my personal opinion is that I don't give a squirrel's butt about your personal religion. Hence, "personal". If you have entered into a profession in a civil society, the best you can do is offer the best that is available to you as a professional to anyone who seeks your professional services. Pharmacists should not be able to refuse to provide birth control, physicians should not be able to refuse to provide medically necessary procedures, and health care systems should not be able to refuse to allow competent professionals in their employ from offering appropriate medical treatment.
Rather than having intelligent, thoughtful discussions of genuine ethical concerns and the real challenges that all of these things entail in providing medical care (which, btw, would include consideration of various cultural and religious concerns of patients and providers), a very small group of hard-core, zealous ideologues are corrupting the entire system over controlling reproduction. Until that can happen 100% in a lab, or men can have uteruses implanted, that means controlling women and a major facet of their health and well-being. This is not about health or health care. And it should not be legally ok.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2016/04/11/aclu-trinity-health-abortion/82901568/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/11/court-nixes-suit-force-catholic-hospitals-abortion/
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2016/04/11/aclu-trinity-health-abortion/82901568
While it is technically correct that any pregnancy termination, spontaneous or otherwise, or anything that fails to complete its development or growth is termed an "abortion", iirc these were women who were having miscarriages, or had had incomplete miscarriages, and the appropriate care for that includes a D&C, which is a procedure where you have to surgically remove any remaining tissue so it doesn't become septic and harm the mother (or kill her, although that fortunately rarely happens now in the US). Unfortunately, the same technique can be used to end a viable pregnancy, at least early on, so apparently it has become lumped in under the heading of anything that involves touching the uterus.
As far as forcing people to act against their religion, do you really want everyone to start demanding that their religion take precedence over pretty much every other sort of ethics? For one thing, we'd have to close hospitals all the time, except for emergency care, just to accommodate all the potential religious holidays. And what about religious dietary requirements in a hospital? Trying to provide kosher food alone would probably drive people nuts. Although, this would be another reason to kick people out of the hospital as soon as they are semi-conscious. Oh, are they eating, now? Get 'em out of here, it's costing money.
I don't know what the legal wording has to be, but my personal opinion is that I don't give a squirrel's butt about your personal religion. Hence, "personal". If you have entered into a profession in a civil society, the best you can do is offer the best that is available to you as a professional to anyone who seeks your professional services. Pharmacists should not be able to refuse to provide birth control, physicians should not be able to refuse to provide medically necessary procedures, and health care systems should not be able to refuse to allow competent professionals in their employ from offering appropriate medical treatment.
Rather than having intelligent, thoughtful discussions of genuine ethical concerns and the real challenges that all of these things entail in providing medical care (which, btw, would include consideration of various cultural and religious concerns of patients and providers), a very small group of hard-core, zealous ideologues are corrupting the entire system over controlling reproduction. Until that can happen 100% in a lab, or men can have uteruses implanted, that means controlling women and a major facet of their health and well-being. This is not about health or health care. And it should not be legally ok.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2016/04/11/aclu-trinity-health-abortion/82901568/
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/apr/11/court-nixes-suit-force-catholic-hospitals-abortion/
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2016/04/11/aclu-trinity-health-abortion/82901568
I heartily agree with everything you said above, including that it sounds more like the judge didn't like the way the complaint itself was drafted and wasn't interested in trying a case that would obviously be under a lot of scrutiny without a well presented and documented argument up front. I'm not a lawyer, but I've been around this process enough that what the judge said was not something I would want to disagree with until I'd read the actual pleadings myself.
ReplyDeleteThe issues at hand are IMO malpractice rather than religious infringement. And Catholic hospitals should be sued under that. It would be nice not to have to wrangle every case, though.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that would still involve a lot of legalese wrangling with regards to tort law.
ReplyDelete