EDITOR’S NOTE: The following quote is from a press release issued by a right-wing organization. It is not from a news story. –David
Today the Obama Administration published a proposed regulation to repeal the Provider Conscience Rule, which protects medical caregivers against being forced to do procedures contrary to their conscience.
This is a big step towards government tyranny over the medical profession.
Medical professionals should never be compelled to violate their consciences in treating patients. The integrity of the practice of medicine depends on physicians being able to decline to do what they feel is wrong.
Jane Orient, M.D., observed, “It is outrageous that the Obama Administration would move so aggressively to interfere with the practice of medicine in this country. A doctor’s right to conscience is essential to preserving the integrity of the profession, and we will continue to stand in defense of it.”
Barack Obama presented a rather general, formless promissory platform to the American people, when he spoke of “change.” Believing in him, people inscribed their own planks in this platform, and elected him in a landslide. But the Obama Administration is ordering the repeal in its entirety of the essential protection of the right to conscience. This forces physicians and other caregivers to abdicate their own consciences.
Does “change” under the Obama Administration really mean a demand for forced unconscionable behavior? It is beginning to look like it. And the medical profession agrees.
Doctors are forecasting the closure of hospitals and clinics across America and a mass migration of physicians and their assistances to other careers should the Obama administration succeed in its attempt to overrule their rights of conscience.
On balance, the Christian community in America is opposed to abortion. Certainly, the Catholic Church is, as are most of the Protestant churches. The Jewish community as well, tends toward the belief that abortion on demand is wrong. Between them, they comprise the larger percentage of Americans.
And not since the 1770’s have the larger percentage of Americans been ordered to forego conscience by a despotic, mail-fisted government. When will it end, when we all have “666” tattooed on our foreheads?
I more or less gave you a pass on this last time. But this one is absurd. The group that issued this release — the “Association of American Physicians and Surgeons” — is, despite its benign-sounding name, a fringe organization. The ugly details are available here and here.
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p>Source your posts properly, or they’ll be deleted without warning.
I confused AAPS with AAP. And I didn’t recognize Orient’s name, for who she is.
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p>Sorry about that.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Here is a link to which denominations are pro-choice/pro-life. Many of the big ones: Episcopal Church, American Baptist, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) are on the pro-choice list and many of these are large denominations. Of course, there are plenty of pro-lifers among their members just as their are many pro-choice Catholics.
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p>Otherwise, I’m a little leery of requiring doctors to act against their consciences as well.
The ABCUSA boasts about 5000 churches with a membership of 1.5 million. They should not be confused with the SBC, with its sixteen million members and 42,000 churches.
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p>The position of the United Methodist Church with its sixteen members is one of “limited tolerance.” From the wiki website:
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p>The United Church of Christ likewise puts into its statement on abortion qualifiers regarding counseling.
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p>Finally, the PC(US) has a lengthy statement on the issue that is a little confusing, but on balance takes a more conservative position than generally thought.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Of course medical professionals can follow their conscience.
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p>They can choose not to become medical professionals.
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p>I don’t get to become a cop and then complain that it’s “against my conscience” to use force on another person. Pharmacists don’t get to compel their customers to follow their guides of right and wrong.
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p>And no, dealing with a global economy on the precipice of a depression is not a “distraction” from restoring the separation of church and state.
And failing. Medical professionals become medical professionals in order to help people. Medical professionals have never in our (US) history been forced to work against their conscience.
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p>From the Text of the Modern Hippocratic Oath:
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p>I would suggest that ‘benefit of the sick’ would include an unborn child, whose life Obama would force a medical practicioner to take. I would also suggest that the practice of police work is dissimilar to the practice of medicine, in that it does not have very much to do with warmth, sympathy and understanding. If your similes are intended as a defense against Obama’s reprehensible act, they don’t make it. And, I fail utterly to be able to make the leap of faith your discussion about cops and force bring to the table here.
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p>As to the “separation” of church and state, the First Amendment, to which I assume you are referring, Mr. History Teacher, has no “Separation” clause. It has, instead, an “Establishment” clause. I have previously pointed out in these diaries that the ACLU has been handed its head by Circuit Courts more than once for trying to make it read ‘separation.’
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p>Best,
Chuck
Maybe, maybe not — but this “provider conscience rule” is all of, oh, three months old. It was one of the raft of last-minute Bush regulatory changes that he rammed through on his way back to Texas. So don’t go pretending that this protection has been on the books since the founding.
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p>Oh, and by the way, in the wasteful government spending department…
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last year it was decided that pharmacies had to provide seamless service to customers in washington state. this includes filling prescriptions for birth control pills and “plan b”. no wonder he’s hanging onto a never-enforced 3-month old federal policy by his bloody nails. the age of the religious right womb controllers is waning, and he must feel it deeply.
though I understand that the Pro-Choicers recently celebrated the thirty-somethingth birthday of Roe v Wade. I, uh missed that, as I was otherwise occupied giving my dog a bath.
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p>But RvW is the law of the land. Poll after poll shows most Americans would rather have a little less laxity in abortion law, but there it is. While I’m no fan of RvW, I respect the law.
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p>Given what we both know about how Americans feel about it (The Harris Poll of December, 2008, on the subject makes interesting reading, even if it was commissioned by the Catholic Bishops), I do not understand why Obama has taken the position on FOCA that he has. I would surmise he’s being pressured by the Pro-Choice crowd over his campaign promise, but I don’t know that. Yes, I’m very much opposed to both RvW and FOCA, but the former is a done deal. The latter is still open for discussion, I presume.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Antithetical to commerce are laws that differ unexpectedly from locale to locale. For example, if traffic laws differed by county, driving would be more confusing and more hazardous than it is now.
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p>Introducing unpredictability into pharmacies and hospitals, institutions on which we all depend, would seem to mix foolishness with quaintness. Instead of conservatives longing for the McKinley Administration, we have a desire to recreate feudal Europe.
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p>Will progressives have to defend the water supply and the sewer lines, too, against such crusading ultra-conservatives?
but neither was a demand for medical professionals to violate conscience and personal codes of ethics. If FOCA, in its present state, becomes reality (not likely, I agree), the demand will be there.
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p>Best,
Chuck
Where to start. Regardless of what you “suggest”, your valuation of the life of a zygote or fetus is far from consensus, and an attempt to impose your minority view on the rest of America, using pharmacists as your proxy, is not acceptable. I’m sorry you can’t make the simple leap of logic between the exclusions that you like and the exclusions you dislike.
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p>And if you have any interest in history, you may realize that the Constitution is not frozen in the late eighteenth century, but subject to judicial interpretation. Combined with the easily available opinions of the nation’s Fathers such as Adams, Paine, Jefferson, and Madison, it is extremely clear that a separation of church and state was intended for the good of government and religion.
First, regardless of the opinions of the four cited founders, separation is not the law, prohibition of establishment of a state religion is.
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p>Second, if you investigate, you might find that my opinion is hardly minority. I commend to you many polls on the subject, but you will find that the Harris Poll, commissioned by the Catholic Bishops in December, is most interesting.
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p>And as an aside, when I tried to Google up a news source for that poll, I did not find so much as one mainstream media outlet that referenced it. I did find about thirty of the first thirty sites were from either conservative organizations, or conservative opinion blogs. Why do you suppose that is? Or perhaps I’m just being paranoid?
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p>On the other hand, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re NOT out to getcha!
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p>Best,
Chuck