{"id":3920,"date":"2005-04-07T11:00:05","date_gmt":"2005-04-07T15:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/3920.html"},"modified":"2005-04-07T11:00:05","modified_gmt":"2005-04-07T15:00:05","slug":"the-cruel-limits-of-bill-owens-compassion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-cruel-limits-of-bill-owens-compassion\/","title":{"rendered":"The cruel limits of Bill Owens’ ‘compassion’"},"content":{"rendered":"

In general, I get a little uncomfortable when lawmakers, on either side of the aisle, start playing doctor. That said, a Colorado bill, mandating that health care facilities let rape victims know about their emergency contraception options, didn’t seem terribly intrusive. In fact, it seemed to be a common-sense part of the overall Dem drive to reduce unwanted pregnancies.<\/p>\n

The bill worked its way through the Colorado legislature and generated bi-partisan support. This wasn’t about public funding; it wasn’t even about abortion since emergency contraception prevents a fertilized egg from being implanted in a uterus; it was just about giving victims of sexual assault information so they can make informed choices.<\/p>\n

But my friend Peter R. alerted me to the bill’s disappointing fate: a veto<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Republican Gov. Bill Owens yesterday vetoed a bill that would have forced hospitals to tell rape victims about emergency contraception, saying it would have crossed the line by forcing church-backed institutions to violate their own ethics guidelines.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Owens, who has described himself as a Bush-style “compassionate conservative,” doesn’t have much of an argument here. Essentially, conservative religious leaders told Owens they didn’t like the bill and the governor followed their instructions.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I was struck by how terribly unpersuasive the religious argument was here.
\n<\/p>\n

Timothy Dore, executive director of the Colorado Catholic Conference, said lawmakers had no business telling church hospitals they had to refer rape victims to clinics that would provide a morning-after pill.<\/p>\n

“That was a cooperation with evil we could not tolerate,” he said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Putting aside the argument that it seems far more “evil” to deny information to a rape victim that could prevent an unwanted pregnancy, I was intrigued by the “lawmakers had no business” approach.<\/p>\n

I haven’t gone though the Colorado state budget lately, but if church hospitals receive financial support from the state, then lawmakers absolutely have an obligation<\/em> to regulate how health care services are delivered.<\/p>\n

Private hospitals are rarely completely “private.” It’s not terribly convincing to hear that a hospital will accept public financial support, but not some mild regulation to protect victims of sexual assault.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In general, I get a little uncomfortable when lawmakers, on either side of the aisle, start playing doctor. That said, a Colorado bill, mandating that health care facilities let rape victims know about their emergency contraception options, didn’t seem terribly intrusive. In fact, it seemed to be a common-sense part of the overall Dem drive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}