{"id":6479,"date":"2006-01-30T12:18:11","date_gmt":"2006-01-30T17:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6479"},"modified":"2006-01-30T12:18:11","modified_gmt":"2006-01-30T17:18:11","slug":"culture-war-shifts-to-health-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/culture-war-shifts-to-health-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture war shifts to health workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost a year ago, the Washington Post ran a front-page item<\/a> on pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions when medications violate their “personal moral or religious beliefs.” It caused a fuss, but the scope of the issue was not altogether clear. It was a solid article, but it was vague about how serious a problem this is nationwide. It talked about “some” pharmacists, but didn’t say how many. It mentioned a new “trend” in the culture war, but didn’t say how broad the trend is.<\/p>\n

Apparently, it’s a trend that’s reached the big time<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Because many legislatures have just convened, advocates on both sides are predicting that the number debating such proposals will increase. At least 18 states are already considering 36 bills.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I just can’t figure out why this is even a legitimate controversy. Pharmacists, by virtue of their professional responsibilities, agree to fill prescriptions. Doctors prescribe a remedy, a patient seeks that remedy, a pharmacist provides the remedy. It’s a pretty simple system. If a pharmacist realizes that he or she may be called on to perform tasks with which they’re uncomfortable, this person has a choice: do the job or find a different job in which these moral quandaries won’t be an issue. In other words, if you don’t like filling prescriptions, don’t become a pharmacist<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The same is true throughout the health care field. John Cole summarized<\/a> this nicely: “If your religious beliefs interfere with your job providing any and all desired or required care for a patient, you have several options — change your job, change your religion, suck it up and hope yours is a forgiving God.”<\/p>\n

But that’s not what many legislatures and conservative activists have in mind. Some are even worried about “cyborgs.”
\n<\/p>\n

“This goes to the core of what it means to be an American,” said David Stevens, executive director of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations. “Conscience is the most sacred of all property. Doctors, dentists, nurses and other health care workers should not be forced to violate their consciences…. “We are moving into a brave new world of cloning, cyborgs, sex selection, genetic testing of embryos.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Cyborgs<\/i>? We need legislation in part because there’s a fear over cyborgs<\/i>?<\/p>\n

At least it’s encouraging to know we’ll be addressing these issues in a reasoned, intellectually-serious way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Almost a year ago, the Washington Post ran a front-page item on pharmacists who are refusing to fill prescriptions when medications violate their “personal moral or religious beliefs.” It caused a fuss, but the scope of the issue was not altogether clear. It was a solid article, but it was vague about how serious a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479","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=6479"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6479\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}