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Why is HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt Blogging About Abortion?
I can't decide which end of the latest abortion kerfuffle is more inappropriate:
The US Department of Health and Human Services's ill-fated (I hope) attempt to redefine birth control as abortion,
OR,
the fact that HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt is blogging about it on my dime:
"I'm delighted to announce that with the help of Planned Parenthood, my blog—for the first time—received more visits than my teenage son's MySpace page. Perhaps I'll address the subject of physician conscience one more time."
Tough call. Either way, I want my tax dollars back.
Read more about the Medical Right's latest volley in the choice wars here, here, and here.
I think what Secretary Leavitt and the Bush administration are trying to do to women's rights is loathsome. But should we really object when the Secretary uses his blog to defend and explain his actions? Isn't this a little paranoid, that we shouldn't be allowed to hear his (erroneous) views?
As a lifelong Democrat, I am NOT a fan of the current Bush Administration, by any stretch of the imagination. However, in an e-mail to Ross Heckmann of California Democrats For Life, Clark D. Forsythe, president of Americans United for Life wrote:
"The Bush administration is considering a proposed policy that would require all recipients of federal money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to certify that they will not discriminate against healthcare providers who object to participating in abortions.
"In response to the proposed policy, abortion advocacy groups engaged in a classic attempt at misdirection, arguing that the policy would negatively impact women's access to contraceptives.
"However, a careful reading of both the draft policy and the multitude of existing federal laws protecting healthcare freedom of conscience clearly
shows thatthis policy is directed at abortions, both surgical and chemical (e.g., those induced using RU-486).
"Americans, by a large margin, support the right of individuals to refuse to
participate in procedures (like abortion) that violate an individual's conscience, morals, or ethics.
"Rather engaging in a meaningful and honest discussion of the issues, abortion supporters are feverishly trying to shift the debate to one in which they feel more confident of acquiring some modicum of public support.
"The proposed policy simply provides an oversight mechanism to enforce more
than a dozen existing (and many long-standing) federal protections for healthcare freedom of conscience.
"This step by the Bush Administration is necessary to ensure that existing
federal law is enforced and to protect the freedom of conscience of all Americans."
Vasu, that's a little disingenuous, don't you think? If someone goes into business as a doctor or pharmacist and then refuses to prescribe or to fill legitimate prescriptions, where does s/he draw the line? Deny blood pressure or cholesterol medication to fat people because it's their fault they don't lost weight? Withhold insulin from people who don't eat properly? The only reason to deny birth control is on their own private religious grounds, which has no place in American POLICY. If they cannot do their jobs in "good conscience" they should find another line of work. Why should they be legally allowed to cause harm and distress to women on the basis of their own personal self-righteousness? I don't see anyone refusing to fill a prescription for Viagra. Just saying.
Vasu Murti,
Hard to see what your stance is, unless you reposted these quotes because you approve of the ideas expressed.
So this guy is saying he wants to "protect" those whose consciences won't let them perform abortions?
Um... no doctor has to perform abortions who does not want to. No doctor DOES perform abortions who does not want to do so. Some doctors choose to make themselves available to perform this medical procedure. Some clinics choose to make this procedure available to women. Those who do so, know that some people find that reproachable. The fact that medical personnel still choose to meet women's health needs shows that they know how great that need is.
No one is being forced to perform abortions. There is no need at all to "protect" doctors against being forced to violate their conscience. If they object morally to abortions, they won't do them. Problem solved. When was the last time you forced your doctor to do something he was morally opposed to? Good luck!
Outside of Right Wing chain emails, no one is forcing medical personnel to do things they don't think are right. There are easier ways to make a living, than supporting patient's needs with a threatening crowd waving signs at you. To do that sort of thing takes commitment.
If the government should be protecting anyone, it's someone who suffers from shouting (if not shooting) faith-based lunatics, when he or she performs a necessary and legal act that the loonies don't happen to like, and yet think they have any say about, in spite of what the Supreme Court ruled about it.
But was that the proposal, to protect doctors acting legally from illegal intrusions? No.
Instead, this blogging agency head, who should be defending women's right to healthcare, creates a perception of a problem, and then presents the "solution" to that imaginary problem.
This is what the Bush appointees were charged with: tearing down the walls that protect Americans, and putting up walls that confine and imprison us. He's only got a few more months to act. It's clobberin' time!
Pretty much, it's time to baldly scare the programmed minions into believing that they have to take away someone's rights.
And you buy it.
This is how brainwashing feels, Vasu. Not much to it, is there? You just believe someone's lies, without taking the trouble to pick them apart, and -- voila! -- you're a tool of "guided democracy."
Even if you have your own moral stance against abortion, you're still either falling for a lie, or participating in one yourself, by spreading this tripe as if it were legitimate concern for a non-existent "victim".
Vasu Murti-- the right of an individual to refuse to participate in a procedure that goes agianst thier morals ends in the professional arena. As a bartender, I cannot refuse to serve a drink to a pregnant women--despite all the evidence showing that alcohol negatively impacts a fetus--becuase to do so constitutes discrimination and I can be sued for it. A physician or pharmacist who refuses contraceptions to an unmarried woman on the grounds that it violates their own personal ideas of morality is likewise guilty of discrimination. It is never okay to force your morals on another person!
It is never okay to force your morals on another person!!
So if a person happens to be a doctor, and Your morals say that abortions are OK, while His/Hers say otherwise, it's OK For You to force Them to violate their own morals and do the abort for you? But if they wish not to be involved in your decision to have an abortion, simply by declining to take part, they are thereby forcing their morals on you?!? Even they are not forcing you to do anything, or NOT do anything, by their choice?
WHO is doing the forcing in these scenarios?!?!
You're saying, essentially, that EVERY Doctor (or health care provider) must perform EVERY procedure that might logically fall within the scope of their practice? Is that correct? They have no right to opt out of performing a procedure they don't feel comfortable with?
Furthermore, would you WANT a doctor who had a personal, moral objection to a certain procedure to be forced to perform it, it YOU were going to be the patient?
Let's try a parallel.
We've got a plastic surgeon who is comfortable with the morality of performing restorative surgery for accident victims, and correcting birth defects, but who has a moral objection to plastic surgery for vanity's sake. (Obviously NOT someone practicing in California!)
Do you want this person forced to do your nose job?
Help me out here. When has a doctor ever been forced to do an abortion? As far as birth control is concerned, if men had pregnancies, we would not be having this discussion. Hmmmm. What if men had the babies and women got to take the viagra? Just a thought.