Right to Life?
Today’s Washington Post reports on growing state legislative trends affecting the provision of health care.
If these people cannot perform their duties as public health providers they need to change professions. They have every right to their own beliefs but no right to foist those beliefs on people who differ from their world view. This drive to make everyone conform to their ideas is an expression of doubt at the heart of their own beliefs. If someone thinks differently from them, they see it as a threat to what they believe, which somehow must invalidate their position; not as an instance of a diverse world that is complex enough to harbor differences.
They couch their actions as a philosophy that believes in the “Right to Life”. It is time for that movement to admit candidly what its underlying motives are and change its name. The only “life” they care about is from the moment of inception to the moment of birth. Anti-abortion, although referred to and publicized as pro-life, should really be called anti-sex; in particular when it is sex performed outside marriage. A pro-life position that cares about life in its entirety would not favor reduction in Medicaid a month after the devastation of Katrina and Rita. It would not reduce social spending for health needs or to mitigate poverty, while leaving the tax cut untouched, nor would it countenance 45 million Americans without health insurance. It would not propose eliminating food stamps for 300,000 people.
Once birth occurs the concern for the newborn's remaining life disappears. Birth is the penalty conservatives want “undisciplined” people to pay for not being abstinent, for not following the standards that “right-to-lifers” believe should govern all lives. Getting pregnant was a mistake and the perpetrators should not be allowed to escape the consequences of their acts. It doesn’t matter that newborn children will also pay that price. And certainly no taxpayer money should be available to help people who get themselves into such a position. If people cannot succeed economically, conservatives believe that it is their fault and government should not be available to provide a safety net.
The most blatant example of this is the news last year that a recently developed cervical cancer vaccine, which promises to eliminate 10,000 cervical cancers and 3,700 deaths of women per year, is seen by conservatives as a problem, for they fear it will be a message to teenagers that pre-marital sex is now safe. They are considering mobilizing to stop the distribution of this vaccine, preferring death to the possibility of increased sexual activity.
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.
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.
The issue is gaining new prominence this year because of a confluence of factors. They include the heightened attention to pharmacists amid a host of controversial medical issues, such as the possible over-the-counter sale of the Plan B morning-after pill, embryonic research and testing, and debates over physician-assisted suicide and end-of-life care after the Terri Schiavo right-to-die case.
"The so-called right-to-life movement in the United States has expanded its agenda way beyond the original focus on abortion," Lois Uttley of the Merger Watch project said. "Given the political power of religious conservatives, the impact of a whole range of patient services could be in danger."
Doctors opposed to fetal tissue research, for example, could refuse to notify parents that their child was due for a chicken pox inoculation because the vaccine was originally produced using fetal tissue cell cultures, said R. Alto Charo, a bioethicist at the University of Wisconsin. "That physician would be immunized from medical malpractice claims and state disciplinary action," Charo said.
If these people cannot perform their duties as public health providers they need to change professions. They have every right to their own beliefs but no right to foist those beliefs on people who differ from their world view. This drive to make everyone conform to their ideas is an expression of doubt at the heart of their own beliefs. If someone thinks differently from them, they see it as a threat to what they believe, which somehow must invalidate their position; not as an instance of a diverse world that is complex enough to harbor differences.
They couch their actions as a philosophy that believes in the “Right to Life”. It is time for that movement to admit candidly what its underlying motives are and change its name. The only “life” they care about is from the moment of inception to the moment of birth. Anti-abortion, although referred to and publicized as pro-life, should really be called anti-sex; in particular when it is sex performed outside marriage. A pro-life position that cares about life in its entirety would not favor reduction in Medicaid a month after the devastation of Katrina and Rita. It would not reduce social spending for health needs or to mitigate poverty, while leaving the tax cut untouched, nor would it countenance 45 million Americans without health insurance. It would not propose eliminating food stamps for 300,000 people.
Once birth occurs the concern for the newborn's remaining life disappears. Birth is the penalty conservatives want “undisciplined” people to pay for not being abstinent, for not following the standards that “right-to-lifers” believe should govern all lives. Getting pregnant was a mistake and the perpetrators should not be allowed to escape the consequences of their acts. It doesn’t matter that newborn children will also pay that price. And certainly no taxpayer money should be available to help people who get themselves into such a position. If people cannot succeed economically, conservatives believe that it is their fault and government should not be available to provide a safety net.
The most blatant example of this is the news last year that a recently developed cervical cancer vaccine, which promises to eliminate 10,000 cervical cancers and 3,700 deaths of women per year, is seen by conservatives as a problem, for they fear it will be a message to teenagers that pre-marital sex is now safe. They are considering mobilizing to stop the distribution of this vaccine, preferring death to the possibility of increased sexual activity.
posted by John Weiss at 12:18 PM
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