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Bozita

(26,955 posts) Wed Dec 12, 2012, 08:24 PM Dec 2012

Doctors with moral objection could refuse services to patients under bill (MI) House panel passed

Source: Detroit Free Press

Doctors with moral objection could refuse services to patients under bill House panel passed
5:12 PM, December 12, 2012
By Kathleen Gray
Detroit Free Press Lansing Bureau

LANSING — On a straight party-line vote, the state House insurance committee voted today to approve a bill that would allow health care providers and facilities to refuse service based on a moral objection, religious reasons or matters of conscience.

The bill now moves to the full House, and if approved, would move to Gov. Rick Snyder for his signature.

The bill, which has passed the Senate, “respects religious freedom,” said the bill’s sponsor, Sen. John Moolenaar, R-Midland. “But also allows for the best medical care.”

-snip-

But opponents of the bill said it could have many unintended consequences, including denying health care for things such as birth control pills or to patients with AIDS, or denying services to people who contract diseases from certain behaviors.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20121212/NEWS06/121212033/Doctors-moral-objection-could-refuse-services-patients-under-bill-House-panel-passed?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

The GOPers in the state government of Michigan are on a real fucking tear during this lame duck session.

My thanks to all MI citizens who found other stuff to do more important than voting in 2010.

11 replies

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Doctors with moral objection could refuse services to patients under bill (MI) House panel passed (Original Post) Bozita Dec 2012 OP

and heaven05 Dec 2012 #1

Um, I don't think the AMA accredits such "doctors." PSPS Dec 2012 #2

The real problem is it allows the Reich Wing to target doctors and pressure them McCamy Taylor Dec 2012 #6

The docs will lose patients. Who would really want to depend upon someone like that, anyway? Judi Lynn Dec 2012 #3

As a doctor, I say this is just plain stupid. McCamy Taylor Dec 2012 #4

so an MD can let christians die, on moral grounds, just because of their religion? ok nt msongs Dec 2012 #5

It's a right wing orgy there Politicub Dec 2012 #7

This came out of a committee. jerseyjack Dec 2012 #8

And the Hippocratic Oath? bolded is mine benld74 Dec 2012 #9

Many health care professionals apparently swear to the Hypocritic Oath ... DreamGypsy Dec 2012 #10

Michigan becomes the new Reich Luschnig Dec 2012 #11

heaven05

(18,124 posts)

1. and

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 08:27 PM

Dec 2012

the beat goes on.

PSPS

(13,605 posts)

2. Um, I don't think the AMA accredits such "doctors."

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 08:35 PM

Dec 2012

Real doctors are dedicated to healing, not "punishing for GAWD."

McCamy Taylor

(19,240 posts)

6. The real problem is it allows the Reich Wing to target doctors and pressure them

Reply to PSPS (Reply #2)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:04 PM

Dec 2012

not to provide certain kinds of care at the risk of being maligned in the press, in churches etc. Suddenly, everything becomes abortion. You prescribe Birth Control Pills or insert IUDs? Your name is plastered across the local newspaper as a "baby killer."In order to stop the negative publicity, you have to stop prescribing birth control and claim it is a matter of "conscience."

The Reich Wing wants women to get pregnant early and often because unwed mothers make great minimum wage slaves.

Judi Lynn

(160,586 posts)

3. The docs will lose patients. Who would really want to depend upon someone like that, anyway?

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 08:40 PM

Dec 2012

If they want to be fundie preachers, they have chosen the wrong profession.

McCamy Taylor

(19,240 posts)

4. As a doctor, I say this is just plain stupid.

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:00 PM

Dec 2012

Doctors and hospitals will become economic targets of the right wing---and availability of health care for gays,women,disabled, minorities will vanish.

msongs

(67,421 posts)

5. so an MD can let christians die, on moral grounds, just because of their religion? ok nt

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:03 PM

Dec 2012

Politicub

(12,165 posts)

7. It's a right wing orgy there

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:10 PM

Dec 2012

Sickening.

Elections have consequences. The GOP could not have won so many races had dems got off their collective asses across the country. And now we may be gerrymandered out of taking back the house.

We're all to blame. We all could have done more.

2012 is just around the corner.

jerseyjack

(1,361 posts)

8. This came out of a committee.

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:14 PM

Dec 2012

Publicize it - squawk about it before it goes to the main governing body.

benld74

(9,908 posts)

9. And the Hippocratic Oath? bolded is mine

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:26 PM

Dec 2012

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

DreamGypsy

(2,252 posts)

10. Many health care professionals apparently swear to the Hypocritic Oath ...

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Wed Dec 12, 2012, 09:59 PM

Dec 2012

....(sic)

A few comments on the Hippocratic Oath here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/hippocratic-oath-today.html

Yet paradoxically, even as the modern oath's use has burgeoned, its content has tacked away from the classical oath's basic tenets. According to a 1993* survey of 150 U.S. and Canadian medical schools, for example, only 14 percent of modern oaths prohibit euthanasia, 11 percent hold covenant with a deity, 8 percent foreswear abortion, and a mere 3 percent forbid sexual contact with patients—all maxims held sacred in the classical version. The original calls for free tuition for medical students and for doctors never to "use the knife" (that is, conduct surgical procedures)—both obviously out of step with modern-day practice. Perhaps most telling, while the classical oath calls for "the opposite" of pleasure and fame for those who transgress the oath, fewer than half of oaths taken today insist the taker be held accountable for keeping the pledge.

Indeed, a growing number of physicians have come to feel that the Hippocratic Oath is inadequate to address the realities of a medical world that has witnessed huge scientific, economic, political, and social changes, a world of legalized abortion, physician-assisted suicide, and pestilences unheard of in Hippocrates' time. Some doctors have begun asking pointed questions regarding the oath's relevance: In an environment of increasing medical specialization, should physicians of such different stripes swear to a single oath? With governments and health-care organizations demanding patient information as never before, how can a doctor maintain a patient's privacy? Are physicians morally obligated to treat patients with such lethal new diseases as AIDS or the Ebola virus?

Other physicians are taking broader aim. Some claim that the principles enshrined in the oath never constituted a shared core of moral values, that the oath's pagan origins and moral cast make it antithetical to beliefs held by Christians, Jews, and Muslims. Others note that the classical Oath makes no mention of such contemporary issues as the ethics of experimentation, team care, or a doctor's societal or legal responsibilities. (Most modern oaths, in fact, are penalty-free, with no threat to potential transgressors of loss of practice or even of face.)

With all this in mind, some doctors see oath-taking as little more than a pro-forma ritual with little value beyond that of upholding tradition. "The original oath is redolent of a covenant, a solemn and binding treaty," writes Dr. David Graham in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association (12/13/00). "By contrast, many modern oaths have a bland, generalized air of 'best wishes' about them, being near-meaningless formalities devoid of any influence on how medicine is truly practiced." Some physicians claim what they call the "Hypocritic Oath" should be radically modified or abandoned altogether.

Best wishes, patient. Here's your bill.

Luschnig

(32 posts)

11. Michigan becomes the new Reich

Reply to Bozita (Original post)

Thu Dec 13, 2012, 03:12 AM

Dec 2012

How does this proposed law in Michigan differ from the laws in 1930s Germany limiting health care access to Jews? Maybe Lansing, MI aspires to become the new Berlin.

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