Medical Crisis of Conscience - Democratic Underground

MountainLaurel

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Sun Jul-16-06 09:37 AM
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Medical Crisis of Conscience

In Chicago, an ambulance driver refused to transport a patient for an abortion. In California, fertility specialists rebuffed a gay woman seeking artificial insemination. In Texas, a pharmacist turned away a rape victim seeking the morning-after pill.

snip

Legal and political battles have followed. Patients are suing and filing complaints after being spurned. Workers are charging religious discrimination after being disciplined or fired. Congress and more than a dozen states are considering laws to compel workers to provide care -- or, conversely, to shield them from punishment.

Proponents of a "right of conscience" for health workers argue that there is nothing more American than protecting citizens from being forced to violate their moral and religious values. Patient advocates and others point to a deep tradition in medicine of healers having an ethical and professional responsibility to put patients first.

The issue is driven by the rise in religious expression and its political prominence in the United States, and by medicine's push into controversial new areas. And it is likely to intensify as doctors start using embryonic stem cells to treat disease, as more states legalize physician-assisted suicide and as other wrenching issues emerge.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/15/AR2006071500846.html

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nosillies

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Sun Jul-16-06 09:43 AM
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1. If a doctor, nurse, or pharmacist feels that they can't give all patients

equal and complete care, then they need to make an career change. It's that freakin' simple.

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Warpy

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Sun Jul-16-06 09:47 AM
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2. If you run into one of these heartlessly fastidious assholes

Edited on Sun Jul-16-06 09:48 AM by Warpy

WRITE A LETTER TO THE LICENSING BOARD. Send a copy to the state Attorney General. Include the prig's name, the location of the business, the service refused, the language used, and the names of any witnesses.

The board and AG will follow up with a form to fill out for a formal complaint. DO IT.

They take this stuff VERY SERIOUSLY.

I did that for a hospital that padded my bill. It is not a difficult procedure. The formal complaint form took 10 minutes. A walk to the library's xerox machine took another 15. My bill was settled for ten cents on the dollar, better than I expected.

Think of what they will do about a professional who refuses to do his or her job.

It's time to stop pussyfooting around these pious shitheads. MAKE THEIR LIVES HELL. COMPLAIN. Consider PICKETING.

DON'T TAKE IT.

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