Anti-choice activists and religious leaders have some brand new poll-tested language on “informed consent” and “empowering women” that they’re all parroting in unison, but words should mean something, so let’s look at how this branding only applies in certain situations:
Virginia:
“Informed consent has always been to make sure that a woman has the right to all the information. Not just some of it, but all of it,” Del. Kathy Byron, R-Lynchburg, told CBN News.
Byron sponsored the House version of Virginia’s ultrasound bill.
Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania House Bill 1077, entitled The Women’s Right to Know Act, is advancing in the Pennsylvania General Assembly. The bill empowers women by offering truly informed consent before an abortion by providing the opportunity for a woman to view the ultrasound image of her child and observe the heartbeat.
“For too long, women have been pressured into making a decision on abortion without having all the facts,” said Maria Vitale Gallagher, legislative director of the Pennsylvania Pro-Life Federation. “In order to make an informed decision, women must be given relevant information about the development of the child in the womb, and this legislation helps to provide that.”
Alabama:
Alabama law provides that abortions may be performed only with the voluntary and
informed consent of the patient. This form (front and back) is important to ensure that you have been provided all the information you need to make a fully informed decision. Please complete the form truthfully and accurately.
That’s nice “empowering” language on the Alabama form, don’t you think? The presumption is the woman is lying, because, you know, all women lie, constantly.
Here’s a very sensible informed consent law that oddly doesn’t “empower” women, apparently, and if you dare to so much as bring it up, you’ll be called a Nazi, even if you’re both a physician and an elected representative:
Hospitals with religious objections to procedures such as abortions would have to tell patients in a special notice Colorado’s Senate approved Friday.
The measure was approved over vigorous objections from Senate Republicans, who called the notification bill a thinly veiled attempt to stigmatize religious hospitals.
The bill, which requires one more procedural vote before it heads to the House, would require hospitals to tell patients that any service not provided because of religious beliefs or moral convictions can be obtained from another hospital.
Such services could include abortions, but also sexual health procedures such as vasectomies or tubal ligations. They could also include visitation opportunities for same-sex partners.
The bill’s sponsor, Democratic Sen. Morgan Carroll, of Aurora, said the notices are needed because hospital consolidations can confuse patients about where to get certain services.
“It’s really about a patient’s right to know,” Carroll said.
Republicans strongly objected to Carroll’s proposal, which passed on a narrow voice vote. Some compared the requirements to the religious labeling used in Nazi Germany.
“It’s putting in place a not-so-subtle message that you’re second-class if you have a moral scruple based on religious principles,” said Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud.
Democratic Sen. Irene Aguilar countered that hospitals would not be stigmatized.
“I think most of these hospitals are proud of the choices they’ve made,” said Aguilar, who is a physician.
Lundberg held his ground.
“It’s none of the state’s business, period, what institutions do or don’t do based on their religious convictions,” said Lundberg, who described the bill as “bending over backward for the abortion industry.”
Nazis! My goodness. What happened to informed consent? I’m not feeling very empowered. Why don’t Republicans and religious leaders want women to know the facts prior to choosing a certain health care provider? Maybe it’s easy to discover which giant corporate entity (now) owns the single general hospital in any given county?
The transfer agreement to purchase Lutheran Medical Center in Wheat Ridge and Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette calls for eliminating controversial patient services, including abortions, tubal ligation and vasectomies. With Lutheran Medical being the only general hospital in Jefferson County, controversy has mounted.
The long litigious battle over money, medicine and ethics has been going on for years.
The original deal called for the Community First Foundation to receive $311 million from the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth and for sponsorship to be transferred. In 2007, Republican Attorney General John Suthers issued an opinion that gave the go-ahead for the sale. But an arbitrator earlier this year blocked the deal, ruling that assets stemming from the sale belong to the community — not to the hospitals’ non-profit co-sponsors.
Tatten did little to defend the Catholic hospital system, instead arguing that the greater issue is national health reform. But after the event, he told the Denver Daily that perhaps more could have been done in the area of transparency, such as holding voluntary public hearings. That being said, Tatten said the sale has been so complicated that public hearings likely wouldn’t have been helpful.
“Often times with public hearings people feel that if they participate and they share their view, that someone will consider it and they have an impact on an outcome,” he said. “But, I think in this type of situation, it was so structured and so legalistic.”
Women are too stupid to make decisions on abortion without anti-abortion activists mandating compliance with a whole host of new rules and forms and invasive medical procedures and brand new causes of action in both the civil and criminal system. That’s informed consent. On the other hand, they’re somehow smart enough to parse the opaque negotiations of multi-million dollar “structured and legalistic” mergers of giant health care companies, and besides, even if they can’t, health care is none of their business, and they’re Nazis if they want a simple disclosure statement provided prior to admission.
c u n d gulag
GOP POV:
We need to inform you little ladies, and we’re telling you now – that if you let that aspirin slip from between your knees, your bending over to pick it up is “informed consent” for us to do what we want to you sexually.
And since life is sacred, and WE planted OUR seed in your fertile little hoo-ha’s, you MUST carry OUR child to term. Then, you can f*ck-off and die, for all we care.
James King
Informed consent means something quite specific in medical ethics. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informed_consent
Frankly, if women don’t realise before having an abortion that they have a dependent fetus inside them after being told, which is what this bill implies, they are de facto unable to give informed consent. However, implying that women seeking abortions are mentally retarded is not exactly a winning tactic…
scav
I was called mean, attacking mainstream religion and I forget what-all else when I proposed advertisements listing the possible side-effects (inadequate care, up to and including death) that could be the result of attending a religious hospital. That sort of informed consent apparently wasn’t licit.
Well, I’m rude again. Go figure. And Looky! I’m rude and behind the times and pre-shot-down already! Story of my life.
If health care agencies opt not to provide the current state of medical treatment, they should be made to provide all potential customers a written list of all possible consequences of their decision. If we can handle the quickly scrolling lists of impacts on the TV for individual drugs, we can handle it for HolierThanThou Hospital.
Southern Beale
I think we need to have bracelets we wear that say “In case of emergency, NO CATHOLIC HOSPITAL!”
Villago Delenda Est
Hey, the sluts made their decision when they dropped the aspirin, and that means they’re too stupid to make any other decisions, OK?
The sluts need to be punished! Jeebus says so!
RSA
It’s crazy the way that Pennsylvania legislators are turning a right into an obligation. I’d propose something comparable: It’s the right of Pennsylvania legislators to understand the long-term conditions under which inmates in the Pennsylvania prison system live. Therefore they should be imprisoned for some period of time, to ensure that they are fully informed.
El Cid
We don’t want all this oppressive big government schoolin’ forcibly exposin’ our vulnerable youngsters to all this ‘science’ and its ‘evyolushin’ theories.
Education is properly only something done when shoving electric tubes up into wimmin parts without their choice.
RalfW
Well, yes.
Sometimes, at least. Like when Democrats are involved. Republicans just railroad through whatever they want, fvck the public and their nasty, rude opinions.
Cacti
Looks like the dykes and feminazis were right all along.
The “pro-life” movement was just a ruse for the larger goal of controlling women’s lady bits.
RalfW
Also, too, I applaud the CO legislators on this. I would want to know that some pearl-clutching Bishop is going to object to my gay gay gay boyfriend being allowed to visit me if I get hospitalized.
As far as I’m concerned, the Catholic church is making an excellent set of arguments for why the entire health care system needs to be nationalized, a la (that effete liberal) Europe: because people with tall, pointy, gold-trimmed hats are making medical decisions rather than doctors and nurses.
Death panels. HAH. How about Trimester tribunals! Virgin Vagina Vatican voyerism?
I mean Really, Seth and Amy. Really.
scav
Thing is, this sort of info could be crowd-sourced and thrown on the web. Would even be some value in people walking in to hospital desks and explicitly asking for such info. $$.¢¢ usually catch their attention if lives don’t.
gocart mozart
I think I figured it out. Corporations (and large religious instututions) are people and actual people are just objects.
Raoul
I am so ready for another try at the prostate-exam-for-Viagra bill.
Only the prostate exam is for the GOP legislators. And with a rusty pitchfork.
RalfW
If Lundberg would like to affirm that Catholic hospitals take no public funding, pay their property taxes like good citizens, and generally speaking don’t receive one freakin’ dime of public money, then hey, sure, principled conservatism and all that. Go for it, Lundberg!
Yevgraf
And the problem with that is what, Senator?
I don’t give a flying fuck whether you want to adhere to a belief system based on a collection of the oral fables of a bronze age tribe of semiliterate, seminomadic goatherds, that set of beliefs having coalesced into the value system that forms the basis of a patriarchal death cult. Just don’t infect me with your filth, and keep your psycho hands off of my kids.
scav
@RalfW: Understand the sentiment, but I don’t know. Obeying the law or not is not exactly a side-product of not taking govt. funds, so I’m not 100% thrilled with the phrasing.
ETA: although I understand the grief that if you won’t provide the service we request, you have no right to our (federal/state/local) business end of things.
Schlemizel
@gocart mozart:
actually not so much objects as resources. To be harvested or mined until exhausted and then discarded. That why people have ‘human resource’ departments.
Pee Cee
The Republican War On Men continues …
Wait, what?
scav
Oh, Sen. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, you mean a second class citizen like one not getting the best medical care possible because of the beliefs of others? That kind of second-class, the one with possible life-long consequences? The kind of second class that is assumed too dumb to make decisions (let alone make the giant mental leap between baby inside and, o! a BABY inside!) without not just any picture, but a picture generated after something being jammed up her?
RSA
Institutions don’t have religious convictions. People working for institutions may have religious convictions, but of course people have the choice to work for institutions that perform services that match their religious convictions.
Valdivia
kay, once again thank you for shining a light on the Occupy my Uterus brigade (this is what I started calling them last fall).
I have been wondering—why are women not taking to the streets over this. I think a huge march on access to healthcare would help make this a bigger issue than it is. I would be there with bells on.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
Um, am I the only person who sees nothing remotely cute or loveable about an embryo? These “informed consent” bills all seem to assume that the silly woman will see that ultrasound and fall in love, because the very moment that the man blows his wad there’s a perfectly formed cute little baby in the womb, just smaller than a born one. It’s not. It’s a gross little blob, and remains a gross little blob until the third trimester or so.
I suppose by saying this I’ve restricted someone’s religious liberty, because nowadays anything but groveling subservience to the Vatican counts as a 1st Amendment violation. Well, too bad: embryos and fetuses are not babies, and only a sick fuck would ever think they were. /spit
Bulworth
Because abortioners forcing abortions on women without their consent is a significant problem. //
Rick Taylor
Republicans are much more concerned about the rights of institutions and companies than they are of individuals these days. Now they even have a right to privacy.
Bulworth
.
But transvaginal ultrasounds will be performed whether the woman “volunteers” to chose one or not.
Paul in KY
Just got a warm fuzzy for Colorado. Good on em! Now if they can approve the marijuana bill, I might head out there some time for a visit.
I could catch Samara a good buzz (or vice versa).
Villago Delenda Est
@Bulworth:
Because the slut MUST BE PUNISHED!
Kirbster
Am I not supposed to be an “informed consumer” of health care services? Isn’t that the Republicans’ whole objection to the PPACA based on the claim that it’s a “government takeover” that will limit my “choice” of health care providers? How can I choose, and through the magic of “the free market,” do my part to contain health care costs without knowing what services a hospital offers? Should I know less about my health care provider than I do about my dry cleaner?
Chris
@Rick Taylor:
Substitute “conservative” for “Republican” and they always were. If you think the rights of states to practice slavery outweighs the rights of people not to be slaves, if you think the rights of businesses to their employees outweighs the rights of their employees not to be exploited… that’s American conservatism in a nutshell and always has been.
scav
Funny how rape is supposedly all about power, they’ve just managed to outsource and semi-automate it. Legislate it. Parallel processing of my athoritah.
Quarks
Wait, vasectomies are controversial now?
beergoggles
Hey we should use the same logic about informed consent for sex education. Make their little heads assplode. Considering the lack of brain matter, it should be minimal cleanup.
Redshift
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire:
No, it’s a perfect cute infant from Day 1, just smaller! That’s what all the anti-abortion posters show, so it must be true!
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
I can’t wait until we finally get rid of the horrors of birth control and vaccination so we can get back to the godly living of 1642. Hell, we should just burn down all the hospitals that aren’t Catholic, and replace every medical procedure with exorcism. That Pol Pot had some good ideas, you know…
Villago Delenda Est
@Quarks:
They interfere with Jeebus’ plan to make more new altar boys for priests to prey on, so yes, the RCC hierarchy says no can snip in Catholic hospitals.
Paula
This is so unbelievable.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Redshift: Oh, oh, and it has a heartbeat! We can’t just kill anything with a heartbeat!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going for a cheeseburger, or maybe a bucket of chicken. Protecting the rights of the unborn is hungry work.
Redshift
@Kirbster: If you subscribe to that pointy-headed intellectual definition of “free market,” then yes, everyone should have the best information possible for it to function well. But if you’re a “free market” worshiper, “free” means “free of any government regulation or interference,” and insider trading, collusion, phony ratings on opaque derivatives, buying favorable laws and regulations with campaign contributions (great ROI!) and all the rest are all A-OK!
The right sort of people get the Invisible Hand bringing them a payday, and everyone else gets the not-so-Invisible Hand, er, somewhere else, which is as it should be.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
The site admin part of the site is down. Probably low-to-no posting for the next few hours.
Enlightened Liberal
Simple answer for all these hospitals that want to have religious objections- don’t accept Medicare and Medicaid- not to mention Federal Government healthcare plans.
He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Hospitals that want their “religious freedom” should be willing to forego public dollars.
Redshift
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: There was a RW caller to Stephanie Miller a few weeks ago who opined that there was no difference between an embryo (he didn’t use that word, of course) and an infant; both would grow up if you just didn’t interfere with them, so that meant abortion was just like killing a baby.
Fascinating how “woman” and “mother” didn’t enter into his description at all. A uterus is apparently just a place a pre-born baby happens to be, and the person it’s part of isn’t allowed to “interfere” there.
JoyfulA
And they’ll baptize your miscarriage? That is so weird.
scav
@Redshift: Squatters rights! Wonder if that works with the unwashed masses in foreclosed homes to his RW approval.
Villago Delenda Est
@Redshift:
That would be the original Adam Smith version. Damn pointy-headed Scottish philosophers…
mk3872
Sheesh, Conservatives and Repubs are something like 1,000,000X better at naming and framing issues than Dems & Libs.
Kirbster
@Redshift: No, I’m no free market fundamentialist. I’m just pointing out that Republicans should not be able to bullshit and have it both ways in their arguments about information and consent.
CynDee
Why are Republicans (and some others) afraid of women ??
Redshift
@Kirbster: I know, I was just pointing out how the free market fundamentalists always seem to be the most ignorant about how markets actually work.
JoyfulA
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: I “gave birth” to a 2.5-month fetus, in a situation that enabled me to take a close look (my bathroom). It was a blood clot, not remotely human and not cute at all.
The Snarxist Formerly Known As Kryptik
Good god, that’s some terrifying orwellian shit right there.
The Colorado thing doesn’t surprise me though. Remember how the GOP’s been trying to push legislation where hospitals can refuse to do life-saving emergency abortion AND refuse to refer or transfer the woman to a facility that does, and still be seen as a hospital in good standing enough to get Medicare money?
It’s all about reinforcing the idea that women forfeit all rights upon motherhood.
scav
@mk3872: Odd, because they’re incapable of sustained coherent rational thought. Must be all that skimming by on simple sound-bite imagery that reflects the being of their very soul. Come along everbody, SING along with mk3872: All. That. Matters. Is. The. Pack-age-ing! All. That. Matters. Is. The. Pack-age-ing! All. That. Matters. Is. The. Pack-age-ing!
Quarks
@Villago Delenda Est: But they’re also cheaper and have a lower failure rate than tubal ligations. If you’ve already provided a couple of potential little altar boys, where’s the harm?
dcdl
Does a chemical abortion look the same as a miscarriage in the first trimester? I mean it’s it just embryo getting sloughed off the uterine wall isn’t? If that is how it is for both couldn’t somebody put up a video or picture of both and ask anti-choicer’s which one is an abortion and which one is a miscarriage.
It seems with all this legislation that is going on anti choicer’s are choosing to frame the debate and the pro choicer’s are always in the defensive position. When can the anti choicer’s be put on the defensive without letting up or letting them change their talking points?
This of course could be said about any Republican talking point. Putting them on the defensive instead of offensive.
Of course I’m on my first cup of coffee and getting more grumpy reading the morning news on the same topic (women’s issues) for the past while.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@CynDee: The oppressor is always terrified of those he oppresses.
@Redshift: It’s also infuriating to hear people who damn well know better talk about pregnancy like it’s no big deal. Oh sure, it’s only 9 months of raging hormones, nutrients being leeched from your body, and stretched out skin from massive weight gain capped off by having to push a watermelon sized baby through a lemon-sized hole. No big deal at all!
This is why the the idea that a fetus or embryo is a full-formed baby is so offensive. An infant is made, by the woman who carries it, with a long and arduous process of hard work. It’s not magically conjured up by G_d the moment the man busts a nut.
Of course, all the same assholes who see no trouble with forcing women to do all this unpaid labor (to be followed by 18 or more years of further unpaid labor) are the same fuckers who whine endlessly about how taxation is slavery. Fuck these people.
Quarks
Admittedly, my bafflement about the vasectomies probably is because every man I know who has had one fits into one of two categories: 1) already has kids/stepkids and doesn’t have the time/energy/money for more, or 2) doesn’t want the responsibility of taking care of kids in the first place.
And in the second case, we have enough problems with irresponsible fathers as it is. Why add to the issue by putting any obstacles in their way, including limiting the availability of vasectomies? Some men are just not good at being fathers, and that’s fine.
Villago Delenda Est
@Quarks:
Hey, this is the moronic red beanie brigade we’re talking about. Their asshole sky buddy apparently told the white beanie guy about this, and he passed it on to the rest of us.
Mnemosyne
When the “pro-life” pharmacists first started howling about their “right” to refuse to fill women’s prescriptions, my proposed compromise was that any pharmacy that wanted to do that should have to put a large, legible sign at the front door stating specifically which prescriptions they would not fill so customers would know before walking in if they wanted to give that pharmacy their business or not.
Of course, there were then cries that informing customers of the pharmacist’s “convictions” ahead of time was somehow unfair because it would prejudice the customers against them.
So, yes, it’s all a power play: they want the right to refuse to fill your prescription or refuse to let your gay boyfriend/girlfriend visit as family but they don’t want you to know ahead of time that that’s what will happen. They want to hold all of the cards so you have no recourse when they pull their little stunt.
Mnemosyne
D’oh! I’m in moderation. It’s very annoying to try and discuss healthcare when you can’t use the name of the store where you can buy medicine.
Anyway, I can’t wait for makewi to stop by and tell us again that when conservatives say things like “it’s no business of the state what institutions do or don’t do based on their religious convictions,” it’s totally not conservatives demanding that the state declare that institutions have religious rights but individuals don’t, because shut up, that’s why.
dmbeaster
@mk3872:
Sure they are, once you are willing to be Orwellian about the language.
If you are motivated to lie, the big lie always works better.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Quarks: Without bad fathers raising unwanted children, who will instill the next generation with the hatred and resentment that the Republican party requires to exist?
I don’t think I’m joking too much here. The right thrives on stupid, traumatized, downbeaten people. When birth control allows parents to carefully plan their families, you end up with less such people. Naturally the Catholic Church and the Republican party oppose it. This may also be why they oppose social services and the safety net. All of these lead to a healthier, happier populace, and that’s the worst thing for these fascist pieces of shit.
stratplayer
Republicans have long shown a remarkable gift for cloaking their rank authoritarianism in the lofty rhetoric of “liberty.” For them it is always about freeing oppressors to oppress, dominators to dominate, controllers to control. A Republican blow for “liberty” almost always results in less aggregate freedom for the citizenry. They’ve been getting away with this bullshit for far too long.
muddy
@c u n d gulag: And since life is sacred, and WE planted OUR seed in your fertile little hoo-ha’s, you MUST carry OUR child to term. Then, you can f*ck-off and die, for all we care.
What is weird to me is that so many of the idiots wanting to keep women from having birth control or abortions are the same MRA assholes who are whining that women are entrapping them with teh baybeez that they didn’t even ask for, and now they have to pay and pay, waah.
Everyday is Opposite Day for them.
Republicans: They love rights so much they want to take yours.
kay
@dmbeaster:
Well, they are, better at framing, certainly than me, but I have a half-baked theory on this I’d like to share.
I think there are people who are pro-choice, and there are people who are anti-choice, and then there are a big group of people who really, really feel like this whole area is none of their business and they don’t want to talk about it constantly, or at all, really.
They’re the people I’m hoping will come to loathe Republicans for focusing on this each and every election year.
Lockewasright
Have you seen the polling data on women and their preference for President Obama since these social issues have re-emerged? I don’t know if the democrats could have even possibly come up with a strategy for regaining the female vote that could be as effective as the gift that this bible thumper fatwa has been. Ideological rigidity is not your friend in politics. Hopefully the GOP never figures that out.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@Lockewasright: I don’t think we’re too far off from seeing calls to repeal the 19th Amendment. It sounds crazy, but if you’d told me a year ago that the Republicans would double and triple down on opposition to contraception, I wouldn’t have believed it. We’re way past the looking glass, and what were once crazy paranoid fantasies are now just the news cycle.
dmbeaster
@Quarks: Why are you baffled. The Church is against contraception, and vasectomies (and tubal ligation) are the ultimate contraception. After all, how dare you fix yourself so that you can engage in sex for pleasure without fear of procreation.
rikyrah
another stellar post of information, Kay.
you don’t even grasp how helpful these are.
henrik
What if I’m a doctor who has a religious objection to state-mandated ultrasounds? Does that mean that I can refuse to do the procedure?
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Is anyone else starting to get the sickening feeling that this might also be a stealth attempt to force White people to breed more?
The right is just as aware of demographic trends as the left is. And more than a few of them have joked about liberals aborting themselves into extinction over the years.
Given recent revelations as to how the conservative mind works, there’s a certain logic to it…
shortstop
Great work as always, kay.
I’d like to see us discussing advance directives more in this context. There are plenty of people who think (some of them rightly) that they’ll never have abortions, tubal ligations or vasectomies and will brush this off as not relevant to them. However, whether a Catholic hospital will obey the patient’s explicit directions concerning end-of-life issues is of interest to many, many, many people, as the visceral response to the GOP’s meddling in the Schiavo case proves.
Is the fastest way to get people’s attention to announce that regardless of what they put into their advance directives, their instructions may be disregarded at a Catholic-owned hospital?
shortstop
Another point that’s been on my mind the last couple of weeks: Here in Chicago (and everywhere, for all I know), ambulances are required to take you to the closest hospital. I know a number of people who’ve argued this point with ambulance drivers — a few successfully and most unsuccessfully — when they wanted to avoid facilities that are well known to be crappy.
I’ve not been able to find examples of any legal fallout from the families of women dying of sepsis due to unremoved dead fetuses, people kept alive against their wishes, etc. Surely some of these cases exist — do you know of any, kay?
kay
@shortstop:
It’s a good idea. I got all worked up over advanced directives during the death panels hysteria, so I wouldn’t mind looking at it again, in this context.
States pushed advanced directives so hard, and so many states have specific process and language to facilitate them, that I know it’s absolutely mainstream public policy.
I have a “living will” that I sort of enjoyed putting together, bizarrely enough- people are supposed to hate even thinking about it- but I didn’t.
It’s like drafting your own law, plus, I like the sound of issuing A DIRECTIVE :)
Chet
@Judas Escargot:
Some of them are definitely thinking about it. Kathryn Joyce of The Nation had a great article about it a couple years back.