I am so sick of this nonsense:
Doctors may not discriminate against gays and lesbians in medical treatment, even if the procedures being sought conflict with physicians’ religious beliefs, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously Monday.
In its second major decision advancing gay rights this year, the state high court ruled that religious physicians must obey a state law that bars businesses from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation.
If your religious beliefs keep you from treating your patients, find another line of work.
Shygetz
It’s against my religious beliefs to slaughter animals for food. I think I’ll become a butcher…
Incertus
It has been interesting to see the religious right pull the same kind of trick that bigots did for the longest time, only replacing African-Americans with LGBT people. They’ve flipped it so that they’re the ones being discriminated against. I swear, no one plays the victim card like this particular class of Christian.
Zifnab
*falls out of chair*
What on earth could prevent a physician from treating a homosexual?
“Hey, listen, I’d really like to set that broken arm of yours, but you had sex with Tom over there and you’re a dude, so I figure repairing this compound fracture of yours violates something in Leviticus about working on the Sabbath or coveting they neighbor or something something, so you’re dick out of luck.
Try Atheist Medical and come back when you’ve got a real, Christian illness, like lepercy.”
Buck
If your religious beliefs keep you from treating your patients, find another religion.
Punchy
If McCane wins the Preznitcy, expect something like this to go to the US Supremes. And fully expect, with just one more Alito-esque clown on board, for the opposite ruling. Which would be just mind-blowing in its real-life application.
“Don’t mind that woman’s bloody uterus…I found Jesus halfway thru the salpingo-oophorectomy and decided I shouldn’t assist such a uteroabortive procedure”
Yikes.
liberal
Zifnab wrote,
IIRC it’s largely fertility specialists who don’t want to help e.g. lesbian couples.
crack
Hear hear.
liberal
Punchy wrote,
In practice, the most mind-blowing change the theocratic nutjobs have in store is the plan to extend 14th Amendment personhood to fertilized eggs.
jrg
This bit is a real gem:
…Because the Christianists, fundies, and holy rollers have nothing at all to do with this couple not being married.
Incertus
And if that happens, say bye-bye to not only birth control, but to IVF and stem cell research, and say hello to Gilead.
The Other Steve
Amen
greynoldsct00
What you said. And how can NOT taking care of the sick even be defined as Christian behavior? These people have the priorities WAY out of order… “my religion trumps your illness because you’re gay?” One can hope these types get zapped the minute the rapture they are expecting arrives. Unfathomable.
Rosali
First do no harm unless you suspect your patient of being a homosexual. Then, in that case, deny them medical treatment.
If your patient is single and you suspect that she may be engaging in intercourse for reasons other than procreation, deny her access to medical care and advocate for legislation that could throw her in jail.
Face
Would we rename it The Hypocritic Oath?
CFisher
Of course, there will be fewer doctors offering this kind of specialized care, and it will quite likely become more expensive or take longer to get this kind of treatment (at least until enough future med students are enticed to specialize in this field by the promise of larger profits).
Unintended consequence, but probable nonetheless, if they decide to take you up on this offer of quitting their practice.
The Moar You Know
You recall correctly, it’s a local case here in San Diego County, aka Taliban Central of California.
I think the doctors involved ought to be stripped of their medical licenses.
Fe E
I like Buck’s version better–it has more wide ranging implications.
Shibby
Interestingly, this has been addressed in my medical school curriculum. Currently, you are required to refer the patient to someone who will perform the procedure if it contradicts your beliefs. Therefore, a physician who disagrees with birth control does not have to prescribe it but must refer them to another doctor.
As stated above, this would seem to violate the spirit of the Hippocratic Oath. However, many do not know that the oath contains a moratorium on abortion and surgery in addition to the more famous “first do no harm”.
It seems that while the medical community has advanced beyond practices such as bleeding and the four humours of medieval medicine some of my future colleagues have not advanced their respective mindsets.
JasonF
We had something similar happen in Illinois a few years ago — pharmacists were refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control based on their religious beliefs. Our governor more or less gave them the same advice: if you don’t want to fill prescriptions for birth control, don’t be a pharmacist. If you want to be a pharmacist, do your damned job and fill the prescriptions.
Martin
You do realize that HHS is trying to redefine contraception as abortion in order to permit physicians to deny treatment for matters of ‘conscience’. So if you need the pill to regulate a serious medical condition (not uncommon), your physician would be able refuse to prescribe it.
Ezra has a post on it today.
We already have states with exactly 1 abortion clinic. What you describe happening in the future is the norm in many states now.
jake
Certain slope-browed segments of the medical profession have objected to treating AIDS patients because God was obviously striking them down with the killer cootie.
That’s why society must never try to placate whiny assholes. They never. Ever. Stop.
Brachiator
Total, absolute, utter nonsense. The fertility treatment field is already highly specialized, glamorous and profitable, and with more and more older women and couples seeking to have children, there is no shortage of doctors seeking to enter this field.
The ethical issue involved is simply a rational and necessary rebuff of the attempt to impose a narrow, arbitrary and ridiculous vision of Christianity onto the medical profession, which long held that you treat patients without regard to who they are or what they believe.
liberal
Martin wrote,
IIRC JC already blogged on that.
South of I-10
There is an entire group of OB/Gyn’s in my hometown who are super Catholic and refuse to write scripts for any kind of birth control. I hope you don’t need the pill for some reason other than birth control, because you aren’t going to get it there. I would travel out of town before going to their clinic and advise everyone I know to do the same.
Faux News
I anxiously await Paul L’s one and only comment on this thread. Much like a monkey throwing its feces at you then running away.
Cap'n Phealy
Oh, well, there goes my grand plan for the easiest job in the world – HMO doctor in a community of Christian Scientists.
jake
Does anyone read Terry Pratchett?
Does anyone remember the vampire?
“Nonesuch Ecclesiastical Supplies. Holy water section.”
w vincentz
This will have serious implications in the “faith healing” community.
Face
Fixed
Krista
The way I see it is this: my marital status and/or sexual orientation have absolutely no bearing on the state of my physical health.
Therefore, they are none of my doctor’s goddamned business.
And WRT pharmacists who refuse to dispense the pill, I’ve been asked, “But is it fair to ask them to violate their own personal beliefs?” You’re damn tooting it is. Their job is to fill prescriptions. If my doctor prescribes me something, the only time they should express concern is if they think it might go badly with another med I happen to be taking. Other than that, sorry — the doc prescribed me a legal medication, and they are obliged to fill it. If they can’t reconcile that with their religion, then they need to switch jobs, or move to a country where the pill is illegal.
Cassidy
What’s really funny about this is that a number of incidents such as this one can get you dropped from an HMO.
Keep in mind you are paying for a service. If they want to be assholes, don’t give them business.
Not entirely accurate. Even beyond the whole capitalism thing, it happens often enough that Doctor and a Pharmacist will disagree on the medication. The Doctor may know why it’s being prescribed, but a pharmacist is a lot more likely to have the most up to date studies on said medication.
In the end, though, they are not obligated to do anything.
bootlegger
And this was the logic in Roe v. Wade, that a woman’s medical decisions were private between her and her doctor and the not the business of the state. This is another attempt by the so-called Xtians to exert control and its damned important that we have a SCOTUS that wills top them.
bootlegger
And this was the logic in Roe v. Wade, that a woman’s medical decisions were private between her and her doctor and the not the business of the state. This is another attempt by the so-called Xtians to exert control and its damned important that we have a SCOTUS that will stop them.
jake
Two doctors might disagree on which medication a patient should get and … so? If a pharm believes that the script as written (or appears to be written) will kill or seriously harm the patient, he contacts the doctor. Is he obligated to fill prescriptions when he simply disagrees with the doctors decision?
That all depends on whether he wants to keep his job.
bago
Oh, that’s what the whole parable about the gentile and the jew was all about. All of those people ignoring the wounded guy were doing god’s work. Got it.
Brachiator
Ah, no. The whole point of medical boards that govern doctors and pharmacists, etc., is to establish standards of practice. And until religious nutcases got involved, the standard was that doctors and pharmacists served patients, period, not that they served patients based on any kind of religious test.
Actually, the precedent was really Griswold v. Connecticut.
Even though the law was not uniformly enforced, in 1965 a state could prohibit the sale of any form of contraception to anyone, but especially unmarried individuals.
The case repealing this nonsense was one of the first times that conservatives blasted the Supreme Court for its “judicial activism.’
McCain is the choice of those Christians who want to use the government to make sure that no one has sex before marriage, and that marital sex typically results in pregnancy, because only then will the baby Jesus be happy.
Barbara
A pharmacist is not legally entitled to sua sponte second guess a doctor. He can call and discuss a script and if he really has reservations (let’s say patient shows clear signs that he or she will abuse the given drug) he can refuse to fill the script, but this happens like once a decade, except maybe where controlled substances are involved.
The best part of this case isn’t the decision on its face, but the court’s statement that the state of California has a compelling interesting in assuring that its residents have access to health care services. Let’s hope this dumps 10 inches of rain on the expanding parade of health care professionals trying to use their credentials to force feed their religion to their patients.
Also, the facts were somewhat in doubt, but for those who have sympathy for these doctors, note that they seem to draw a pretty fine line on their Christian beliefs. They were willing to treat this woman so long as she was “self-inseminating” at home with the sperm of an acquaintance. They didn’t want to do the insemination in their clinic. They were, apparently, willing to let their unbiased partners do it, but only one of the biased doctors was certified to do one of the procedures in question. In other words, they were more interested in keeping their hands clean than much of anything else.
Krista
Bit of a difference there. If my doc prescribed me Triphasil, and the pharmacist knew that there were problems with it, then yes, it’d be acceptable for the pharmacist to call the doc and discuss switching the prescription to Triquilar instead. At that point, the pharmacist is acting out of concern for my well-being and health.
But for the pharmacist to refuse an entire genre of medication, not due to any concern for my health, but solely due to his or her religious beliefs? Nuh-uh. Not acceptable.
w vincentz
Oh shit. I just read through this thread and all I can say is oh shit.
See, I might have to go out of business.
for many years, I’ve been selling condoms to the good sisters at the local convent at a nice profit. Now that they know about Triphisil and Triquilar, I’m almost as fucked as they will be.
Pass the wine Sister Mary Perpetual.
r€nato
Yea, verily Jesus said, “Fuck you, leper, you got your leprosy because you violated God’s laws, so you can just fucking rot.”
Thomas
I think that Orthodox Jewish dentists should have office hours on Saturday morning, because that’s when it’s most convenient for me to take the kids.
If someone else’s religious beliefs are disagreeable to you, grow the fuck up. Not everyone has to agree with you. That’s called pluralism, and liberals used to be in favor of it.
Ken
Thomas, if a person wants to spread religious beliefs they should get a career in the clergy, not go to medical school.
This really needs to be explained to you? Really?
Thomas
Ken, it isn’t about “spreading” religious beliefs, but following one’s own beliefs. This idea of pluralism, it needs to be explained to you? Really? Because it’s foundational.
Faux News
I’m sad to say Thomas is no Paul L. :-(