It's a Job, Not a Choice
In Tuesday's Illinoize, Jill Stanek lament's the recent decision by Walgreen's to discipline four pharmacists for refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, a job they were being paid quite handsomely to do.
Walgreen's recognized the state's authority to compel health care workers to provide emergency care, even if these four pharmacists and Stanek do not.
Stanek believes that pharmacists have a right of conscience. That is true. But the pharmacists aren't complaining about their lack of religious freedom. They want to to exercise that freedom and still get paid. It would be like a conscientious objector joining the military, refusing to fight, but still wanting combat pay.
More importantly, as Stanek, the pharmacists, and nearly everyone else has ignored, while Illinois' Health Care Right of Conscience Act may apply to pharmacists, it doesn't apply to emergency care:
(745 ILCS 70/6) (from Ch. 111 1/2, par. 5306)
Sec. 6. Duty of physicians and other health care personnel. Nothing in this Act shall relieve a physician from any duty, which may exist under any laws concerning current standards, of normal medical practices and procedures, to inform his or her patient of the patient's condition, prognosis and risks, provided, however, that such physician shall be under no duty to perform, assist, counsel, suggest, recommend, refer or participate in any way in any form of medical practice or health care service that is contrary to his or her conscience.
Nothing in this Act shall be construed so as to relieve a physician or other health care personnel from obligations under the law of providing emergency medical care.
Clearly, emergency contraception is emergency care, by definition, and Stanek and other pro-lifers do not have a legal leg to stand on.
Now, if they want to draft a bill that would protect health care workers who want to risk a patient's life because their religious beliefs tell them it's the right thing to do, and refuse not only to treat the patient but refer them to someone who will, I encourage them to try.
But imagine for a moment a doctor who learns that patient, a four-month pregnant woman, has cancer and needs chemotherapy, which of course would require an abortion first. In Stanek's world, the doctor could not only refuse to perform the abortion, he could refuse to suggest an abortion, refer her to another doctor who might perform or suggest an abortion, perhaps even refuse to tell her she had cancer because in his mind, it might lead to an abortion. Not a pretty world.
More importantly, Stanek's right of conscience completely ignores the right of conscience of the patient.
So, now that I've laid out all the ways Jill and I disagree, I'd like to lay out some of the things I believe pro-choice and pro-life folks should agree on:
- School children should be provided with medically accurate, scientifically backed information that reduces teen pregnancies;
- We can't force parents to protect their teenagers by keeping them from having sex, but society should protect teenagers by telling them how they can reduce the risk of pregnancy and ensuring they have the means at their disposal;
- Illinois law should be more adoption friendly, ensuring for example that employer benefits for maternity leave also apply to adoptions;
- We need to crack down on older men who prey on teenage women and are guilty of statutory rape;
- The world would be a much better place if teenagers didn't have sex, sexual predators didn't get women and young girls pregnant, and condoms and other birth control didn't fail; unfortunately, we don't live in that world;
- God didn't intend pregnancy or parenthood as "punishment".
5 comments:
No doubt, I always hate when people try to frame school sex ed as abstinence only versus just the biology and contraception. It can and should be both. Students should learn how their body works, how contraception can prevent pregnancy and disease, as well as the clear benefits of abstinence and monogamy. People don't need these false dichotomies.
Yellow Dog, first and foremost, I will say that I actually agree with most of what you said. But there are a few things I take issue with:
I do not agree that emergency contraception constitutes emergency healthcare. When was the last time someone died why conceiving? Why the hurry in preventing it? As long as abortion is a safe and legal option, then EC is never an “emergency.” I believe that there is a hurry, but it is based on a morality that is not reflected in the law, so the Illinois' Health Care Right of Conscience Act does not apply. I also believe that abortion is not always a safe and healthy option for women, which in one of the reasons I favor parental consent (something that should be on your list of what pro-lifes and pro-choices can agree on). – Bottom line, I agree with you, but for different reasons. But as the law is written now, I believe it does not apply to pharmastics and Plan B.
I also take issue with the implications behind your statement that “God didn't intend pregnancy or parenthood as "punishment.” Who exactly do you think disagrees with that? I know that there may be some really fringe extremists who might, but the vast majority of pro-lifers think that pregnancy and parenthood is a reponsibility, not a punishment. And it is a responsibility that should be handled with due respect to the right to life of the unborn child. It certianly has nothing to do with punishing the mother, as some pro-choice advocates try to make it seem.
(Oh, PS: I'm still waiting for you to list off all of Mr. Blagojevich's legislative accomplishments from his tenure in the IL and US Houses of Representatives. After all, you spend considerable time yesterday attacking Sens. Roskam, Risinger, Congressman Tim Johnson, and the entire IL House Republican caucus as being undeserving of their posts because they have not been able to sponsor and pass any bills.)
pek, perhaps you misread or misunderstood my comments.
First off, assuming that Plan B is really contraception and not an abortion, and can prevent the need to abort a life, then I am in favor of making it available as an emergency treatment – however, it is not a medical emergency, but a moral emergency. And the law does not recognize moral emergencies as written.
From a medical standpoint, to me at least, emergency healthcare is any procedure or treatment without which the patient will either not live to deal with it later, or will have permanent or irreparable damage done to their health by delaying treatment. Strictly speaking, ED does not seem to meet those conditions – unless, of course, the surgical procedure of abortion is potentially dangerous to the mother. In that case, it would be. But if abortion really is completely safe for the mother, then Plan B is – again, medically speaking – more of a luxury (for lack of what should be a better choice of words) than an emergency.
Now, most pro-choicers don’t want to talk about whether abortion as a surgical procedure is completely safe or not, especially the more radical ones that oppose parental consent. After all, if abortion was a potentially risky procedure for a woman to go through, it might add credibility to the argument against allowing teenage girls to undergo it without consent of their guardian (similar to their inability to undergo ANY OTHER surgical procedure without such consent). Or, it might add a medical component in favor of restricting abortions to cases or rape, incest, or endangerment of the mother.
I’m sorry if my cold interpretation of the law seems insensitive to you. But I’d argue that it is the law itself that is insensitive. And this is coming from someone who could one day be in the position of having no legal rights or voice in the decision to keep or abort my unborn child, simply because I have the wrong half of reproductive organs that created it. How sensitive is that?
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