On Outrage
Apparently it's becoming increasingly accepted (and even protected) that doctors can deny healthcare to patients based on religious grounds, purportedly because being subjected to a patient's perceived immorality is a blow to the doctor's right of self-expression. That's right, kids! State after state, statutes are being put up that "protect" doctors against these ravaging heathens -- their patients.
Doesn't that flow both ways? Don't patients have the right to know what (LEGAL) services their doctor will or will not provide because of a personal religious conviction that has suddenly trapped their patient? And they are indeed trapped -- if you're poor, have little-to-no insurance, are required to seek services through specific persons/organizations because of your HMO, or live in a rural area with limited care, you live at the whim of these "professionals".
No matter how it's being dressed, this is amounting to discrimination -- mostly against women, since men don't have to face many of the same issues: 1) being denied emergency contraception after a rape, 2) being denied artificial insemination procedures because of sexual orientation, 3) being denied an adoption exam because you are unmarried, 4) being denied standard birth control, even if it's for medical reasons and not contraceptive ones (like it should matter), 5) being denied an aborting a fetus that is too premature to survive a problem during early pregnancy, even though the inevitable miscarriage leaves the mother open to contracting an infection and possibly sterility, because the situation is not yet life-threatening to the mother.
It's fucking gross. And one person in the article gets it pretty much right when they say that being referred to another doctor is the equivalent of "we don't serve your kind here." Apalling.
So remember -- when meeting a new doctor for the first time, be sure to ask them, "do you have any religious beliefs that will prevent me from receiving the full extent of available medical care?" And if they say yes or give you the runaround, you fucking walk.
~Sean
Doesn't that flow both ways? Don't patients have the right to know what (LEGAL) services their doctor will or will not provide because of a personal religious conviction that has suddenly trapped their patient? And they are indeed trapped -- if you're poor, have little-to-no insurance, are required to seek services through specific persons/organizations because of your HMO, or live in a rural area with limited care, you live at the whim of these "professionals".
No matter how it's being dressed, this is amounting to discrimination -- mostly against women, since men don't have to face many of the same issues: 1) being denied emergency contraception after a rape, 2) being denied artificial insemination procedures because of sexual orientation, 3) being denied an adoption exam because you are unmarried, 4) being denied standard birth control, even if it's for medical reasons and not contraceptive ones (like it should matter), 5) being denied an aborting a fetus that is too premature to survive a problem during early pregnancy, even though the inevitable miscarriage leaves the mother open to contracting an infection and possibly sterility, because the situation is not yet life-threatening to the mother.
It's fucking gross. And one person in the article gets it pretty much right when they say that being referred to another doctor is the equivalent of "we don't serve your kind here." Apalling.
So remember -- when meeting a new doctor for the first time, be sure to ask them, "do you have any religious beliefs that will prevent me from receiving the full extent of available medical care?" And if they say yes or give you the runaround, you fucking walk.
~Sean