The 30-Day Comment Period is Still Open
If you're American, care about women's rights, and have not yet emailed or written, the 30-day comment period on the Department of Health and Human Services Proposed Regulation Ensuring that DHHS Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies is still open. (HTML version here.)
I have talked about this before.
There have been many responses to this. None of them include a precise example of what health care would be like under this rule - so today I'm going further back in my posts to show you the future Leavitt envisions: the saga of Neil T. Noeson.
In April of 2005, the State of Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board reprimanded him and limited Noeson's license. This was in response to the fact that Noeson had not informed his employer of his objections to providing birth control, which ultimately led to his being the only pharmacist on duty one day, refusing birth control to a patient, refusing to refer her elsewhere, and refusing to pass on the prescription to the next pharmacist she found. She sued. He hid behind the very conscience clause that Leavitt proposes. The Pharmacy Board concluded (emphasis added):
The Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board has never held that a pharmacist is not entitled to exercise his or her conscience in the practice of his or her profession, nor is Respondent’s exercise of conscience the basis for prosecution of this case. Rather, this case is about following professional standards in the exercise of one’s conscience. This, Respondent failed to do. The discipline recommended in this Order is a consequence of Respondent’s failure to act as a professional. The Respondent is not being sanctioned for exercising his conscience. Rather, he is being held accountable, as would any other registered pharmacist, for engaging in a practice that departed from the standards of care that govern his profession.
Page 9 of Leavitt's proposed regulation whines the standards of professional organizations have been used to define the exercise of conscience to be unprofessional. Read that again, in conjunction with what the Board actually said. (And note that at no point in Leavitt's regulation mentions standards of care or patients' rights.)
This is not the end of the Noeson story. He went to a different pharmacy, one which had other pharmacists on staff to help women wanting birth control, even having a separate basket for such drugs so he didn't have to touch him... but he refused to talk to women who asked at the desk, refused to tell anyone else they were there, and even refused to answer the telephone lest he be asked about birth control. Unable to deal with that amount of refusal to do his damn job, they fired him.
He sued them over the very conscience clauses Leavitt cites as current legal precedent.
He lost the first case. He appealed. In April 2007, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago handed him his ass on a platter. The very regulation that Leavitt suggests is reasonable and right a Chicago court finds "would impose an undue hardship... an accommodation that requires other employees to assume a disproportionate workload (or divert them from their regular work) is an undue hardship as a matter of law." (page 4 of the pdf)
Leavitt keeps talking about the hot topic of abortion (limiting of which he apparently considers "an important and legitimate social statement".) Noeson refused BIRTH CONTROL, something the vast majority of American women use. He refused to tell his own supervisors what duties he would or would not perform. He prejudged and refused to serve women. He refused to answer the fucking phone in case he had to hear something he didn't want to hear!
THIS is what DHHS thinks "nondescrimination" looks like. This is the test case of what the DHHS wants to make legal, acceptable, and praiseworthy behavior. If you think this is not the sort of "caring service" that you, your mother, your sisters, your wife, and your daughters should be subjected to, if you don't want to see the floodgates opened to yet more normal and needed services reclassified as "objectionable," then WRITE NOW!
Your voice DOES make a difference. Under the stewardship of Leavitt, the DHHS has also come up with such nonsense as assuming and treating all women as if they are "pre-pregnant" and redefining all forms of birth control equaling abortion. Both of these bits of utter nonsense were shot down as regulations after sustained public outcry (as you can imagine, due to some 98% of American women using birth control at one point or another). This is yet another attempt to get the same notion across, and even if we can't get the notion that women have rights through Leavitt's pointy head, we can make sure that his personal bigotry does not become Government regulation.
I have talked about this before.
There have been many responses to this. None of them include a precise example of what health care would be like under this rule - so today I'm going further back in my posts to show you the future Leavitt envisions: the saga of Neil T. Noeson.
In April of 2005, the State of Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board reprimanded him and limited Noeson's license. This was in response to the fact that Noeson had not informed his employer of his objections to providing birth control, which ultimately led to his being the only pharmacist on duty one day, refusing birth control to a patient, refusing to refer her elsewhere, and refusing to pass on the prescription to the next pharmacist she found. She sued. He hid behind the very conscience clause that Leavitt proposes. The Pharmacy Board concluded (emphasis added):
The Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board has never held that a pharmacist is not entitled to exercise his or her conscience in the practice of his or her profession, nor is Respondent’s exercise of conscience the basis for prosecution of this case. Rather, this case is about following professional standards in the exercise of one’s conscience. This, Respondent failed to do. The discipline recommended in this Order is a consequence of Respondent’s failure to act as a professional. The Respondent is not being sanctioned for exercising his conscience. Rather, he is being held accountable, as would any other registered pharmacist, for engaging in a practice that departed from the standards of care that govern his profession.
Page 9 of Leavitt's proposed regulation whines the standards of professional organizations have been used to define the exercise of conscience to be unprofessional. Read that again, in conjunction with what the Board actually said. (And note that at no point in Leavitt's regulation mentions standards of care or patients' rights.)
This is not the end of the Noeson story. He went to a different pharmacy, one which had other pharmacists on staff to help women wanting birth control, even having a separate basket for such drugs so he didn't have to touch him... but he refused to talk to women who asked at the desk, refused to tell anyone else they were there, and even refused to answer the telephone lest he be asked about birth control. Unable to deal with that amount of refusal to do his damn job, they fired him.
He sued them over the very conscience clauses Leavitt cites as current legal precedent.
He lost the first case. He appealed. In April 2007, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago handed him his ass on a platter. The very regulation that Leavitt suggests is reasonable and right a Chicago court finds "would impose an undue hardship... an accommodation that requires other employees to assume a disproportionate workload (or divert them from their regular work) is an undue hardship as a matter of law." (page 4 of the pdf)
Leavitt keeps talking about the hot topic of abortion (limiting of which he apparently considers "an important and legitimate social statement".) Noeson refused BIRTH CONTROL, something the vast majority of American women use. He refused to tell his own supervisors what duties he would or would not perform. He prejudged and refused to serve women. He refused to answer the fucking phone in case he had to hear something he didn't want to hear!
THIS is what DHHS thinks "nondescrimination" looks like. This is the test case of what the DHHS wants to make legal, acceptable, and praiseworthy behavior. If you think this is not the sort of "caring service" that you, your mother, your sisters, your wife, and your daughters should be subjected to, if you don't want to see the floodgates opened to yet more normal and needed services reclassified as "objectionable," then WRITE NOW!
Your voice DOES make a difference. Under the stewardship of Leavitt, the DHHS has also come up with such nonsense as assuming and treating all women as if they are "pre-pregnant" and redefining all forms of birth control equaling abortion. Both of these bits of utter nonsense were shot down as regulations after sustained public outcry (as you can imagine, due to some 98% of American women using birth control at one point or another). This is yet another attempt to get the same notion across, and even if we can't get the notion that women have rights through Leavitt's pointy head, we can make sure that his personal bigotry does not become Government regulation.