Abortion advocates are in a fight over the current HHS appropriations bill and whether hospitals, doctors, and medical personnel can be forced to be involved in abortion or risk losing any federal funds they may receive. This comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by the State of California to overturn such provisions.
Here is another example of the "pro-choice" crowd fighting against the choice of medical providers in what services they want to provide and attempting to nullify their consciences. They argue that they aren't pro-abortion but then insist that every doctor must be jumping to perform abortions on demand. Any provider who refuses on the basis of conscience to provide any abortion-related services will likely face a revocation of their licenses.
The pro-abortion crowd not only wants to prevent medical providers from having a choice on what services they provide, they also want to exclude the religious from not only public life but even private jobs (with the ACLU trying to eliminate tax exemption for churches). If you're religious not only do they not want to allow you the choice to follow your conscience, they want to prevent your choice of profession.
So much for choice.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - billy
that is silly. medical providers have no "choice". it is the persons "choice". the medical provider carries out their wishes in a manner that conforms to the law. if a medical provider "chooses" to abandon a patient they will be sued for malpractice in addition to any suit California has filed. its just a non-issue. you dont understand the term "choice".
2 - Nancy
Medical providers who do not feel they can provide certain services either should work in areas of the profession where they do not have to deal with it, or they should work in another profession. Someone who abhors guns but works in an emergency room can't throw up their hands & declare they won't work on gunshot victims when they're brought in because it's against their morality. If you are in medicine, you go in knowing damned well what you're going to be getting in to; medical school and residency ensure that. Anyone who claims or pretends otherwise is a liar.
3 - Bob A. Booey
Bambenek,
This drum beat of yours is getting tired. Find a new issue, like the World Court and the ACLU :)
Surprise us sometime and write a thoughtful, unexpected essay that's not boiler-plate far right invective going after the usual targets. Write something about crap you know about like computer games or movies or music.
That is all.
4 - Shark
Booey!
I'm with Booey...
Um.... except I'm afraid Bambineck can't not put together a sentence or a paragraph that doesn't not use a comma and won't run on and get all convoluted because he's so breathlessly spewing his right-wing jingoistic claptrapian semi-literate stuff that apparently he woke up just dying to vent like the spleen he cleanses his spirit with.
So no don't not refrain from refraining from writing anything, Bambi.
Anything. Seriously.
PS: And Booey, don't you detect some underlying Freudian disturbance that FUCKING SCREAMS just below the surface of everything Bambi writes? It's kinda creepy, don't you think?
5 - Silas Kain
The more extremists scream against abortion, the more pro-choice I become. How can anyone, on any side of the issue, not respect the inherent right of an individual woman to have reproductive freedom? I just do not get it. I've said many times that I find abortion to be unfortunate but that doesn't give me the right to force a woman to do something against her will. Strident pro-lifers commit emotional rape on a daily basis and I wonder if that damage is as severe as physical rape.
6 - nugget
silas said,
"Strident pro-lifers commit emotional rape on a daily basis and I wonder if that damage is as severe as physical rape."
HAHAHA! *dies*
7 - Silas Kain
Obviously, nugget, you were fortunate enough not to be raped when you were a child. So laugh all you want.
8 - Dave Nalle
I found Bambi's original post a bit hard to follow, but is he saying that the HHS bill is going to force doctors to perform abortions whether they want to or not? That seems both improbable and unconstitutional. They should have the right to perform whatever operations they feel comfortable with and not perform whatever ones they don't want to.
Or am I reading this wrong?
Dave
9 - nugget
silas,
my insensitivity stems not from my lack of compassion for rape victims but your attributions of emotional rape to strident pro-lifers, as if no one else abuses children. And thankfully I was not raped as a young child.
10 - John Bambenek
Well, strictly speaking, if a hospital refuses to perform abortions, they can lose federal funds. That's what the fight is about.
11 - Dave Nalle
Right, that's not at all the same as a physician choosing not to do them. Just like anything else, if you take federal money it comes with strings attached. So if you don't want to do abortions don't take federal money. Pretty simple, really. The Catholic hospitals have come to terms with it. Of course they usually sub-contract their abortion facilities to non-Catholics to get around church rules.
Dave
12 - Silas Kain
You see, nugget, I wonder about these things. I know how long it took me to get over what happened with me. People discount emotional rape but it does occur. I think about what I went through and how I hid in shame thinking it was all my fault -- for years the perpetrator was the victim in my mind.
I had a close friend who got pregnant many years ago. The situation in which it happened was most unfortunate and she decided that she had to terminate. I stood by her through the whole process and shared an extreme range of emotions. A few years later, when we were talking about it, she recounted a story about how she had gone to a priest to discuss her decision. She never told me about it at the time because she was afraid she would lose me as a friend and confidant. The priest had told her that she would be excommunicated, reviled and banned to hell if she got the abortion. The sexual assault which caused her situation was bad enough. She said that her experience with the priest was 'emotional rape' and she thought that was just as horrible as the original assault. I'm not sorry I held her hand during those days. It was her decision and if I had to do it all over again the only thing I'd do different is beat the shit out of the son of a bitch before he had a chance to hurt her.
13 - John Bambenek
Dave,
You did read the link about the pharmacist who had his license suspended for 2 years for not giving people Plan-B, didn't you?
Where do you think this leads?
Since when did it become appropriate for the government to punish conscience? What's next? A Christian tax?
14 - RJ
"The priest had told her that she would be excommunicated, reviled and banned to hell if she got the abortion."
What's wrong with that? She went to a religious leader seeking his opinion, and she got it.
What else was she expecting a leader of an anti-abortion church to say? Catholic teachings place abortion as akin to infanticide, right? Should the priest have lied to her and said the Catholic church has no problems with abortion?
15 - RedTard
I agree completely that no doctor should be allowed to refuse emergency care to anyone but on other procedures such as abortions they should have the right to choose.
If euthenasia is legal and a doctor really has a strong belief in not killing people do you think he or she should be forced to administer a lethal injection or risk losing their license?
It doesn't seem right. The doctor should be able to just say I'm sorry I can't do that but I can refer you to so and so who is an expert and performs many of those procedure.
16 - nugget
Silas Kain,
I'm sorry about your friend. I really am. Catholic priests tend to feast on misfortunes of others in their comfortable confession hammocks. I only say that because priests are people too. I don't think catholicism denies their humanity and potential for sin. Every priest is different. your friend got hit by an ugly stick. That sucks. But there is no reason to keep beating that drum. It soundslike your friend has a hard time keepin on. It also seems that you find it difficult because of her. I suggest you and her try to forget past incidents like these on your own. People have done me wrong too you know, but I try my best to forget it with any stored or refrigerated guts I have left. People like her are overwhelmed by an unforgiving natural selection. Appease those that comfort you and forget anyone that truly makes you feel miserable. But don't act in spite or revenge. If so you will be a bitch to your enemy as well as anyone thirsty for warm blood.
Just some advice. Didn't mean to get all medieval on you.
17 - Dave Nalle
>>You did read the link about the pharmacist who had his license suspended for 2 years for not giving people Plan-B, didn't you?
Where do you think this leads?<<
I reluctantly have to agree with you on this one. It's not the pharmacy board's job to deal with that kind of problem. His employer should fire him immediately, of course.
Dave
18 - nugget
also, to SHARK,
I'm glad to see you again. I felt it a misfortune that our first aquaintance was hijacked by your attack of some 18 year old hack and consquently I had to assume a more responsible rhetorical role by defending the delusional minor.
Furthermore, I imagine that I will continue to make your life on blogcritics a living hell as long as your quackery and bigotry infests the internet. I despise your very disposition and upheavel of public sensibilities. Let the flame wars end or begin depending on your self-proclaimed pledges as a wit or intellect (and with help from your pathetic sidekick JOE).
or not. lately you've been infiltrating prog rock discussions of which I find to be utterly hilarious and insignificant being a professional musician myself. Good luck educating future generations on progressive rock and roll aka jagging off on pentatonic scales until the drawn out story dramatically closes (or some pretentious nitwit rocknroller sells out and gets a haircut!).......
The end.
19 - Silas Kain
What else was she expecting a leader of an anti-abortion church to say? Catholic teachings place abortion as akin to infanticide, right? Should the priest have lied to her and said the Catholic church has no problems with abortion?
RJ, I only brought that up because she was afraid at that time to tell me that she went to a priest. That fear came out of my love for the Church at that point in my life and she was afraid I would react much in the same way as the reverend. A priest can convey the Canonical aspects to a Church member, I'm not disputing that. But there are thousands of other priests who would have taken a more compassionate approach. Regardless of dogma, Canon Law and even the Bible itself the one common thread that runs through it all is that God gave Humankind free will. When the day comes that I come before the throne to face my judgement I will have my regrets but what I did in those days certainly will not be one of them.
nugget, thanks for the words of comfort. They meant a lot.
20 - John Bill
Churches need to pay their fair share like astrologers or palm readers do.
21 - Shark
Nugget to Shark: "...I imagine that I will continue to make your life on blogcritics a living hell..."
Quite an imagination!
====
Nugget: "...you've been infiltrating prog rock discussions of which I find to be utterly hilarious and insignificant being a professional musician myself..."
1) Borrow a comma from Bambineck.
2) I was writing, playing, and performing "progressive rock" before it was a term -- and probably before you were a gleam in the mailman's eye.
3) In the immortal words of W. Bush, "Bring it on!"
4) heh.
5) feh.
22 - Shark
Nugget, I haven't met my "sidekick Joe" -- and don't even remember coming across him on BC. Please introduce us next time we're in the vicinity.
Thanks in advance.
Shark, aka The Lone Deranger
23 - Froggo Zijgeb
How does Bob A. Booey get tu calling an anti-abortion post "boiler-plate far right invective"? In the 1950s, the Democratic Party and the Republican Party alike regarded abortion azz a criminal offense, azz did the Tory party_ the Labour Party and the Liberal Party in the United Kingdom. Then in 1967, the policy was reversed in Britain & America (yes, 1967 not 1973; the Supreme Court judgement was a confimation of the new policy not the introduction of the new policy). In the Abortion Act 1967, nurses have the right tu refuse any involvement in abortion; in practice, pro-life nurses are not likely tu get high in the structure. Legalizing abortion was never intended tu produce choice. The claim of promoting choice is false exactly like the claim of fox-hunters that they do it in order tu control the fox population. And I think the motive is the same: it is a blood-sport.
24 - Anthony Grande
So much for pro-CHOICE, I think after reading Bambenecks article it is safe to say that instead of calling them pro-CHOICE we can call them pro-DEATH. They don't want to let the doctors have a choice, the doctors must KILL the babies or fetus (or how ever else you want to decorate it).
25 - Quest
There is too much focus in politics on "Abortion Rights". The focus should be on "Human Rights Of the Unborn". The basic human right of a growing human being in the womb is "The Right To Live", just as it is for any innocent human being who has not committed a crime that justifies capital punishment.