A parting shot from Preacher Bush
Last week the Washington Post had a piece about Bush granting new protections to health workers who refuse to provide care that's against their personal moral beliefs...a regulation that takes effect the day Obama is sworn into office.
"The far-reaching regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable. It was sought by conservative groups, abortion opponents and others to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.
[T]he rule, which will cost more than $44 million to implement, gives more than 584,000 health-care organizations until Oct. 1 to provide written certification of their compliance. Those that do not comply face having their funding cut off or being required to return funding they have received.[..]"
Why don't these health care "moral objectors" just skip medical school and go straight to an evangelical seminary and learn how to handle snakes, speak in tongues and become faith healers?
Maybe other doctors who disagree with this rule should not prescribe certain hypocrites their Viagra unless they're only using it to have a child....
Next the New York Times has an editorial on the subject:
"A parting gift to the far right, the [Bush administration] new regulation aims to hinder women's access to abortion, contraceptives and the information necessary to make decisions about their own health. What makes it worse is that the policy is wrapped up in a phony claim to safeguard religious freedom.
The law has long allowed doctors and nurses to refuse to participate in an abortion.... changes elevate the so-called right to refuse beyond reason to an increased number of medical institutions and a broad range of health care workers and services -- including abortion referrals, unbiased counseling and provision of emergency contraception, even to rape victims.
The impact will be hardest on poor women who rely on public programs for their health care.
[T]he Health and Human Services regulation is due to become effective on Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. By acting right away to suspend its implementation, President-elect Barack Obama and his choice to succeed Mr. Leavitt, Tom Daschle, can block irresponsible changes that threaten people's rights and defy the federal government's duty on public health.
A doctor who refuses to prescribe a patient the 'morning after pill' faces exactly zero personal risk for his/her ideological beliefs. What, exactly, does that doctor need protection from?
And when a rape victim is taken to a hospital for treatment, she has a right to accurate information about emergency contraction and immediate access to it. She may have no choice about where she is taken and doesn't have time to wait and weed out those who do not provide full services.
These doctors can believe whatever they want to as long as they're not imposing THEIR beliefs on those who do not share them...and asking to be paid anyway to boot!
If their beliefs keep them from offering otherwise legal care and services, then they can get the hell out the field.
Hmm...the Bushies know that President Obama will stop this regulation as soon as he can...so this smells like a Rovian ploy to set Obama up in a confrontation over both abortion and religious freedom right at the start....
As if he didn't already have enough on his plate. But that's those neo-cons for you -- always putting Country First.
