Does bush proposal threaten access to the pill?

[bliss_eternal]

White House seeks to protect health-care workers who object to abortion

By Rob Stein

updated 9:27 p.m. PT, Wed., July. 30, 2008
A Bush administration proposal aimed at protecting health-care workers who object to abortion, and to birth-control methods they consider tantamount to abortion, has escalated a bitter debate over the balance between religious freedom and patients' rights.

The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing a draft regulation that would deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions, including providing birth-control pills, IUDs and the Plan B emergency contraceptive.

Conservative groups, abortion opponents and some members of Congress are welcoming the initiative as necessary to safeguard doctors, nurses and other health workers who, they say, are increasingly facing discrimination because of their beliefs or are being coerced into delivering services they find repugnant.

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excerpted from:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25940818

I'm sorry, but this makes me furious. :grr::mad: This is nothing short of legal terrorism.
Oh and rw women who insisted that your fuhrer had no intention of doing this...I fucking told you so.

[smokey nj]

1. They're being COERCED? Nobody forced them to work in health care.

It's not as if contraception or abortion are recent developments in medicine that they couldn't have anticipated when they entered the field. These lunatics entered the health care field so they could impose their beliefs on the rest of us. :grr:

[MountainLaurel]

2. This is a topic that gets my dander up

Never, ever should someone's religious dogma get in the way of a patient's healthcare.

[ismnotwasm]

3. Disgusting

I don't like putting in IV's in junkies who might go out to "have a cigarette" and shoot up through it either. I don't like coding someone who's original DNR wishes have been ignored by their family, and who can no longer make decisions.

I don't like putting in rectal tubes in alcoholics who've drank their liver into hard little balls either, for that matter, much less cleaning up all that shit. Literal shit.

This is so stupid I can't begin to express myself. One thing health care providers MUST leave out of their care is imposing their own "moral" judgments on when, how and what care is to be provided.

[uppityperson]

4. Exactly. Everything you said. eom

[bliss_eternal]

5. Apparently, the holy rollers in health care love those cases...

...it gives them an opportunity to "save a soul." :eyes: I'm not kidding, knew some christian nurses (and a few starting the program)when I was in school. Also met some when I was still being forced to go to church. I've heard stories of them "ministering" to someone who was on their death bed--asking if they accepted christ into their heart, blah, blah.

I recall thinking they were taking liberties with professional boundaries at the time. Now it just makes me nauseous.

[ismnotwasm]

6. I work with some Christian nurses

Even one male Muslim nurse. The ones I work with are sane for the most part as far as I can tell.

The ones who refuse care to women in situations this legislation refers to are not sane and are poor practitioners. Period. I don't have to know them. That attitude not only indicates poor care providers, but dangerous, unstable behavior. Very frightening from my point of view as a nurse.

My co-workers and I, we work in transplant, we face ethical issues every day. Including situations involving health care decisions and pregnancy. It's not our job to judge, although as human beings of course we do, but good health practitioners are able to keep their judgments and their practice separate.

Legislation like this---I have no words to express how wrong it is. I love my profession and this is like performing and justifying a sick perversion in the name of health care, of nursing care, of medical care. Ugh.

[bliss_eternal]

7. nicu seems a tough area, too...

...in terms of dealing w/issues that may conflict w/one's personal beliefs (like making efforts to save the life of an infant that is suffering, and may not live a full, healthy life, with a normal functioning brain).

For example, cases where a parent did heavy drugs (and/or alcohol) while pregnant, and the baby was born with it's insides on fire (literally). It's horrible to watch an infant suffer like that. Yet some parents (out of guilt, etc.) wanted everything done to save it should it code. (sigh).

I even knew of a nurse that was anti-choice prior to her nicu career, changing to a pro-choicer while working in nicu. That speaks volumes to me.

Unfortunately, it seems it's becoming more common for med professionals to ask to not work w/women that are aborting. (Particularly since this administration's been in office). I guess they were inspired by the pharmacist's shenanigans. Isnt't there an oath of some sort medical professionals take when before starting their careers? Something that says they promise to set aside personal shit to do their jobs?

[ismnotwasm]

8. The MD's have the hippocratic oath

Nursing as a profession is geared toward care with non-judgment. Ethics is covered in every single class you'd take in an actual nursing program. In any area you work in we run into situations where we're going to have opinions, are going to feel happy or horrified, and many of them have to do with life or death. Another reason why this legislation is bullshit. What If I didn't agree with palliative, or hospice care? Ignored the wishes of someone dying of cancer? Decided that "morally" I can't provide that kind of care? God, don't get me started.

A nurse I know tells a story of working in a hospital were they did 2nd trimester abortions. One fetus after the abortion was doing agonal breathing (Like a fish out of water) She carried the fetus to NICU, and told them "to let it die with some dignity" As dramatic as that story is, she didn't become anti-choice, she just knew that abortion was not the choice for her. And you're so right in NICU the nurses know some incredibly sad stories, as well as incredibly happy ones, and choice as well as good information and the ability to act on good information does play a role in outcome.

We need total and comprehensive sex education. Accessible and affordable contraception INCLUDING easily accessible plan B. Plan B should be free as far as I'm concerned. Support for women who choose to become mothers during all aspects pregnancy and beyond, no matter what their socio-economic status is. Universal, non-judgmental choice to carry a fetus to term or not. Accessible and affordable clinics to terminate pregnancy if that is the choice. Health care available for everyone.

And that's just for starters. Let those who pretend to be "pro-life" (Complete Misnomer)start walking their talk with the born life that currently exists.