Discussion for article #240998
its really not the same⌠Kim Davis is trying to inject her beliefs into a valid government functionâŚ
a doctor can choose not to do an abortion because s/he doesnât practice that procedure⌠in theory a psychiatrist can do the procedure⌠they have to be an MD to be a psychiatristâŚ
my family Dr referred me to another Dr to a sigmoidoscopy⌠he said he could do it but he wasnât very good at itâŚ
Kim Davis providing a valid government function, that by her own admission she believes she is good at, is really choosing to not do her jobâŚ
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I canât get past the confusing headline. We and they are two completely different tribes.
âWeâ do not âaccept the doctorsâŚâ
âTheyâ do not âvilify Kim Davis.â
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Iâm a member of the tribe that villifies Kim Davis, and is accepting of doctors who refuse to provide abortion care, (at least in non-emergency situations.) I think the author is using âweâ to mean âAmericans, generally speaking.â
But that is not what the author is arguing. She in no way is implying that a psychiatrist or a pediatrician should perform abortions. Is not part of their training. But is a doctor is a OBGYN, then abortion procedures are within his or hers specialty training. I must admit I am conflicted on this issue, and had never looked at it from the perspective of the author. I do agree with her that a pharmacist has no business denying medication to a patient based on religious view. There are plenty of McDonalds they can work at if they feel so strongly about dispatching meds to folks they donât approve of. Unless of course they have a religious objection to eating beef. But such is the world of religious objection in a pluralistic society!
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I think the difference is that doctors who donât want to do abortions honestly believe that it is murder. Telling Kim Davis to allow two people to do something she considers immoral is very different from requiring a doctor to âmurderâ a someone. I donât agree with the belief, but can acknowledge that they do and that makes it a more weighty moral choice. The big problem was letting Catholic hospitals off the hook. By now, religious hospitals are often the only ones in an area so they are denying not only abortions, but birth control to their patients and there is no good way to make them change, simply because if they take their marbles and go home an entire region loses all hospitals. Itâs something that needs to be addressed, but I donât know how.
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Sheâs a woman and they are men?
Kim Davis is an elected public official who took an oath to uphold the laws of Kentucky and the United States. Her sole function is to serve all the law-abiding taxpaying citizens in her county. She canât pick and choose which of those citizens are entitled to those services. A more apt analogy for the physician (who is not an elected official, BTW) would be an OBGYN who does perform abortions for Caucasian patients, but refuses to do the procedure for African-American women.
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The use of âweâ in this article is a bit misleading. Not everyone agrees with opt out provisions for pproviding womenâs services and some people agree with Davis. Laws are not always built on if A then B logic.
Also, the author glosses over the Davis-as-elected-official issue.
Both need to be better addressed.
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A lot of people donât know about all the specialty pharmacies that donât even handle birth control. Long term care pharmacies sell exclusively to nursing homes. Nuclear pharmacies sell radioactive dye to radiologists and hospitals. Home infusion pharmacies sell intravenous medication to people receiving treatments at home. So pharmacistsâ alternatives are far greater than what a few self righteous retailers would have everyone believe.
the problem with that argument is that there isnât any government mandate to perform an abortion⌠indeed the government seems hellbent on doing just the opposite⌠my argument still holds water in that there isnât a requirement that the procedure be done by an OBY/GYNâŚ
the general argument is that itâs a simple and safe procedure when done in the proper setting⌠not trying to play Dr but Iâd bet there are Rns and midwives that could do it.
Because it is comparing apples and oranges. One is more a hot button issue now compared to the other that has been going for decades or longer. Both are bad but one is a new thing. Or at least to be this blatant about it.
It is sort of like some of the conservative commentators attacking the president, pope or whatever. Did you hear a mention of x? Must mean they do not care about important issue just their politics and blah blah. Ignoring that they are cherry picking too.
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Kim Davis is an elected government official legally obligated to perform a mandatory, nondiscretionary governmental function conferred upon her office. Being religious does not give her discretion to pick and choose who receive the benefits of the services she is legally required to provide where no such discretion exists or can exist consistent with the Due Process Clause.
Maybe you have to be a lawyer to see how thatâs different from a physician or a pharmacist refusing to perform particular procedures or dispense particular drugs. The only physicians and pharmacists who are government employees are with the VA, military and PHS. Birth control and abortion services are not within the scope of their responsibilities. And the only nondiscretionary medical services any physician has to perform that Iâm aware of are the ones that occur in the ER, and even there, physicians are necessarily granted enormous discretion on what procedures to perform and even on when to give up and decide whether to declare someone dead, or further treatment beyond palliative measures.
Kim Davis isnât a moral issue or an ethical issue or a societal norm issue or even a political issue. No one was entitled to be upset with a county clerk refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples before the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage bans unconstitutional. Rather, Kim Davis is a legal issue, she is a person vested with state authority refusing equal protection under the law and applying a religious test to the performance of her legal duties. To the extent that people choose to view why what sheâs doing is wrong through the lense of their politics or their personal norms, they are free to do so, but their norms and politics donât affect or control what she does or should do any more than hers do.
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Kim Davis isnât a privately practicing physician being asked to perform a procedure that some believe terminates an innocent human life.
Sheâs a public official being asked to record the intentions of two consenting adults into the public record.
The ethical issues arenât comparable by a long shot.
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Oh, so this is it! When I talk to conservative friends, they say âboth sides do itâ to a mention of any type of corruption. Iâve never fully agreed.
False Equivalence.
Davis is government. We live in a free country.
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Granted. But are they licensed by the state? In exchange for that official blessing, is it unreasonable to require them to provide any and all legal services? Do they have a right to second-guess the doctor who prescribed the medication?
Itâs a murkier situation WRT doctors, of course, but when it comes to pharmacists, it seems more clear-cut to me.
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This is not the same at all. Doctors get to choose what they will perform, and if they donât perform abortions then you go to another doctor. My primary care doctor wouldnât do open heart surgery on me, or do a biopsy, because he doesnât do that.
There is no other place to get a wedding license than in Kim Davisâ office, and it is specifically her job to provide those licenses.
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If a doctor wants to work at a hospital that has abortion services in the job description for an OBGYN then they need to perform abortions or work elsewhere. But if the hospital doesnât perform them, or the doctor is in private practice, thereâs no employer or government or ethical mandate to provide non-emergency abortions.
Kim Davis has a government job that has as part of its mandate providing marriage licenses, and she is refusing to do so. Additionally, she has been given a court order to provide those licenses and is going against the court order. Thatâs never happened to an OBGYN being ordered to perform an abortion.
It is simply not the same.
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I donât accept those doctors.
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Licensing by the state is a public safety measure. It is a restriction on the right to practice, not a grant of authority. It doesnât impair a professionalâs freedom of contract or right of conscience. Lawyers get to pick and choose their clients unless they become state employees, and even then are conferred with great discretion to withdraw from a case if their beliefs or concience will impair their ability to do their job. Architects donât have to design Satanic temples, contractors who are vegan donât have to build slaughterhouses.
(Lawyers are a bit of an exception. We are officers of the Court and thus potentially subject to restrictions and requirements in the performance of our duties that other professions canât be made to bear.)
My problem with allowing pharmacists to opt out of dispensing drugs regardless of their employerâs policy is that it is an imposition of a religious test on the private sector and a governmental impairment on the employerâs freedom of contract. If a drug store chain or a privately owned pharmacy (there must still be some somewhere) doesnât want to carry the pill, thatâs their right.
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