If your doctor does not want you to get an abortion, it is ok to lie to you.
The Arizona Senate has approved a bill that would shield doctors and others from so-called “wrongful birth” lawsuits.
Those are lawsuits that can arise if physicians don’t inform pregnant women of prenatal problems that could lead to the decision to have an abortion.
The Senate’s 20-9 vote Tuesday sends the bill to the state House.
The bill’s sponsor is Republican Nancy Barto of Phoenix.
Mind you, there is no Republican war on women and their reproductive rights.
A war on women by a woman. When are you going to tell me about the Democratic War on unborn persons? The one where millions of deaths have occurred.
Which justifies lying to patients.
Steve
The issue here is codifying religious belief as law.
Steve
Which I don’t believe in, but the issue your ignoring is the Democrats’ War on Religion, trying to force church and people to act against their faith to save the poor little downtrodden female law students at Georgetown U. who can’t afford to buy contraception.
Belief that an unborn human is a human is not dependent on religious belief, just more common. Freedom of religion, and what that entails, is a constitutionally guaranteed right, but, more than that, is one of those “unalienable Rights.” And, a right that has come under increasing fire by the Democrats using the logic that, since we forcibly take money from people, and then give back some of it for health care that you provide, you must do whatever we say.
It was reported that Georgetown offers insurance to its staff that covers contraceptives. Why shouldnt they do so for students? How can it be based upon religion when you cover one group, but not another?
I do not think Catholic churches should have to cover contraceptives for their employers. Publicly funded institutions that selectively provide contraceptives should not be granted the same exemption.
As to the War claim, there is a constant push by some religious people to have public laws reflect their own faith. In places that have state religions, think Saudi Arabia as an example, that is fine. Not in the US. To be fair, there are other people who push so hard to keep religion out of the public sphere that they go too far. In the particular case of contraceptives, I believe there is a real honest debate to be had about public policy when the professed beliefs of a church are totally out of synch with what its practitioners actually do.
Steve
I do believe that a doctor should never lie to a patient, no matter what.
Sigh. An acorn is not an oak. An egg, even a fertilized egg, is not a chicken.
The legislation here is yet another attempt to interject government into medical practice. In this case by “protecting” physicians from withholding information patients need in order to make decisions on their health care. Of course, it fails to address related issues such as how the parents of a child with severe congenital health challenges will prepare for the emotional and financial problems they will face.
Throwing in words of “war” against women or religion creates a “fog of war” in which real discussion descends into name calling and other insults. Certainly, DADvocate, you do not equate contraception with abortion. Even if opposed to both of them, how can one equate them? They may both involve women and may both involve reproduction but the similarity ceases at that point.
Perhaps we could all agree on a few things:
– Physicians lying to patients are committing an ethical breech. Generally, poor ethics is a bad way in which to provide health care
– If health care insurance covers preventive care such as cancer screening, wellness counseling, vaccines, and related care, then it should cover contraceptive care.
– Abortion is a procedure seen by many as being the taking of a life. While there is no justification for codifying this religious belief into law, there is also no justification for requiring hospitals and clinics believing that to provide abortion services.
– It seems likely that physicians lying to their patients about health conditions where the patient needs full data in order tom make informed decisions will face a jury in a malpractice case with or without legislation such as this.
– If health care insurance covers preventive care such as cancer screening, wellness counseling, vaccines, and related care, then it should cover contraceptive care.
My good Edward,
Perhaps so, perhaps not, but all you have offered so far to demonstrate that it should be is your own decree by fiat. Notwithstanding that some women do in fact take versions of the Pill for non-reproduction-related hormonally beneficial medical reasons, contraception purely for reproductive reasons is simply not at all of a kind with “preventive care such as cancer screening, wellness counseling, vaccines, and related care”. One can test this proposition with a condom: contraception purely for reproductive reasons undertaken by males leaves us curiously trying to equate a pack of condoms with a cancer screening.
The evolution of the payment for contraceptive care – first nonexistent, because contraception was illegal, then publicly funded for poor women only, now publicly funded for poor women and federally mandated to be funded sufficiently by all members of insurance pools, public or private, so that users of such contraception in those pools need not have to pay deductibles or co-payments related to its usage is an example of what is coming to be described as “middle class welfare”, that is, federal subsidy of expenses the middle class formerly bore privately itself in order now to either alleviate or to disguise the shrinking purchasing power of the middle class.
This march of middle class welfare, particularly with respect to medical coverage, is also abetting by leapfrogging back and forth between the sexes in order to maintain an equality between them; hence the coverage for the various ED remedies that our good Wired Sisters are always calling out the Catholic Church about.
One factoid I have not heard yet definitively is whether the HHS regulations concerning contraception pursuant to the ACA do in fact apply equally to male contraception, from condoms to vasectomies, such that future insurance must cover either and all equally as well, without deductible and without co-payment.
Does anyone know for sure?
H. M. Stuart
Alexandria
Whenever politicos get into controlling health care, we end up with difficult and confusing “rules.” Thus, drugs for erectile dysfunction are covered with little or no debate beyond how many a month are paid for. Birth control pills are paid for if given to “regulate menses” but not if for contraception (at least in the view of those opposed to contraception). Breast augmentation is paid for after mastectomy but not for women with breast malformation. Doctors are “protected” for lying about a fetus’ health but readily sued when a child is born with cerebral palsy. I could go on.
In my “ideal” world, health insurance would be for conditions of unpredictable frequency for individuals (injury, major illness, surgery, etc). Daily management of wellness, family planning, screening, etc would be individually provided. Of course the problem is that a significant number of our citizenry are utterly unable to afford this care. An additional problem is seen in what aspects of chronic conditions should be self care and what should be insured. Diabetes mellitus comes to mind.
If we believe that all citizens should have access to major illness care, chronic illness care, and routine wellness care, then we probably have no choice than to look toward some form of national (standardized?) health care. That, of course, opens the entire system to manipulation by political persons and organizations. How can we hope to reach some form of consensus when the participants use terms such as “war on women” , murderers, slut, Hitlerite, and so forth?
[...] Ok to Lie to Patients, if Abortion is Involved (aleksandreia.com) [...]
For want of another string to post this, here is another of the ongoing assaults on women by our elected representatives, in this case, my governor: http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/03/15/444999/pennsylvania-governor-supports-ultrasound-bill/?mobile=nc
As I read this, I wondered if Governor Corbett is one of those who advise women who are being raped that the best thing to do is to “relax and attempt to enjoy the assault and battery.” I know that many will point out that rape and an ultrasound have little in common. In response, I point out that, in this case, both are done without consent, both involve putting women is a submissive place, both involve removing a woman’s right to decide what is to be done with her body. The only obvious difference is that there is no PHYSICAL harm to the woman undergoing a mandatory ultrasound. Even that is not fully true as I assume that the women will be required to pay for the ultrasound as the legislature is unlikely to do so.
In an earlier post, I criticized the use of pejorative terms such as “war on women.” However, it is hard not to admit that one is in a war when being bombarded by shells.