Patients' rights must trump dogma
In Texas, a Catholic bishop made two hospitals cease doing tube-tying operations for women who are not going to have more babies. In Arizona, a nun was excommunicated and the hospital where she works was expelled from the church after 116 years for allowing doctors to terminate a pregnancy to save a woman's life. At the same time, some doctors and other health professionals have faced disciplinary action for refusing to perform procedures or provide medications that go against their religious beliefs.
Should Catholic hospitals be able to restrict doctors from performing common and legal medical practices? Do such restrictions unfairly impinge on the rights of non-Catholic patients and doctors, particularly those in rural or underserved areas where alternative hospitals are not readily available?
Catholic hospitals receive substantial public support, through Medicare, Medicaid and direct state grants, and yet there are many services they don't provide: abortion (even to save a woman's life), birth control, sterilizing operations, "morning after" drugs for rape victims and certain types of fertility treatments. These hospitals elevate church dogma over the needs of patients. It is unconscionable.
In Phoenix, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted demoted a nun who allowed an abortion to save the life of a pregnant woman; he then announced that the nun had excommunicated herself by her actions - which saved a patient's life! (Isn't that what hospitals are supposed to do?) Bishop Olmsted's conduct is reprehensible, and I see no reason why his dogma-infused hospital should receive any public support.
According to some accounts, Catholic hospitals account for about one-fifth of all the medical centers in America. In some areas, they are the only options people have. Yet they seem more interested in imposing narrow church doctrines (which, I should point out, most American Catholics don't support) than providing the full range of health services. And it isn't just abortion and birth control. If your end-of-life directives are deemed in conflict with Catholic dogma, they will not be followed.
Religion and health care should not mix. If the church want to use its hospitals to enforce narrow theological doctrines, let its leaders pay from them. As long as these institutions are receiving tax support, they should be required to provide the entire range of health services and respect the wishes and needs of patients. The bottom line is that when the genuine right of a patient to get the health care she or he needs clashes with the ephemeral "right" of an institution to be doctrinally pure, the patient should prevail each and every time.
By
Barry Lynn
|
January 25, 2011; 8:38 AM ET
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Posted by: TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ1 | January 26, 2011 10:33 AM
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IN REPLY TO (IRT)
RONGOKLUNK
POSTED JANUARY 25, 2011 6:54 PM
IRT:
"One day - God willing, religions will be a thing of the past, as long as some wacky martyr doesn't blow up the planet first."
ANS:
Hasn’t that already happened. You have N. Korea where there is no apparent religion, Russia and China where there is only a pretext of a facsimile of religion. Unfortunately, they, not Christians, are the real wackos threatening to blow up the world.
Second, why would God not wish to be recognized or wish His Natural & Moral Laws not be believed? Did He not write in the Commandments, “I am a jealous God, and thou shalt not have strange gods before me?” Did He not command man to love Him with all one's mind, soul, and strength? Thus, God is not willing to do away with His Church and Christianity. That would have God contradicting Himself, which is impossible.
Fortunately, the Founding Fathers figured it out, and what they figured out is that no civilization can survive unless it recognizes that man is endowed by God with certain inalienable rights, and if these rights are not recognized, the society becomes entrapped in the muck of social incoherence and disorder. Thus, Thomas Jefferson made the remark, "To whom do we go for our moral guidance if not the Church?"
God is intimately connected to the world by His presence, but he is not part of the world. Consequently, those who make the world their God end up in the same world the Fascist, Socialists, and Communist states ended in, namely, they are taking a voyage to social suicide because they have jettisoned the moral restraints that harmonizes man with the society in which he lives.
Posted by: TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ1 | January 26, 2011 8:21 AM
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One day - God willing, religions will be a thing of the past, as long as some wacky martyr doesn't blow up the planet first.
Posted by: Rongoklunk | January 25, 2011 6:54 PM
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Counselor Et Al:
According to Current (Hiring) Practices within some 'FAITH-BASED' Org's or those whom currently receive Faith-Based Dollars directly from the White-House Executive-Branch Powers AND
WHOm Openly-dare flout and "DISCRIMINATE" against the None-Denomination of entity/person(s), i.e. A Evangelical Corporation or some Baptist Church who, via "RELIGIOUS//JEALOUSLY//PSYCHOSIS" Discriminates on their Volunteer ISHLAMI's who ask for full-time or par-time Paying JOB to work Inside this tax-Exempted none-Muslim Org! Church-Based Hospitals should Also Discriminate in Hiring None-Denomination-personnel/Staff/Employees.
Now The CHURCH Based HOSPITAL's, same like The Faith Based Recipients dare to Discriminate against "SECULAR-MEDICINE" (in Life-Death CHOiCE ) and or "ATHEIST-MEDICINE" as opposed to God'ly-[Choice]-Medicine or "CHURCH-MEDICINE" (via invisible man or not)?
Note: The "NEW" Com'th From Those of US Whom Inevitably Get OLD (Parents; Who "MAKE & HAVE" BABY(s) with 'intent' to Raise Them, Not ABORT Them! So
This [Saving The BABY-"MAKER"s (Mother) instead of the Fetus) Case is NOt about stopping baby's Who Have Baby's; but About A Grown Woman Who Could Have (While Healthy/Permissible) HAVe MORE Litters, than what she/he Lost from where they themselves came From!! Or Is This Too TAUTOiLOGICAL?
The CHURCH 's In America should be Told, "If YeYo-All Don't Like It Then Ye Should've of Never been INCORPORATED Here!
An Exception to allowable-ABORTION or allowable-Aborting (Even in Trimester) is good (anti-SATANIC) If There was a way to know, in Advance, if MONSTERS-TO-BE (AHuumate?) Babys? like sir ADOLF-HITLER (a 'Catholic' who "Feigned Secularity" & Similarly situated) who ultimately grew-up to become MACHO-HONCHO mass-killer # 1. So
Does That Mean we exclude or "Forgive" the McVay types , or Muhammad Atta's, or even current Crazy's like Congresswoman GIFFORD's {Wish Her Best} Shooter or Charles Mansons and SON-of-SAMs? (Now a 'Mr. Berkowitz' Who Gots JESUS Now in HiS-LiFE?) et al??.
Recommendation: The President [OBAMA] should Announce that they are Phasing-out The White-House Church by 2013 (Post MAYAN Prophecy; Jan.01.13).
Rabbi JESUS (The Nazarene of West-Bank, Islamic Palestine) was Wrong when he said, while pegged to the 4-Way Totem-Poll, "YEYo DO-Know What Ye Hath DOne!"
So Some "SIN(s)[if Any] are FORGIVABLE?
Imagine If That 'Mother' (the Subject) Was Jesus's Mother (NOt a Virgin anymore)? So the Mother (because she's Not a Virgin) Should have Died instead of The Fetus?
Is not This Woman like a "MOTHER OF God"(like Rabbi jesUS, not the FATHER)? Mother? So, Imagine if jesUS was Aborted in order to Save MARRY & that in Holyi-Time she had 5-five or 7-Seven More little Jehova's/JESUS's (After the Abortion of the 1st Jesus) running or flying around on S.pace-S.hip Earth, aye?
The Chinese have a nice saying. "Better 1-One (Mother) In Hand Then 5-five (Babies) in a Bush."
Posted by: letitbe | January 25, 2011 5:10 PM
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Posted by: letitbe | January 25, 2011 5:09 PM
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If I operate an AIDS clinic with some federal funding, must I also provide dental work?
If the Catholic hospital believes the fetus is a patient, how can the government require the hospital to kill it? Remember the Supreme court based its decision not on the basis that a fetus was not human life, but only that there is disagreement among the religious and medical experts.
Posted by: Hector6 | January 25, 2011 11:37 AM
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IN REPLY TO:
“Catholic hospitals receive substantial public support, through Medicare, Medicaid and direct state grants, and yet there are many services they don't provide: abortion (even to save a woman's life), birth control, sterilizing operations, "morning after" drugs for rape victims and certain types of fertility treatments. These hospitals elevate church dogma over the needs of patients. It is unconscionable.”
ANS:
Who has the authority to murder one’s own child? Under whose authority are we legally able to commit murder? All the renowned Microbiologists, Embryologist, and Eugenicist in the world agree that the “conceived” is a human person, irrespective of atheists and the uninformed majority on the Court who think differently.
To proscribe Partial Birth Abortion, it took Congress three attempts to convince the Court that it is a child that was being born even though they were looking at the child. Two agnostic Secular Justices were arguing how far outside the birth canal did the child have to be before a butcher could legally plunge a surgical scissors into the back of a child's skull to suck out its brains while it was flailing and struggling to breathe. These mentally blind myopic cretins could not even see it was a child they were discussing while attempting to justify how it might be murdered.
Yes, patients’ rights do trump what obstructs their rights; they do not trump the Natural & Moral Law (N&ML) that defines man's inviolable rights. Religious beliefs that contradict God and His N&ML are illegitimate.
You cannot contradict the laws of God and claim these violations are legitimate. Man’s basic inalienable rights are founded on the N&ML that is universal, and is ubiquitous in its authority, irrespective of age, race, gender, creed, or culture.
Man can legitimately choose, in accord with his conscience, what religion he wishes to believe even if his beliefs are wrong. However, no man can choose his own subjectively morality he may live by or a religion that contradicts the N&ML. These laws are based on human nature and human nature doesn’t change, nor can its purpose be compromised by man’s indiscretions. The N&ML is not a matter of choice; it is a matter of fact.
Consequently, there is no inviolable right to be immoral, to violate the Natural and Moral Law, and specifically to have one’s child murdered, religion, or no religion. If a dogma contradicts the Natural Moral Law, it is not a legitimate dogma and is a contradiction of God Himself.
Human rights do not include a right to be immorally evil; immoral evil is a contradiction of human nature and the N&ML. Thus, to require one to be morally evil is an abomination to man and to the God who created him.