Threats to what is best in America

There are plenty of medical specialties where one will never be expected to perform an abortion - dentistry, podiatry, dermatology, plastic surgery, gastroenterology, otolarygology, opthamology, radiology, orthopedics, audiology, neurology....

"...they are being forced to commit acts that they believe are very wrong....These people are not forcing their beliefs on others, they're just saying, 'Count me out.' We have a right to do that for sincere religious reasons."

LKidler,

Did you read my entire post? Did you miss the paragraph that says,

"No doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care worker is being forced to work at an institution that practices medicine which goes against their conscience."

A doctor who knowingly goes to work at a public or private hospital that offers abortion services is either incalculably naive or naively calculating. Either he thinks that he will (and should) receive special treatment, or he thinks that accepting such a job will allow him to "protest from within."

Either way, he is being massively dishonest with the institution he has accepted his job from.

I am a print and media professional. I don't believe that citizens should carry guns; consequently, I would never take a job as a writer or publicist with the NRA...or, for that matter, the Republican National Committee. I also don't believe in eating animal products, so I'd never take a job with any of the agricultural lobbies that represent meat manufacturers.

If (under what circumstances I can't begin to imagine) I ever took a job in this type of industry, I'd take it understanding that I would be obliged to write copy and prepare PR materials for products/issues I am deeply opposed to.

That's how free will works.

So, no, your claim that these people are being forced to act against their consciences is just a smokescreen. They shouldn't accept jobs they're not prepared to carry out.

'Many in our society are increasingly intolerant of religious beliefs that do not comport with today's political correctness.'

Let's re-phrase that:
Many in our society are increasingly intolerant of religious beliefs that we believe to be inherently immoral.

When India was under control of the British, the question of tolerating different religious customs and beliefs was handled quite adeptly by Charles Napier. Some were upset that the British had banned Sati, the burning alive of widows on their husbands pyre. When questioned on the matter, Napier responded:
"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; [then] beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

It is ironic that Otterson and LDS, who have no tolerance for gays, will now appeal to tolerance as the virtue that others must practice.

It is more important to me that I be able to trust that hospitals and care givers will provide the best care that science can offer and that my choices in science based care be available. There have to be standards of care and those standards are best determined by science, not the particular beliefs of any one religion, whether that be LDS, Christian Scientists, Catholics, Voo-Doo, or Hindu.

Let those who cannot put their professional requirements before their faith work only in insitutions or jobs that don't test their creed. And, just as they don't want their tax dollars used in procedures that offend their faith, I don't want my tax dollars to support their faith. So, no tax dollars for hospitals or health care providers who practice their faith instead of their profession.

as kurtmanwaring said in an earlier comment: Tolerance really does need to be a two-way street.

And, this time I want those of faith to take that first step in making tolerance even handed.

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Note: Dear Ms. Sally Q. & CO., Please excuse me for being a "Prodigal Blogger" (not only a son; or Daughter) But i[WE] just had to 'TEST" the HUFF HUFF and a PUFF PUFF Bullacrapa "R-E-L-G-i-O-N" section.

Example: When i tried blogging (Yesterday was me 1st day registering) and They DID NOt post me subject line on the Phony Xrstian Conspiracy for trying to Satanically Sneakin {Into our Public Schoools Systems} that superStupidStitious (un)iNTELLigent Schemea (opps Design). And (me tricked them; but ize learned somethn by Sneaking in me comment) ON: The Discovery Of one of Albert Einstein's {pbuh] Lost/Stolen Papers about him RECANTING his statement during ww-II about that BIG LIE: "Science w/out Religion lalala stuff was only about Saving JEWs and the hope that Germany Nazi (and Ishlami's) would go easier on their poor Victims. And WHY A.E. {pbuh} Really Refused being Israels 2nd President etc..
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Note: What's good about "Huff Huff and a Puff," besides Recognizing some Ex-Moderator's (break aways) from here or whatever, that WE[i]'m impressed to see that all that Content (landing Page) , Large pics etc.. Loads Very Fast On 4 major Browsers. Otherwise ADRIANNA & Staff are Copy Cats & yes, Plagiarizers too. OYE...! Note: me thinks Their Anti-MORMON {Our People) et al?

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AND [See How Pigeons pooopoo on Arianna & Co.]

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AND

http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/story/2010/11/18/huffington-post-lawsuit.html

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@ Haveaheart:
While no one is forcing these professionals to receive procedures they have beliefs against, they are being forced to commit acts that they believe are very wrong. In some peoples' minds for instance, they don't see much difference between performing an abortion and being a hired hitman. Many medical practitioners believe that performing abortions or otherwise taking any part in the birth control process, is a violation of their hypocratic oath, to " do no harm".
These people are not forcing their beliefs on others, they're just saying, "Count me out". We have a right to do that for sincere religious reasons.

Tolerance really does need to be a two-way street. Whether the debate is over immigration, gay marriage, or any other difference, both sides of the issue need to be tolerant of the position of the other. This includes those in the minority who call for tolerance from the majority while failing to be tolerant themselves. One-directional tolerance speaks of hypocrisy and lessens the legitimacy of arguments on either side of a debate.

The issues we debate are not likely to subside anytime soon, but we can do a tremendous amount of good for whatever positions we hold by both sincerely engaging in and extending tolerance. That point is masterfully conveyed in this article.

http://www.kurtsperspective.blogspot.com/

Yet again, the issue is being turned on its head.

This is NOT a question of religious believers being denied their rights. It's a matter of religious believers wanting to force their beliefs on others and becoming incensed when they are prevented by the law from doing so.

This is what they call "religious discrimination," despite the fact that none of them is actually being forced to do anything against their will.

No one is going to force an abortion, vasectomy, or any method of birth control on those who don't want them. If our society was doing that, it would be a violation of civil rights. But that is not what is happening.

Instead, religious believers are seeking to impose their values and restrictions on people who don't have those same beliefs. They want everyone to live by their code, and they claim "religious persecution" if they're not permitted to try forcing these beliefs and choices on people who don't share them.

Religious believers are not the victims here. No Catholic woman or evangelical (pretty much the same thing) is being deprived of her right to carry a child to term or to reject any form of birth control.

No doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or other health care worker is being forced to work at an institution that practices medicine which goes against their conscience.

All of these people are merely being refused the "right" to force their beliefs and lifestyles on others.

The religious right has become very adept at recasting public policy debates as violations of their civil rights, when, in fact, the scenario is usually the opposite. They fan a smokescreen that gets cloudier every day, as they co-opt victimhood while actually being the aggressors and oppressors.

They would deny all of us our civil rights in order to impose their religious laws.

I am surprised at nearly hysterical quality of many of these comments, and at how many of them hurl barbs at this man's religion. It seems to me the issue here is far bigger than the Mormon Church, the Catholic Church, Christianity in general, or any other religious tradition. It is about something very much of the essence in our American system, although admittedly we as a nation have struggled somewhat to make this real - and that is the freedom of each person to act his conscience - and, in particular, the freedom NOT to be forced to act AGAINST his conscience. Sure, freedom like this can lead to complicated and emotion-laden situations at times. All the more reason - and need - to employ restraint and respect, both in the situations themselves and in the civil and productive discourse about them.

Our country currently does not conduct a Draft of soldiers, sailors or airmen. All young men over the age of 18 are, however, required to register for the Draft; just in case. Access to many Government services depends on this registration.

Given the logic of comments posted above, it follows that no one should refuse to submit to the Draft based on any sort of personally-held belief system, because they would be guilty of an aggregious breach of political correctness. Immigration to Canada, in such a case, would obviously fly in the face of every politically correct person.

It also follows that a Drafted Conscientious Objector will be required to serve on the front line. Not to be required to do so by a commanding officer, would be a blatant act of discrimination. Such is not the case at this time, however, because there are plenty of others, without the moral dilemma, willing and able to serve in his, or her, place.

The real issue? Why require anyone to engage in legally accepted/required behaviors that are anathema to them when, others are available who can and will do so? Why place someone in such an uncomfortable position just because you can? I believe this is at the heart of Mr. Otterson's treatise.

I don't see any hint in his discussion of refusing service to others at all costs. Rather, he states there may be circumstances where an individual must perform the procedure or service, reprehensible or not, because no one else is qualified or available. In those cases, a person certainly must provide the service or, my belief, certainly re-evaluate their vocational choice.

We are constantly celebrating as a nation, our freedom of choice and yet, when it comes to making a choice based on a religious belief, people are condemned, belittled and castigated as intolerant. I see this as a bad thing only getting worse.

The right to choose one's own religious beliefs is, in fact, guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States and I believe his discussion hits the mark quite well for anyone who wishes to live their lives according to a set of moral standards that are at odds with the moral standards of others. This is a guarenteed right.

This also means we may live our lives in accordance with our religious beliefs, without fear of retribution from others. It is also guaranteed that any individual or group may sue for redress of grievances from the government. This is accomplished by means of supporting ballot initiatives, referendums and community action initiatives.

I, for one, long for those days when our discourse was respectful of others beliefs and ideas were couched in such epithets as 'agreeing to disagree'. When did disagreeing become synonomous with intolerance? When did my right to have a moral compass become repugnant to others so proud of their right to freedom of choice? When did I, a member of the majority, become subject to choosing only what members of the minority decide I must choose?

O the hysterics of the faithless! As I read the comments here, that although no one is without the care they need, most commenters would prefer to push their beliefs on the faithful than allow the faithful their religious rights.

Its clear to me that Otterson has it about right. Its a one-way street for the faithless.

A private hospital is a business. A business is allowed to tailor its services to any consumer base is wants with certain specific restrictions. If you don't want to be subject to the specific practices and/or beliefs of a private business which happens to be a hospital, then don't patronize it. The line between public and private institutions in being blurred by bad legislation and an uniformed public. PRIVATE businesses are private and provide the services they see fit to provide. On the other hand, they have a responsibility to inform you of the limitations of their services. If you want a "right" to certain medical treatments, then you need to work with your local government, to encourage or sponsor a medical facility. I may really wish that the closest Chinese Restaurant in my neighborhood delivered, or made MSG free food. Unfortunately the fact that it is the only Chinese Restaurant in close proximity doesn't give me the right to force them to supply either of the above mentioned services.

Otterson said: "Tolerance is not - nor can it ever be - a one-way street. Those who shout so loudly for acceptance of their actions and lifestyles must be willing to offer acceptance to those who, because of a sincerely held religious conviction, seek to be exempted from performing procedures that strike at the heart of their view of right and wrong, of moral and immoral."

How about a trade. You and your church stop trying to pass civil laws that deny civil benefits of marriage and adoption to gays and the rest of use will stop trying to make your medical providers actually practice the science of medicine. You can practice any sort of religious medicine you want.

Just know, however, that if me or mine ever end up damaged because one of yours refuses to provide the science of medicine that refuser will be sued. Can't stop that - that is a cost you have to pay if you deny me health because of your faith. You cannot impose your limits on my life.

It seems to me that if someone has such tightly held religious beliefs that they could not participate in medical procedures they don't agree with, won't dispense legal and safe medications or won't counsel people because of who they are, then they need to be doing something else. It is probably the case that the nurse in NY knew that assisting in pregnancy terminations were a part of her job but she took the job anyway. So what if other nurses would participate instead. That nurse needs to find another job perhaps in another field.

And its shameful that this writer is assering that religion trumps other's rights to adopt children or to receive medical care. No doubt these practitioners are free to believe whatever they like and hospitals can provide whatever services they want to. However, they have no right to discriminate.

I think a medical professional's religious rights should take a back seat to someone's right to be treated when they go to a hospital. If you become a doctor, you should understand that you may not agree with all medical procedures but if a patient's life depends on it - well sorry, but your feelings and religious beliefs are less important than a patient's life.

When religious doctrines come into conflict with scientific knowledge, religion has lost every single time. If your religion preaches something that is in conflict with reality, with science, it is a sure bet that your religion is wrong. The constitution does protect people in their choice of religions. It does not protect those people when they harm others and try to justify the harm they cause by claiming that they did it because of their religion.

Any religion that is run by people who think that they have the right to cause harm to others is run by immoral leaders. This is not a question of First Amendment rights. It is a question of criminal behavior. If your religion preaches that it has the right to harm others, you really have to ask yourself why you an adherent to that religion. You have to ask yourself if you want to be evil.

I had a textbook perfect pregnancy and a labor that went bat-$h1t haywire. I told my doctor that if it came to the point where she could only save one of us, that it had bloody well better be me.

If my daughter ends up at the nearest hospital because of an accident and that hospital has some weird belief that a procedure needed to save her life is somehow sinful and something bad happens to her, I will sue that hospital and every person who treated her right out of existence.

The problem is that every hospital to some extent is public. There have to be standards we can depend on and those standards are best set by science, not by the various beliefs of LDS, Christian Scientists, Jehovah Witnesses, or any other religion.

Part of the backlash to really looking at the need to respect conscience is that your own faith, Mr. Otterson, does not respect my right to conscience. If I love a gay person and want to marry and find no sin in that, why should you deny me? If my gay cousin and his partner want to adopt a child and they are wonderful, God loving people according to their own faith, why should you stop them just because they are gay? If a fourth pregnancy will kill me and I accidently get pregnant, would you have me die?

You get what you give.

"So why can't a medical professional or hospital also be allowed to follow the precepts of their religion without being subjected to hurtful comments?"

Would you still say that if the medical professional in question were denying you or your child lifesaving medical treatment because they were
1) a PETA member who didn't believe in using drugs tested on animals?
2) a Jehovah's Witness who didn't believe that your child's life ought to be saved via blood transfusion, even though you're there, of a compatible blood type, and eligible, willing and eager to donate?
3) a devout member of another religion who believed that you and your child are hellbound sinners whom God hates, and that therefore you did not deserve treatment?

How would you feel if it were someone dear to you who died a painful and lingering death because of someone else's religious conviction that another life mattered more than theirs? (Especially when, as is usually the case with abortions done to save the mother's life, that other life doesn't have a real chance of surviving even if the procedure isn't done? Even if an abortion isn't performed in these cases, most often the fetus dies anyway - but a mother's near certain chance of survival if an abortion is performed is considered less important, by the male Catholic hierarchy, than the almost-nil chance of her fetus to survive if the abortion is not performed and the mother whose body the fetus is living off of dies.)

My sincerely held religious beliefs do not permit me, legally, to withhold lifesaving treatment from my own child. If I did so, I would rightly be arrested for child abuse.
Why may a perfect stranger withhold lifesaving medical treatment to another, on the basis of THEIR sincerely held religious beliefs?

It's BAD for a Jehovah's Witness parent to impose their beliefs about blood transfusions on their own minor child, causing their death.

But it's somehow GOOD for a Catholic doctor to impose his beliefs about abortion on an adult stranger, causing her death? (Without, in most cases, even any real chance of saving the fetus whose life the doctor believes to be more valuable than its mother's. And no, not "as valuable", or the Catholic church wouldn't require that the mother sacrifice an almost certain chance of continued life to give the fetus a minimal, almost nonexistent chance of life.)

HGGASK,

If you opt out of military service because of your religion, you aren't harming anyone.

Likewise, if, because of your religion, you serve in a military capacity that does not require you to carry a weapon, you are harming no one.

If you are a doctor, and you refuse a person treatment based on your religion, you are harming them.

If you are a pharmacist, and you refuse to fill a person's prescription based on your religion, you are harming them.

A person's sincerely held religious beliefs allow for him/her to opt out of military duty (remember Muhammad Ali's trials?). With some religions it is permissable to serve the military in a logistical/medic role, but not to carry a weapon. So why can't a medical professional or hospital also be allowed to follow the precepts of their religion without being subjected to hurtful comments?

I have no problem with anyone else's right to act in accordance with their deeply held religious beliefs unless their doing so causes harm to someone else.
If you are a medical professional in a hospital and your deeply held religious beliefs are invoked to deny me life-saving treatment, then my physical crisis trumps your theological one. If you're a pharmacist, and I need medication to stop my uterine hemmorhaging, my need to not bleed to death trumps your right to not dispense medication for purposes your god finds icky.

Come to that, would you like to have a hospital in your neighborhood that refused to provide prenatal and childbirth services to any mother who already has two or more children, on the grounds that they have firm religious beliefs that overpopulation is immoral?

What about doctors who refuse to vaccinate your children on the grounds that they bought into the whole vaccines-cause-autism fraud, and don't want to give up their deeply held beliefs even now that it's been proved to be a scam? Why should only religious beliefs get special treatment?

Trouble is, most hospitals get tax dollars and Medicare dollars, etc.
I don't want to have to fund, with my tax money, a hospital which, if I need treatment during a pregnancy gone horribly wrong, will treat me as a mere incubating machine of little worth and my fetus as the only human being in the situation who matters at all.

As for publicly held businesses who want to discriminate against gay people and refuse to provide legal medications on the grounds that they "deeply feel on religious grounds" that a woman who is raped owes her assaulter's child the intimate use of her body for nine months as a punishment for being a victim - well, there are people whose religious beliefs forbid racial and gender mixing, too. Should we allow them to build public restaurants for white people only, or to run a grocery store where only women may buy produce? Should we allow a florist to provide flowers only for Catholic weddings? How about a divorce lawyer who refuses to take any clients whose spouse wasn't beating them or cheating on them? Should we permit you to be denied lifesaving medical drugs because the pharmacy near you is run by PETA members who object to animal testing? How entitled are you to force your beliefs about who is entitled to what medical treatments, health care, and other essential services on other people?

"It is whether sincerely held religious beliefs are generally entitled to the deference they have traditionally received under the Constitution and our way of life,
..."

Consider the following real-life situation:

- Dr. Robert Card, then a member of the BYU faculty, invented a devise to measure sinful homosexual arousal.

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6050959/description.html

He and his BYU colleagues used this device in conjunction with showing homosexual pornography (sometimes to minors in violation of State and Federal laws) to electroshock the aroused suspect in order to "cure" him of his homosexuality.

"Sincerely held religious beliefs..." such as this should be subject to civil law as well. Like Catholic Bishops who want to dictate civil policy but not be subject to it in regard to hiding their criminal pervert priests, theocons like Otterson only want it one way.