So people can have their opinions about moral repugnancy, but they have to use _your_ words to express them?

Friend, you have an Orwell comprehension deficit. Better get that checked.

There is NO law, federal or state, that forces medical professionals to participate in performing abortions, and that’s not likely to change… EVER (nor should it, for that matter). In fact, despite our much-vaunted (and much-threatened) separation of church and state, religion-funded hospitals (the large majority of which are Catholic) around the country hew to religious precepts before medical ones (denying contraception, abortion, prenatal genetic testing/counseling, etc.) and do so quite legally.

My point is that this executive proposal AND ITS LANGUAGE IN PARTICULAR are yet a further attempt to limit, narrow, and make inaccessible women’s health-care choices.

Look at it this way:

Let’s say you’re a woman. Let’s even say you’re a church-going, lawfully-wed, virgin-until-you-were-married Christian woman. You live in a small town in South Dakota. You want reliable contraception, and have decided that The Pill is your best option. But there’s only ONE local pharmacy, and the pharmacist in question believes The Pill is AGAINST HIS GOD’S WILL, and therefore will not fill your prescription (which presumes you’ve got health insurance that covers contraception, AND a doctor who ALSO believes contraception is holy according to his personal god, which means that’s some damn fine and no-doubt expensive health insurance). So you use condoms. But maybe you DON’T one time, or maybe one breaks… and you need the “morning after” pill.

Well, you are SHIT OUT OF LUCK, Mrs. Donny, ’cause the Federal Government has decreed an insane and decidedly UN-medical standard of what constitutes “abortion,” and you’d better keep your damn knees together if you’re not willing to conceive a child each and every time you have sex.

See where I’m going with this? See where these sorts of executive mandates are going?

It’s not about forcing anyone to do something s/he finds morally repugnant; it’s about broadening the definition of “abortion” and increasing government control over medical issues.

I think it would be much more “Stalin Like” to force medical professionals to participate in performing abortions. That is a scary idea, and this proposes to make sure that doesn’t happen.

What am I missing here?

- D -

I appreciate your point(s), but here’s the thing that’s so insidious about this proposal– it is yet another way for the current executive branch to circumvent the Supreme-Court-secured law of the land by applying oppressive and unreasonable strictures (see: parental/spousal/judicial consent; waiting periods; subjection to bogus prenatal “information,” etc.). This sort of bullshit falls right in line with “abstinence-only education” (and I use the term “education” ironically)– that is, it’s all about ideology and not reality.

And Donny, I’m not “for” abortion, either; I don’t know a single person who is. But I have two close friends who had late-term abortions due to HORRIFIC fetal abnormalities, and one of them had (yes, it’s true) the procedure the dickwads of the religious right have made us all refer to as “partial birth abortion.”

LET ME TELL YOU ALL SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT– this was the ONLY way she was guaranteed to come out of the situation alive and able to have further children (which she eventually did, but I personally think the most important part is that SHE LIVED).

I’m pretty much an atheist (though I do pray, weirdly enough), but I give thanks to whatever god/s there may be for her competent medical team, and that she not only had good health insurance, but lived in a major city where doctors willing/able to perform the necessary operation were available. (And let me just say that she would have needed A HELL OF A LOT MORE THAN MY PRAYERS if she’d lived in South Dakota.)

leesavee is right– this insidious proposal is all about the language, SPECIFICALLY:

The proposal defines abortion as follows: “any of the various procedures — including the prescription, dispensing and administration of any drug or the performance of any procedure or any other action — that results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation.”

Fact is, government has no business telling doctors (or other health-care workers) what’s best for their patients, and government has no business making health-care workers sign papers, ONE WAY OR THE OTHER, especially when it’s it means agreeing with what that government’s particular notion of health care means.

Can anyone say “Stalin”?

I’m tellin’ ya… Chipping away, chipping away, chipping away…

From what I just read, this seems to indicate that a medical institution can’t discriminate when hiring simply based on the applicants views of abortion. So if a potential new health care professional does not feel comfortable performing an abortion he or she would not have to participate in such a procedure and could not be discriminated against during the hiring process.

If this is the correct interpretation, what is the problem? Open mindedness goes both ways, Jon. It’s okay to not be okay with participating in abortion procedures.

Personally, I object to abortion. I hate it. I think it is wrong. But I am not out campaigning to take away that right from anybody. Furthermore, I am repulsed when I hear of the Christian right (I am a Christian by the way) voting based on that issue. Back in January I blogged about how ridiculous it is to do so, especially due to the FACT that Republican appointed Supreme Court Justices were in the majority (6 out of 9) when the Roe v Wade case made abortion legal. And Republican appointed Supreme Court Justices outnumber Democratic appointments by 7 to 9, yet Roe v Wade is not going anywhere. It’s very obvious this is a right that will not be taken away, and I wish we’d stop basing our votes on a candidates’ opinions on abortion.

As it is ridiculous for Christians to vote Republican based on abortion, I believe it is just as ridiculous to be outraged by making discrimination illegal based on an applicant’s opinions of the issue. Bigotry doesn’t only come from the right.

PS: Go Obama.

And there is no reason to believe the provision supercedes any ethical obligation of a providers regarding procedures they find objectionable. The thing is meaningless in practice and of marginal symbolic value.

But. You’re arguing it’s okay to discriminate against people who don’t agree with you, and that the provision forces an opinion on others? C’mon. You’re smarter than this. THINK.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=5340949&page=1