Politics, open government, and safe streets. And the constant incursion of cycling.

What Would This Administration Know About “Conscience”?

The Bush Administration gives civil society the finger one more time, on its way out:

The Bush administration today issued a sweeping new regulation that protects a broad range of health care workers — from doctors to janitors — who refuse to participate in providing services that they believe violates their personal, moral or religious beliefs.

Why don’t we extend this to police, too? Or the military? Or utility workers? If they don’t like what you’re doing, too bad, no protection/service/electricity for you!

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2 Comments

  1. Peej

    What a nightmare. Just what the healthcare profession needs in this country.
    I have not read the exact write-up of the regulation, but references to ‘broad’ definitions makes me worry about situations where a refusal could happen–and be upheld and protected–once a patient in in the process of undertaking a procedure that someone involved/assigned to may find offensive, which can harm the patient, due to a delay in service, say, but leave them with no recourse. It’s one thing, to use the example they’re most fond of using, to protect someone who refuses to perform an abortion as part of their practice or association with a medical facility (my own personal opinion on this matter aside), but quite another for someone to refuse to, I don’t know, administer pre or post operative care at the moment they are engaged (which may not be until they very moment they are needed) if they find out it is with regards to a procedure they don’t like from their own moral standpoint. I mean, does this cover the EMT who doesn’t feel like they should give mouth to mouth to a certain religious minority because their religion thinks the patient is an infidel? Or because they think it’s messing with god’s greater plan?! (I exaggerate for those last examples, of course, to make a point. I just hope it stays an exaggeration.)

  2. silence dogood

    We also apparently refused to sign a UN Resolution calling for the decriminalization of homosexuality this week. Not a resolution in support of gay marriage, mind you. Not a resolution saying gays should be able to adopt. No, just a plain old resolution about how maybe it shouldn’t be okay to stone someone to death in Tehran because he’s accused of being a sodomite by four righteous men.

    The things we choose to care about.

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