Bad first:
I had a conversation today that attacked my faith in humanity. Someone that I have liked expressed some opinions that go beyond me disliking them. My friends have opinions I dislike on a regular basis and I deal with that. However, someone believing that doctors and pharmacists should be allowed to not treat patients if they don’t want to I… it’s beyond dislike. Should teachers be able to say they don’t like a student and will not teach them? Should police officers only protect and serve people they like? The idea of people in service jobs only serving people they like/want to serve offends the very core of me. Does that mean that schools should not have been integrated? Should women still not be allowed to attend college or hold jobs of their own or…
I believe that this person is childish and immature and selfish and self-centered in ways that could be potentially harmful to other people. I’m glad I learned that before I developed any real affection for her because now I know that I don’t want to. I feel kind of sad that there are such people in my general circle though. 🙁
Ok, that was the bad bit of my day.
There were many good bits though. I found out that it isn’t “necessary” for me to go visit the most wonderful fairy I know next weekend because technically she doesn’t “need” my help. Instead, I get to go visit her because she is wonderful enough to want to see me and I get to spend time with one of the most amazing women I know. I think that deserves a big fat YAY!!!
I got a lovely massage from a dear man and I feel more grounded and centered and happy. Also sleepy. 🙂 I might actually sleep tonight!
I got to spend time with the new partner of a dear friend and it was awesome. She is smart and funny and interesting and not psycho and not a bitch and not a whiney dependent dipshit. I am so happy his taste has improved since me. 😉 Seriously though, I really need to spend more time with her while she is here because I think she is that rare kind of person that I will actually like *and* respect. 🙂 Another definate yay!
I’m really happy that I don’t feel as sad as I did last night.
Scheduling!!! What in the fuck is happening this weekend? I haven’t figured out what the freak I am doing and I know I am swimming in options so please help me out here! 🙂 If you don’t want to leave a comment send me an email. Thanks! 🙂
There’s the Phantom of the Opera-themed PEERS on Saturday. We’re doing another can-can! 🙂
Pryankster Party!!
Oh, frack. That’s *this* weekend?
First saturday, man.
It’s in Davis even. At Hare House (the Major’s)
Yeah, and going to Davis means I can’t do anything else with my day…
*sigh*
I hate choices.
You aren’t the only one who was disturbed by that conversation. I decided to see how far the belief really went, and found after I led her around to it that she would be offended if someone refused to treat her because of her looks/hair/personality. So, I made her give up the pretense. It was all a bullshit postion in the end. She was just anoyed at how we both reacted so vehemently to her remark. So, then she sought to defend it. I made her admit it was wrong in the end. And I made her admit it on many fronts. She still clings tenaciously to the one which offends me, though. The ethical one. I can’t get her to understand that one. But then she is really into Ayn Rand right now and is trying to make herself believe all the things she’s reading. it’s kind of gross, but it’s a phase.
It is disgusting, childish, and potentially dangerous.
You know how you have been working at removing people from your life when they aren’t good for you? Well, I’m done with her.
A Randroid, eh? They usually grow out of it….
A guy I went to school with called doing that to someone a Red Spot. First get them to explicitly define their position, then talk them around to the point of realizing that they simultaneously hold a mutually exclusive belief. Usually, they’ve just never thought about it much, but all of a sudden they need to reconcile it. If what you are challenging is deep in the basement of their belief structure, it just might take down a few foundation pillars. I have seen someone be utterly shattered by it, it took them _months_ to put themselves back together again. It can be a great tool for sparking personal development in others if it’s applied at the right place and time.
I understand your umbrage, but don’t confuse issues. As a free society we have the right to not work for people we don’t like. The 13th Amendment proscription against forced servitude without a criminal conviction ensures this. If I have to work for someone I don’t want to work for it’s called slavery.
The other things you mention are constitutionally-ensured rights (eg: equality in education). In those cases the public servants have no choice. They are agents of the state. A doctor is not an agent of the state, thank God.
It’s all about living and working in a free society.
This is such horse shit. It is not about fucking slavery.
If you set out to be a doctor or a pharmacist you are signing on to do a fucking job. If you don’t want to do the job, don’t do it to begin with. Saying that you can pick and choose who you want to serve is pretty horrifying.
Don’t you realize that you are advocating racism, homophobia, sexism, xenophobia… a whole list of things?
Please don’t acuse me of advocating any of those things. You don’t need to trust my opinion. Go ask the most liberal lawyer in the ACLU and see what repply you get.
By the way, there is no law against having any of those views, no matter how awful they are. And I’m glad of that as well. I don’t need thought police telling me what I must believe in. Under McCarthy we had laws against “anti-American” activities. Is that what you want? What happens when the police say your views are improper and you’re going to jail for it?
Seriously; study the constitution. You haven’t put enough time into your analysis.
I am well aware that you have more law training thatn I have.
I don’t care what opinions people have. I don’t care if you only like blue people with purple spots. What I care about is the fact that if such a person is a doctor they still have to treat every other patient. What I care about is if such a person is a teacher they have to present a fair and equal education to everyone.
I don’t give a flying fuck what anyone believes. I care what they *do*.
Doctors don’t “have” to treat anyone. That’s my point.
This has nothing to do with 13th amendment issues. No one is forcing them to continue their career in medicine. They are expecting them to perform their medical duties under the terms and conditions of their oaths and certification. Refusing to fill a prescription on religious grounds is not resisting enslavement. It’s second-guessing a doctor who’s a lot more educated than you are, and it’s discriminatory.
The pharacist is not facing discrimination because of his faith, he is exercising discrimination based on his faith.
I saw nothing about refusing to render aid in an emergency where the practitioner is obligated to render aid.
As far as the oath is concerned, let’s look at the original oath:
I swear by Apollo the physician, by Æsculapius, Hygeia, and Panacea, and I take to witness all the gods, all the goddesses, to keep according to my ability and my judgement, the following Oath.
“To consider dear to me as my parents him who taught me this art; to live in common with him and if necessary to share my goods with him; To look upon his children as my own brothers, to teach them this art if they so desire without fee or written promise; to impart to my sons and the sons of the master who taught me and the disciples who have enrolled themselves and have agreed to the rules of the profession, but to these alone the precepts and the instruction.
I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.
To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.
Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion.
But I will preserve the purity of my life and my art.
I will not cut for stone, even for patients in whom the disease is manifest; I will leave this operation to be performed by practitioners, specialists in this art.
In every house where I come I will enter only for the good of my patients, keeping myself far from all intentional ill-doing and all seduction and especially from the pleasures of love with women or with men, be they free or slaves.
All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be spread abroad, I will keep secret and will never reveal.
If I keep this oath faithfully, may I enjoy my life and practice my art, respected by all men and in all times; but if I swerve from it or violate it, may the reverse be my lot.”
Now, the modern version:
I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:
I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.
I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.
I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon’s knife or the chemist’s drug.
I will not be ashamed to say “I know not,” nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient’s recovery.
I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. If it is given me to save a life, all thanks. But it may also be within my power to take a life; this awesome responsibility must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God.
I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person’s family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.
I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.
I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.
If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.
Nothing in either sys that a physician must respond when any person commands that they do so. It says they must use prevention, but that is mentioned as an alternative to cure; reason being that cures make more money than prevention and doctors might be lured to let a patient get sick first.
The law does not require that any person, even a doctor, respond to another person’s needs unless:
1) certain family relationships
2) the person caused the victim’s delima
3) the person exacerbated the delima
4) certain contractual relationships
5) and a few others like this
In other words, a doctor who is a champion swimmer could watch a baby drown in a wading pool and the law would cast no blame on the doctor for not saving the baby. Of course, he’s be a right bastard to do so, but legally untouchable.
Please show me where in the original post the doctor or pharmicist has an obligation to work for the patient? If a pharmacist at Eckerds fails to help a patient, the store might fire him, but that’s just store policy, not the law.
As a free society we have the right to not work for people we don’t like.
And if you don’t want to work for CVS, nobody is forcing you to. You are free to quit at any time, if the job duties are in conflict with your personal ethics.
But if I can walk into my neighborhood Walgreen’s and buy $x, if I can’t buy $x at CVS, isn’t that discrimination against me? (because I happen to beleive that the use of $x, which is both legal, and prescribed for me, is OK?)
Or worse, say I can at CVS, but not on some days because that’s when Sam is manning the counter?
Ok… your question has me lost, but maybe that’s becasue you don’t understand discrimination and, frankly, I don;t have 3 semesters to explain it to you.
1) Discriination can only come from a state actor. A private company is almost never a state actor.
2) You have to delineate the class of people against whom the state actor is discriminating. “People who want to buy $x” is not a protected class. (What is “$x”, a drug?)
3) If CVS doesn;t sell your prescription, go to another pharmacy. It’s a free trade system, not fascism.
1) No, I don’t think so. Any landlord can “Discriminate” on the basis of skin color, and if they have done so, it is a crime.
2) Any prescription drug, e.g. birth control pills.
3) I outlined two scenarios, in one of them, CVS sells $x but not to me, because of the pharmacist who happened to on duty at the time.
Ok. See, here’s the difference between someone who has studied the law and someone who hasn’t. I’m going to venture the guess that you have not been to law school. And if you have, I still insist that you did not study constitutional law.
1) That is a sepcific housing law. It is a statute. This entire discussion has been about the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment (though no one has mentioned the Amendment by name). Also, you are twice wrong in your statement. It is not a crime. You are misusing legal terms of art because you don’t know enough. Not every statutory infraction results in a crime.
2) Yes, yes yes. This always goes back to the liberal paranoia that you’ll lose your “right” to an abortion. Casey is not going anywhere. It upheld and even strengthened Roe, so calm down. And if you’re going to assign a variable, don’t put a dollar sign in front of it; that’s confusing as hell.
3) Still, you have not described a state actor or a protected class. You might have an argument that a pharmacy is a state actor because it is licensed by the state, but then so are construction contractors and plumbers and bondsmen. Let me tell you, bondsmen are not state actors and they are licensed directly by the state to hunt fugitives, but they follow very few constitutional guidelines, if any. They are private citizens.
Secondly, if a pharmacist could somehow be considered a state actor, he would fall under the executive branch and have qualified immunity. You’re not going to have any claim against a pharmacist.
In fact, if a pharmacist doesn’t want to fill a prescription for a person, for God’s sake we don’t want him too. They are required by their oath and by statutes in some statess not to fill prescriptions for people who, for example, exhibit signs of addiction. Many addicts have been forced into rehab because the pharmicists would not honor their prescriptions.
You have to think through as many scenatios as possible before you try to form a law. The wrong law, no matter how well-intended, can have catastrophic effects.
My take on the pharmacists cases and such is simple: you do your job, or you get a new job. If they decide pharmacists can decline a particular medicine based on religious principle, believe me that it will lead to much greater discrimination.
I mean, let’s think about this: What if a doctor or pharmacist converts to The Church of Christ, Scientist? Do they then get to prescribe only prayer, and still collect a salary? After all, anything more would be counter to their principles.
What if a doctor or pharmacist converts to The Church of Christ, Scientist? Do they then get to prescribe only prayer, and still collect a salary?
Of course. That’s why the church of Scientology still exists. If a pharmacist were a Scientologist, would you make a law forcing him to fill ritalin prescriptions? What if the majority of senators were Jewish and drafted a law that said all males must be circumcised? Or what if there were enough people elected with traditional African roots that they wanted a law that enforced female circumcision; they still remove the clitoris of infant girls in some places in Africa, you know. There’s nothing that says they couldn’t try to have that law here. In fact, a woman in NYC sued to have her daughter’s clitoris removed because her religious background commanded it. Are you going to force a doctor to perform that surgery?
If a group of Scientologists form their own pharmacy for some odd reason, the government will not make them prescribe drugs. The court will just tell you to find another pharmacy.
You do realize that state controlled business is the main tenet of fascism, right?
No, I wouldn’t have to. It’s his job to fill the prescriptions a doctor writes. If the doctor were a Scientologist, I doubt he would prescribe ritalin. But regardless, when presented with a valid scrip it’s the job of the pharmacist to fill the prescription. If he can’t, he’s in the wrong job.
Come back when you learn the definition of the phrase, “straw-man argument.” That’s what this is. You cannot pass those laws under our constitution, any more than you can mandate church attendance or continue to enforce “blue laws” (the practice of requiring businesses to be closed one day a week minimun, ostensibly Sunday, for the sake of “allowing” all employees to attend church like Good Little Christians). As to the NYC case, female genital mutilation is regarded by the American Medical Association as harmful. That doesn’t keep the mother from finding a willing doctor, or travelling to Africa to have it done. But this is not the same as having a prescription filled. The pharmacist has no basis of medical educational background on which to decide that a given medication is elective, and thus choose to not fill it.
Exactly. And these pharmacists are free to find employment at pharmacies that share their religious views (there’s a town being built in Florida as we speak). But as long as they work at chains like CVS, Walgreen’s, etc., and those companies choose to offer these medications, they are obligated to do their jobs or resign.
You do realize you’re about one small step from triggering Godwin’s Law, right? Look it up. This isn’t about fascism, unless you choose to interpret it that way. If you contract me to develop software for you, and I decide that I want to write something else, you aren’t obligated to pay me unless I do the job I was hired to do. And these pharmacists are not doing the job they were hired to do, but expecting to be paid anyway.