<p>Doctors (or their office staffs) misplace, misfile test results all the time. My question was whether the law ‘allowed’ doctors to withhold the information intentionally without being sued for wrongful birth. But in actuality, it makes little difference since no doctor is going to say he intentionally withheld test results. So unless you have a note in the file saying ‘don’t tell this patient her test results’ or a witness who will say that the doctor didn’t want the patient knowing, it is a distinction without a realworld difference. </p>
<p>This must have happened in the Portland case that someone posted.</p>
<p>“Do universities generally have all these subscriptions?”</p>
<p>Yes.</p>
<p>“It sounds like she was talking to you about possible complications.”
We talk about how to tell “normal worries” from her illness. You don’t know her like I do. It’s ME she calls with her worries. For years now. Does that matter anymore? Maybe not. </p>
<p>“I was taught to ask my doctor: is this the treatment you would recommend for your wife, daughter, sister, mother? And I used to feel pretty confident about that. … not so much now.”</p>
<p>In my community, most folks know the answer most of the time would be no, I wouldn’t take it, and I wouldn’t tell my sister too. But many folks say you aren’t me, you don’t live with my kid, and sometimes they are right. And many people want me to tell the to do. I usually say in wont do that. I tell you risk and be is, and YOU get to decide. Some folks find a new doc.</p>
<p>^ that was supposed to be risk and benis as in benefits, and tell them what to do . I hate posting on iPads.</p>
<p>The issue wasn’t coercing her to take meds. It was what is the “right” amount of info to share. Maybe the doctor doesn’t have the right to decide. Maybe law decides, but who is responsible after that?</p>
<p>BTW, it’s often not just KNOWING the results, it’s interpreting them. If I tell you your SGPT is 46 so what. What about 460? 4600?. The real question is what are the risks at each number. They are all “high”.</p>
<p>Tatin, if you were an OB, I would have no problem with your position, because you would be be telling your patient the truth. She would then be able to make a 100% informed decision about whether she wanted to keep you, or go elsewhere. Total transparency. The woman decides.</p>
<p>The new law contemplates that the doctor could conceal his/her opposition to abortion, and then deceive the patient about test results. The doctor decides.</p>
<p>I don’t object to a doctor declining to perform abortions, for whatever reason their conscience dictates. What I object to is taking power out of women’s hands. And let’s not miss the big picture – Taking away women’s power is what these new laws are all about.</p>
<p>Funny how those most staunchly against abortion are also almost always opposed to the numerous government programs that help mothers and children - WIC, SNAP, Medicaid, children’s health insurance, Head Start, pre-natal care, etc.</p>
<p>It’s almost as if they stop caring about the child the moment it pops out of the womb.</p>
<p>Oh, and forget birth control, either. Have sex? Too bad, you’re stuck with the kid. And by “we,” we mean the mother. These people want childbirth as punishment.</p>
<p>Fundamentally, it comes down to this: the decoupling of sex from childbirth offends these people and they want to impose their sexual mores on everyone else by force of law. Call it the Sexual Counter-Revolution. It’s quite literally medieval.</p>
<p>“Personally, I hate it when people tell me what I think, don’t you?”</p>
<p>Yes. And I always wonder who “these” people are. A couple of loudmouths whose views are attributed to many, based upon locality, religion, or politics?</p>
<p>Actually, sylvan, this is the first to come up about the ethics of not telling a woman test results. Or really medical ethics in general (not moral ethics, just medical ethics- what is and isn’t OK for a doctor to do).</p>
In fact, “we” haven’t done this at all. Instead, Roe v. Wade balances the interest of a woman to make this decision with the state’s interest in regulating it. It constructed a rickety trimester-based approach, which has been eroded in subsequent decisions, but it’s simply not the case that the law in this country ignores the reasons for an abortion–life and health of the mother is a specific reason recognized in laws that would otherwise restrict abortions, for example. Obviously, there would be tremendous practical problems in enforcing a law that (say) prohibited people from using abortion simply to choose the gender of a child–but there are probably states where such a law would pass, and I’m not certain that our current Supreme Court would find such a law to be unconstitutional.</p>
<p>The problem is having the state involved in abortion decisions and deciding ‘what is in the best interests of the state’ in the first place, because often those discussions come down to morality. Hunt just made a point about where abortions should be allowed if the life of the mother is threatened, but that is not universal, it is likely in many states that abortion bans would do so for any reason (Santorum, following the position of the Catholic Church and the evangelicals, believes there are no exceptions). These limitations often are not based on proven interest, they are based on moral or religious teachings or viewpoints. For example, I find aborting a fetus because of its gender or hypothically because it is gay (though I suspect if they do find a ‘gay gene’ or a ‘bi gene’, certain religious groups would suddenly find justification for abortions in those cases, given their absolute hatred of gays) abhorrent, but if you put a restriction on that, you have opened up a floodgate, since, for example, advocates for down’s syndrome people might find it objectionable if a couple decides to abort a down’s syndrome baby, and so forth. And yes, someone mentioned the movie Gattica (which I found kind of weird in that this is supposed to be creating a super race of people, and they chose to in some ways emulate the 1940’s…weird), it raises all kinds of questions as does genetic profiling and the like. </p>
<p>I personally think abortion is over used, specifically being used for birth control which is just laziness and stupidity on most people’s parts IMO (and I blame the anti abortion forces for some of this, take a look sometime at teen pregnancy stats in the bible belt, where abstinence only passes for sex ed), but it still has to remain a personal decision of the mother/parents, and especially when it revolves around tough decisions like potential defects and issues, I don’t know how I would face such a situation, fortunately I didn’t. It is like the decision to pull the plug on a loved one who seems hopeless, it has to be a personal decision to me because how can I make that decision for someone else?</p>
<p>musicprnt, I agree with you about the difficulty of drawing lines between acceptable and unacceptable abortions. I am just pointing out that current law does just that.</p>
<p>This is really frightening. I feel like I’m reading Orwell’s 1984, where the government decides what the truth is, and erases the past if it’s inconvenient.</p>
<p>I have every confidence that laws like this won’t make it to home plate, but in the meantime, while they toy with passing something like this, what are these legislatures thinking??</p>
<p>It’s simply ridiculous that bills want to force doctors to lie to women or force women to do something they do not want to have a legal procedure performed. Or that allow a doctor to lie to a woman because of that doctor’s personal beliefs. </p>
<p>I want to know if this would fly in any other industrialized country. Other countries are far more advanced in their medical ethics practices (as in, they have more, better, and longer-established Medical Ethics and Bioethics programs) than we do. I legitimately want to know if this kind of legislation exists elsewhere. </p>
<p>Rather, this sounds like something that would be coming out of an “oppressive” Middle Eastern country. Making laws that allow or force doctors to lie to women. I thought this kind of dark history was behind us, but apparently not.</p>
<p>Well, given that there have been a number of published essays by men in the last few years seriously arguing that it was a mistake to “give” women the vote, who knows what people will be fighting in another decade?</p>
<p>Very Happy, I love your idea. As long as we’re requiring doctors to lie to patients in the service of ideology, why not?</p>
<p>By the way, I don’t necessarily believe that those who advocate forced birth would suddenly be in favor of abortion if a gay gene were ever discovered. They’d simply start the so-called reparative therapy in the cradle. I can just imagine the flash cards that will be devised.</p>