What is the real likelihood of this happening?

Parent Cafe
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<p>OK… was this just a slow news day, or is this a real possibility?</p>

<p>The Bush administration wants to cut funding to any clinic that discriminates against hiring people opposed to birth control and abortion. And they would consider oral contraceptives as a form of birth control, as well as emergency contraception.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/washington/15rule.html?adxnnl=1&ref=us&adxnnlx=1216268908-vUyFBkE+uUNStBN0T3bvlw[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/washington/15rule.html?adxnnl=1&ref=us&adxnnlx=1216268908-vUyFBkE+uUNStBN0T3bvlw&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>I just don’t get it. If there are already laws that prevent forcing doctors, hospitals and health plans to provide abortions, then why is this needed? What’s to keep all the anti-choice people from putting in applications at clinics that do provide abortions (but who may not be the best qualified candidate for the position - maybe their background is working in oncology or orthopedics), then claim discrimination just to get the clinics funding cut off? Chances are, if the people who, for religious reasons, do not condone abortion, they won’t want to work at a clinic that provides them. Or provides birth control for that matter.</p>

<p>Is this just a lame duck ploy to appease the conservative Christians? Or is there meat to this matter?</p>

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<p>I am opposed to abortion and I welcome the proposal. This is a BIG issue. </p>

<p>The issue arises most often in hospitals where abortions are performed. A surgical nurse might participate in hundreds of operations and then refuse to participate in a partial-birth abortion. Without this law or some other protection that nurse can be fired or disciplined. </p>

<p>The US has a real shortage of nurses. We have imported many, many nurses. Many are Fillipino and some of them are devout Catholics. They are here on visas sponsored by their employers. So, if they are fired, they can’t stay here legally. That’s one heck of a strong arm tactic to force them to participate. </p>

<p>Here in NYC there were many instances in which this happened. Fortunately, the nurses union stepped up to the plate and it is now part of the collective bargaining agreement that no nurse can be fired for refusing to participate in an abortion on religious grounds. I know a nurse who is recently retired from a City hospital. She was raised as a Catholic, but is no longer observant. Still, she is sympathetic to nurses put in this position. She was in a management position, so no longer part of the nurses union. She said she was involved in many instances in which someone on staff would attempt to have a nurse fired for refusing to participate or “punish” her/him in some way, bad hours assigned, less likely to be promoted, etc., and she would point out the CBA to them. </p>

<p>My city council rep does a great job in most ways. However, I had a HUGE argument about this with her. She’s very pro-abortion and she wants a city law that says that no pharmacy can hire anyone who would refuse to fill a prescription for a drug which induces abortions. Is it fair to allow someone to ask if someone is opposed to abortion before hiring him/her to be a pharmacist at CVS? Some people–including my city councilwoman-- think it is. </p>

<p>Many, many people are fighting for laws which would prohibit any hospital which will not provide abortions from getting any tax dollars. This would put Catholic hospitals out of business. Many would see that as a “victory.” The poor in major cities would not. </p>

<p>BTW, fewer and fewer med students who are opposed to abortion are becoming OB/GYNs. If there is ANYTHING in your resume which hints that you might be Catholic, it’s very, very difficult to get a residency for OB/GYN except at a Catholic hospital. Some people who have attended Catholic colleges but are not opposed to abortion make a point of including that information in their applications. </p>

<p>This is not just a matter for “conservative Christians,” BTW. There are many people from other religious backgrounds who also oppose abortion.</p>

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<p>I agree that if someone doesn’t feel comfortable performing them, then there should be no discrimination. But to take action that would make many, many poor women ineligible for oral contraceptives because the feds cut off their funds? </p>

<p>And actually, I didn’t want to single out the Catholics, but I am aware that they are the most vocal religious institution against oral contraceptives, defining them as abortion pills.</p>

<p>Again, I don’t see the argument as who is for or against abortion, it’s about finding a loophole so the feds can get out of funding certain forms of birth control.</p>

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<p>I’m philosophically against abortion and unsafe forms of birth control. But I’ve seen the “other side” and it’s very problematic. You see, it’s not a simply that one side is right and the other wrong — it’s having respect for the people on both sides of the issue. Nurses don’t make hospital policy, and yet that’s what they do if regulations permit them to say “Doctor, you can’t do this procedure without me, and I’m not participating.”</p>

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<p>Lets get real…Abortions are not emergency procedures. They are “elective surgery” in the sense that they can be scheduled in advance. I very much doubt that there’s ever been a case in which the nurse can STOP an abortion by refusing to participate. There is always a nurse who will step in and be part of the surgical team. </p>

<p>The nurses are NOT changing hospital policy–NYC public hospitals perform TONS of abortions. It’s just that the nurses do not want to assist in doing something they consider wrong.</p>

<p>I agree with you though when you say it’s necessary for people to respect those on both sides of the issue. Telling a nurse that she MUST participate or she will lose her work visa allowing her to be in the US isn’t my idea of “respect.”</p>

<p>And, Terri, this isn’t about not allowing poor women access to contraceptives. It is about refusing federal funds to hospitals that don’t provide contraceptives. This isn’t something the Catholic Church is going to back down on. If there is a law which says that funding can’t go to a hospital that refuses to dispense birth control pills, then many Catholic hospitals will simply close their OB/GYN clinics. Or they will forego federal funds and limit their patients to those who are able to pay. </p>

<p>Let me draw an analogy. The fed government passed a law which said that no university could receive any federal funds if that university refused to allow military recruiters (particularly for JAG) on campus on the ground that they would not comply with a university’s policy prohibiting discrimination against gays. After battling in court, a lot of universities caved and allowed the recruiters on campus.</p>

<p>The pro-abortion group thinks the Church will cave too. I don’t think it will. The end result will be that Catholic hospitals will not provide OB/GYN services to poor inner city residents. (BTW, I disagree with the Church’s position on contraceptives, but I agree with its right to insist that the beliefs of the Church be enforced in Catholic hospitals.)</p>

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<p>No, surgical abortions are not emergency procedures. But Plan B abortions are. If I read the proposal correctly, demoting or firing a hospital pharmacist for refusing to fill a Plan B prescription (or a physician for refusing to write a Plan B prescription) would be categorized as “discrimination.”</p>

<p>In any case the Bush administration’s proposal would appear to be moot. If the administration was serious about this legislation it would have proposed it long, long ago.</p>

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<p>Nobody is “proabortion”. Many people consider the life of the woman involved in an unwanted pregnancy as having value, unlike those who totally disregard the impact on her- the supossedly “prolife” people are not at all concerned with the woman’s life, one could actually call them “antilife” regarding their concern for women. Semantics, word choices… BTW, eating meat stops a beating heart just as much as abortion does (I despise that bumper sticker, the arrogance of humans).</p>

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<p>newhope33 - I read the proposal as saying discrimination in hiring. Once they’re hired, there are already laws to protect them if they object. It’s the ambiguity of what constitutes discrimination in hiring.</p>

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<p>In some settings, it can be very tough to reconcile the needs of those who object to participating in an abortion procedure or the distribution of birth control products on moral grounds with the right of patients to obtain these procedures/products.</p>

<p>I suspect that most of us live in urban or suburban areas, where there are plenty of doctors/nurses/pharmacists, and satisfying both groups is mostly a matter of scheduling and logistics. But we need to think about people in underserved areas or isolated rural places, where there may be only one source of health care available. If there’s only one pharmacy within a hundred-mile radius, and the one pharmacist objects to distributing Plan B or oral contraceptives, the women in the area have a significant problem.</p>

<p>I really don’t know what the solution to this one is.</p>

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<p>[BillingsGazette.com</a> :: Citing beliefs, pharmacist drops birth control pills](<a href=“http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/12/19/news/state/18-birthcontrol.txt]BillingsGazette.com”>http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/12/19/news/state/18-birthcontrol.txt)</p>

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<p>not to sound like a broken record, but the choice of a health care provider to either provide abortions or dispense prescriptions such as oral contraceptives/emergency contraception is not my concern. My concern is, who is going to define whether or not an agency/provider that receives federal money has discriminated in their hiring practices, and as a result of some agency not hiring someone (which is usually based on very objective qualifications, but now someone can claim they weren’t hired due to their beliefs on birth control), the feds take away their funding preventing from serving underserved and underprivileged women and families.</p>