Arkansas Passes Law Allowing Doctors To Refuse Service Due To Moral/Religious Objections

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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You said pregnancy is a medical condition because it has the possibility of cause death or suffering. I agree that doctors are involved for that reason, but I don't think that makes it a medical condition. Smoking can cause death or suffering. Working on road construction can cause death or suffering.
Do please at least try to be serious. Patently, neither smoking nor working in road construction are forms of biological activity, physiological or pathological.

In much the same way, SARS-CoV-2 is not a medical condition, it's a virus. Covid-19 is a medical condition, being the biological activity caused by someone with a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
 

tstorm823

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These things happen and now there's a law in Arkansas that basically gives any medical professional a Get Out Of Jail free card for whenever they don't feel like providing treatment by claiming moral convictions.
Except for emergency care where the law explicitly doesn't apply, and it is not to supercede any existing anti-discrimination laws, and should an institution be making decisions on religious conviction, they must be upfront that they are a religious institution, and some parts of the health system need to file any concientious objection in advance... it's not the blanket free pass you're characterizing it as.

And also, you make it sound like there's already a blanket free pass anyways, that doctors in your experience at times refuse to give care because they don't like the patient. These people aren't going to start claiming moral objections to common treatments when they don't like the patients, because then you just find any comparable patient given the treatment and your discrimination case is already rubber stamped. "I didn't think it was appropriate care in this case" is 1000% better an excuse, as it's incredibly difficult to prove that's a lie when patients health circumstances contain so many variables, as compared to a person's consistency of conscience.
 

tstorm823

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Do please at least try to be serious. Patently, neither smoking nor working in road construction are forms of biological activity, physiological or pathological.

In much the same way, SARS-CoV-2 is not a medical condition, it's a virus. Covid-19 is a medical condition, being the biological activity caused by someone with a SARS-CoV-2 infection.
But you've already brought non-biological factors into your range of medical conditions. You've already included poor self-image as a medical condition.
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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But you've already brought non-biological factors into your range of medical conditions. You've already included poor self-image as a medical condition.
A medical condition is something that causes, or has the potential to cause, death, illness or suffering. Suffering is therefore not a medical condition in this paradigm, it's an indicator of patient wellbeing. It could of course go on to cause a medical condition, such as depression.
 

tstorm823

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Doctors need to be impartial to the backgrounds of their patients. As contrarian as I am, I can't see any good reason for this and it should be revoked.
It is impartial to the backgrounds of the patients. The law is to allow doctors to refuse to use certain procedures that they morally object to, it does not allow doctors to choose patients they refuse to treat the same as others, and the Governor specifically said he would not have signed the bill if it did
 

Agema

You have no authority here, Jackie Weaver
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It is impartial to the backgrounds of the patients. The law is to allow doctors to refuse to use certain procedures that they morally object to, it does not allow doctors to choose patients they refuse to treat the same as others, and the Governor specifically said he would not have signed the bill if it did
The fundamental problem is that it allows doctors the ability to de facto pick and choose what they deem appropriate to treat, ahead of the patients requiring treatment and against the good practice evidence and consensus of the field. It is therefore a denial of patient rights, and facilitates improper patient care; both are clear breaches of medical ethics.

There is of course moral hazard, that a doctor can refuse valid treatment out of prejudice, and good luck proving that beyond reasonable doubt with this ever-so-nebulous get-out clause. Nor can one avoid the implication that facilitating the rights of doctors in this way can potentially deny treatments wholesale to patients, should enough doctors refuse to offer services. Thus it can act as an effective system-wide denial of treatment by constraining services. One might compare to Jim Crow laws, for instance, that did not outright and explicitly ban black people from voting, but hugely disproportionately restricted their voting rights. This is of course transparently an intent, thereby de facto imposing religious dogma on other individuals. Another aspect of this is of course is discrimination, because those with means will be able to secure treatment that those without can't, ending in deeply unequal provision of medical care.

This is therefore just the latest in a decades-long series of religiously-inspired attacks on what are (at least currently) Constitutional rights of American citizens, dressed up in the usual fancy and dishonest clothes. One would hope the courts see it, as they have done previously, for what it clearly is.
 

tstorm823

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There is of course moral hazard, that a doctor can refuse valid treatment out of prejudice, and good luck proving that beyond reasonable doubt with this ever-so-nebulous get-out clause.
This really doesn't seem that nebulous to me. If a doctor says they won't do a procedure because of a conscientious objection to it, and you find they've done the procedure 47 other times, you sue the pants off them. The only situation where this would be difficult to prove whether it was or wasn't prejudice would be with a unique patient requesting a treatment the doctor has never had a comparable patient for.
 

happyninja42

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Great! Now I just need to move to Arizona, and open up a medical business, and tell all the christians to fuck off because my moral beliefs are in conflict with their worship of a genocidal egomaniac who threatens eternal punishment if you don't kiss his ass every second of your life! I'm sure they will be totally fine with that!
 

tstorm823

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Great! Now I just need to move to Arizona, and open up a medical business, and tell all the christians to fuck off because my moral beliefs are in conflict with their worship of a genocidal egomaniac who threatens eternal punishment if you don't kiss his ass every second of your life! I'm sure they will be totally fine with that!
a) Arkansas
b) That would still be illegal under this bill, as would a Christian denying service to an atheist.
 

Specter Von Baren

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It is impartial to the backgrounds of the patients. The law is to allow doctors to refuse to use certain procedures that they morally object to, it does not allow doctors to choose patients they refuse to treat the same as others, and the Governor specifically said he would not have signed the bill if it did
Can you give me an example of a procedure you think could be justifiably viewed by a doctor as unethical to perform for a patient? And just so we don't retread worn ground that will get us nowhere, let us leave the abortion debate out of this if we can.
 

Buyetyen

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a) Arkansas
b) That would still be illegal under this bill, as would a Christian denying service to an atheist.
So it's perfectly OK to discriminate against people for being born different but completely unacceptable to discriminate against people because of actual life choices?
 

Avnger

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So it's perfectly OK to discriminate against people for being born different but completely unacceptable to discriminate against people because of actual life choices?
Something, something, Christianity is the Truth and therefore not a choice, something, something, the "gay lifestyle" is a life choice, something, something.
 
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McElroy

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Can you give me an example of a procedure you think could be justifiably viewed by a doctor as unethical to perform for a patient?
There is a clear contradiction, because medical science doesn't study effects on the patient's soul. I can give one example: preventative medicine for HIV if the patient is going on a sex tourism trip, but even then how much would that ease anyone's conscience? Maybe this person does the trip anyway and actually gets HIV! But hey, at least the good doc didn't enable them.
 

tstorm823

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Can you give me an example of a procedure you think could be justifiably viewed by a doctor as unethical to perform for a patient? And just so we don't retread worn ground that will get us nowhere, let us leave the abortion debate out of this if we can.
The lowest hanging fruit is the old-timey procedures that in retrospect were never justified in the first place. Like lobotomies. If 80 years ago a surgeon was removed from their position because a patient wanted a lobotomy and they wouldn't do it, history would look back kindly on them.
So it's perfectly OK to discriminate against people for being born different but completely unacceptable to discriminate against people because of actual life choices?
Neither is ok, and you don't want to follow the implications of your question.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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The lowest hanging fruit is the old-timey procedures that in retrospect were never justified in the first place. Like lobotomies. If 80 years ago a surgeon was removed from their position because a patient wanted a lobotomy and they wouldn't do it, history would look back kindly on them.
Side note: the books the nazis burned was research on trans people. Suffice to say, they aren't a new phenomenon
Neither is ok, and you don't want to follow the implications of your question.
116C0EFA-9974-46CD-BA10-6C1034A31FA5.jpeg
Like, this is the fluffiest Dr King quote out there.
 

Secondhand Revenant

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The lowest hanging fruit is the old-timey procedures that in retrospect were never justified in the first place. Like lobotomies. If 80 years ago a surgeon was removed from their position because a patient wanted a lobotomy and they wouldn't do it, history would look back kindly on them.
You seem to be side stepping what this law actually is suppposed to be accomplishing as far as real situations. Or you are suggesting that people could go up and request lobotomies before this law and a doc would be obligated but pretty sure its the former.