Monday, August 06, 2007
Killing the goose
In USA Today for August 3, 2007, there were two related articles. The first was titled, "Some doctors refuse services for religious reasons", and the second, "Case involves a colision of rights."
The task for today is to dissect and analyze the two articles (By the way, that is NOT the same as deconstruction.). In the first article we read:
History has made the first statement a lie, and the second is plain rediculous. If the doctor is God then to make him not a god is to become one oneself. This woman wanted her insurance to pay for her fertility regardless of the desires or wishes of the physician. Essentially she sees insurance not as insurance but as coercion. When the woman said I couldn't even bear to think that... she should have stopped at "think". Ms Benitez forgot, or perhaps never realized that both insurance and a doctor-patient relationship is a mutual agreement subject to both parties' being willing to engage in the joint act. When she chose her insurance, she agreed to the physicians that would accept it. When a physician refuses to perform a particular treatment it is outside the insurance agreement. All that the doctor has agreed to is to accept the payment the insurance company offers for any given procedure. He/she has not agreed to perform all procedures on all patients.
At the next level of the argument we need to look at the idea of discrimination. At one time discrimination was simply the ability to determine differences and make choices based on the differences. There was no value judgment in the word discrimination, and in fact, it was considered a compliment to be discriminating. In today's world of political correctness, to discriminate is automatically to be wrong, even evil. There is a place where discrimination is wrong--law and government decisions. But in the perversity of today's society, it is OK for the government to discriminate with respect to age, race, sexual orientation, country of origin, etc. but wrong for individuals to do so. We have government sponsored preference programs for minorities and persecution of individuals for discriminating in the non-accepted direction for the same criteria. The doctors made a choice against a lesbian, a member of a protected group, so therefore are wrong.
The horror is that the doctors may have made their judgment truly on their religious beliefs, but that no longer has weight. An entitlement by law carries more weight than a right. Which leads us to the real underlying political philosphical issue--rights and entitlements.
The US Constitution spells out our rights very clearly in both the original document and the first ten amendments--The Bill of Rights. Interpreted clearly and in a straightforward manner these rights are not in conflict, witness that no amendments have been necessary to "fine-tune" the rights, but rather they allow the creation of law that violated the original constitution. What we see here are the creation of ersatz rights, entitlements, that give a group a special privilege simply for being a member of the group. The problem with this is that it is the government doing this. The government takes money from all citizens, and then distributes it as privilege and grants. When the government distributes to one group over others, it is at the expense of others. [Government is a zero-sum game. What one gets above their contributions had to come from someone else who now receives less than their contributions. This must be clearly distinguished from free-market economics which is not a zero-sum game.]
Just to make a point of it, such phrases as 'Freedom from hunger' leads to a right to be fed--at who's expense? Right to education--whether qualified to receive it or not, or wanting to receive it or not. 'Freedom from Fear'--what does that mean, and how do we enforce it? Equality now means equality of outcomes not equality of opportunity. There is an overt attempt to eliminate judgments based on ability. Better for everyone to be poor than many to be richer with some still poor.
Minorities should never be discriminated against by the laws or by any government institution. Ideally, they should never be discriminated against by individuals. However the latter is NOT an area for government interference, as it has become. I wrote a essay on rights and discrimination in the first month of this blog. I don't think I can say it any better now:
The task for today is to dissect and analyze the two articles (By the way, that is NOT the same as deconstruction.). In the first article we read:
Doctors are becoming more assertive in refusing to treat patients for religious reaons, expandign the list of services they won't provide beyond abortion to include artificial insimination, use of fetal tissues and even prescribing Viagra.Now we have the ground work presented. The next article provides more detail:
The shift is prompting a new round of debate in courts and state legislatures over the balance between protecdting the constitutional right to religious freedom and laws prohibiting discrimination.
...
The collision between religious freedom and rules against discrimination occurs when physicians perform procedures selectively, offereing them to some patients but withholding them from others, says Jill Morrison, legal counsel to the National Women's Law Center.
This year a case generating wide interest, the California Supreme Court will hear a first-of-its-kind lawsuit: firtility treatment denied to a lesbian.
In Washington state, a gay man recently settled out of court with a doctor who refused to prescribe him Viagra.
...
Patrick Gillen, legal counsel for the Thomas More Law Center, a Michigan-based public interest law firm that defends religious freedom, says the political clout of gays and lesbians has led to a situation that "is ripe for conflict." Gillen says no doctors should be required to perform procedures that violate their religious faith, especially "if the patients can get the treatment elsewhere."
the subtitle of the article reads: "Calif. doctors accused of using faith to violate law against anti-gay bias."This legal mess has at least a couple of levels of discussion in it. So let's start with the most obvious, the inflammatory statements by Ms. Benitez: "..never have children..." and "...doctors are not God."
The first line reads: "When does the freedom to practice religion become discrimination?"
...
What distinguishes the case of Guadalupe Benitez is theat the physicians involved refused to provide a medical procedure to one patient that they readily provide to others[artificial insemination. Benitez is a lesbian. bk], ... Usually, providers who object to certain services object to them for everyone...you can't pick and choose."
Kenneth Pedroza, the doctors' attorney, counters that an "all-or-nothing" rule will drive physicians out of certain specialties.
...
By that time, Benitez had been a patient at the clinic for 11 months and been taking fertility drugs prescribed by Brody[her physician]. The clinic was the only facility covered by Benitez's health insurance plan.
"This was the only place I could go, and they were refusing to help me," Benitez says. "I was very disgtraught. I was very confused. I couldn't even bear to think that possibly I was never going to be able to have children."
[The article continues with another example of doctors refusing to give a single parent an exam for adoption]
...
Benitez, meanwhile, received treatment at another facility and has given birth to a son, now 5, and twin daughters, now 2.
"People ask me, 'Why are you doing this? You have your kids,'" she says. "I want to make a difference. These doctors are not God. they cannot manipulate who can have cildren and who cannot."
History has made the first statement a lie, and the second is plain rediculous. If the doctor is God then to make him not a god is to become one oneself. This woman wanted her insurance to pay for her fertility regardless of the desires or wishes of the physician. Essentially she sees insurance not as insurance but as coercion. When the woman said I couldn't even bear to think that... she should have stopped at "think". Ms Benitez forgot, or perhaps never realized that both insurance and a doctor-patient relationship is a mutual agreement subject to both parties' being willing to engage in the joint act. When she chose her insurance, she agreed to the physicians that would accept it. When a physician refuses to perform a particular treatment it is outside the insurance agreement. All that the doctor has agreed to is to accept the payment the insurance company offers for any given procedure. He/she has not agreed to perform all procedures on all patients.
At the next level of the argument we need to look at the idea of discrimination. At one time discrimination was simply the ability to determine differences and make choices based on the differences. There was no value judgment in the word discrimination, and in fact, it was considered a compliment to be discriminating. In today's world of political correctness, to discriminate is automatically to be wrong, even evil. There is a place where discrimination is wrong--law and government decisions. But in the perversity of today's society, it is OK for the government to discriminate with respect to age, race, sexual orientation, country of origin, etc. but wrong for individuals to do so. We have government sponsored preference programs for minorities and persecution of individuals for discriminating in the non-accepted direction for the same criteria. The doctors made a choice against a lesbian, a member of a protected group, so therefore are wrong.
The horror is that the doctors may have made their judgment truly on their religious beliefs, but that no longer has weight. An entitlement by law carries more weight than a right. Which leads us to the real underlying political philosphical issue--rights and entitlements.
The US Constitution spells out our rights very clearly in both the original document and the first ten amendments--The Bill of Rights. Interpreted clearly and in a straightforward manner these rights are not in conflict, witness that no amendments have been necessary to "fine-tune" the rights, but rather they allow the creation of law that violated the original constitution. What we see here are the creation of ersatz rights, entitlements, that give a group a special privilege simply for being a member of the group. The problem with this is that it is the government doing this. The government takes money from all citizens, and then distributes it as privilege and grants. When the government distributes to one group over others, it is at the expense of others. [Government is a zero-sum game. What one gets above their contributions had to come from someone else who now receives less than their contributions. This must be clearly distinguished from free-market economics which is not a zero-sum game.]
Just to make a point of it, such phrases as 'Freedom from hunger' leads to a right to be fed--at who's expense? Right to education--whether qualified to receive it or not, or wanting to receive it or not. 'Freedom from Fear'--what does that mean, and how do we enforce it? Equality now means equality of outcomes not equality of opportunity. There is an overt attempt to eliminate judgments based on ability. Better for everyone to be poor than many to be richer with some still poor.
Minorities should never be discriminated against by the laws or by any government institution. Ideally, they should never be discriminated against by individuals. However the latter is NOT an area for government interference, as it has become. I wrote a essay on rights and discrimination in the first month of this blog. I don't think I can say it any better now:
In closing this over-long-for-a-blog comment, I will state that I do not believe in discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, body-size, or any of the other so-called grounds for civil and criminal action concerning the new, so-called rights. I firmly believe that organizations that are as diverse as possible are stronger than ones that are restricted in membership by considerations not related to the function of the organization. In saying that, I also condemn those who do discriminate in such ways. But my condemnation does not mean that it is proper to abrogate their rights in order to correct a real or imagined wrong done to someone else. In the long run, no one will have enforceable rights, and the winners will be those with the best presentation of their victimhood.If we continue to think we can coerce doctors to provide medical care in violation of their personal beliefs, we can expect to have medical care that will either be ineffective because only the hacks will practice medicine, or non-existent.
Hello to those who still check back in once in a while.
I am back, sort-of. The past several months have been very full, and time to blog has been an almost non-existant luxury. After the major rant of several months ago, I no longer have the interest to comment day-to-day. There are many blogs that say the same thing much better. See my blog roll for candidates. I am going to focus on those things of which I see a different view. This will mean fewer but perhaps longer posts. Check back once in awhile, I may post only every week or so, sometimes more frequently, sometimes less. I shall try to replace quantity with quality.
Many thanks to all of you who keep coming back.
Bill
Many thanks to all of you who keep coming back.
Bill
