What do people think of this?

Question

Doctor's being able to refuse treatment due to the doctor's religious beliefs.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19190916/

Kris L do you realize you just said she is responsible for being raped right? I have faith in humanity and there is no possible way you could mean that. Please clarify this and don't make me be utterly wrong.

Answer 1

Yet another way religion harms society.

It just goes to show how religion puts superstition before actually helping a person in need. This type of story just makes me want to vomit.

Answer 2

Ah! The old chestnut appears once again to stir up a new generation of people who will come up with logical and rational comments and those who will go off on a tangent. The hospital concerned was employing a person as a doctor and were well aware of his religious convictions.
I am of the opinion, and controversial as it may be, that this profession (medical) should have what is known in political areas as the "separation of powers". This is where the state does not interfere with matters of the church and likewise the church does not interfere with matters of state.
In the medical field, there is such a thing as protocols when treating patients. If a treating doctor has a problem with issuing a contraceptive to a patient who is the victim of a rape case, he must gather his thoughts and decide in the patient's favor
The woman has been raped, and is in a medical facility. There is a very real danger to her maybe not physically, but mentally if she has this unwanted child in her womb.
It is a situation where the physician is not obeying God, but playing God.
He should take care that the patient will be well cared for.while in his facility. If the patient wishes to have a contraceptive to allay pregnancy, IT IS NOT HIS PLACE TO JUDGE HER.
It is his place to assist her in this traumatic time. This gives credence to the separation of powers where the church should stay out of it and let the noble profession of medicine do what is clearly for the benefit of the patient.
If this dilemma arises with the treating doctor, then he should consider his options. Perhaps he would be better off in a specialist field which does not include emergency work.
.

Answer 3

I believe this is a foolish thing. If you are going to be a doctor but do not want to treat a particular person because of your religion you really need to go back and figure out why you became a doctor in the first place. Is there not an oath doctors take (hypocratic oath i believe) that states you heal all those in need. That being the case then I would say you should find a new religion or career as you will be violating either your sword oath or your chosen religion.

Answer 4

Of course I disagree with the doctor's views, and think the morning after pill should be available for any woman who wants it, whenever she wants it.

I also believe that in hospitals and other organisations which are publicly funded, doctors should not be able to choose which legal services they provide their pateints. If they don't want to abide by policy, let them work elsewhere.

In the area I live in, there are many people of a particular very conservative cultural background, and many of the local doctors have the same background. Most of these doctors have signs in their waiting room, which say 'Contraceptives are not prescribed here'. Prospective patients therefore have advance knowledge of what they can expect and can go to another doctor if they choose.

Of course ~ in an emergency, even that choice is not practically available.

Perhaps doctors should carry a warning label!

Best wishes :-)

Answer 5

It is hard to answer this question as I am so physically nauseated by Kris L.'s response. Who goes to a physician and says "Well, hey, doc, I'm planning to get raped within the week so I'll need to know you're cool with giving me the morning-after pill, OK?" It was an E.R. doctor for one, NOT her personal physician, as if that matters any. She did go to another ob/gyn to obtain the pill. This man victimized her post-rape and he should be put in jail for violating the codes of his duty as a doctor. Kris now victimizes all women who have been raped by perpetuating the disgusting myth that "if she knew him she deserved it." Blech. Patooie.

Did he say, "It's partly the woman's fault this happened?"? Did he? Because I swear, I never felt so like wringing anyone's neck in my life. How demented. I hope he and this doctor wind up meeting when one is experiencing some horrible trauma and they eat their own words.

I was going to say "and choke" but I am trying to be as nice as possible.

Answer 6

Get ready for the onslaught of lawsuits. California is not touching that hot topic, unless the hospital or medical group is affiliated with a prolife denomination. There are too many laws in this state that protect the patient. On the bright side, not only does this keep the patients happy but it keeps the MDs out of the courts. California believes in separation of personal beliefs from patient care (you will see CA not listed in the article's right hand table of states that refuse care).

Answer 7

Sad and scary.


Also probably unconstitutional, and certainly worthy of a lawsuit if some jerk lawmakers haven't stepped in already.

When you deny a woman legal medical care just because your little god tells you to, you're HARMING the woman. Legally so. Aside from distress and the trouble of finding another doctor (not to mention insurance problems if she has an HMO), you are forcing her to do extra work -- to jump through hoops, essentially -- to get a service you're more or less claiming to provide when you wave your medical license around.

That doctor in the story has no business being licensed. At the very least, he needs to be sued.

(Notice it's a MALE making a decision about what a woman should have to go through. Unimaginable pain on top of the powerlessness she feels after being assaulted... That man is sick. Both the rapist and the doctor are sick.)

Answer 8

I think any doctor should be able to refuse any treatment due to the doctor's beliefs. Really.

I also believe that such a doctor shouldn't be allowed to be a doctor anymore. Because that's the consequence of his desicion. He took an oath, he has to live by that oath. If not, he should be fired.

But, of course he can refuse to do any treatment. That's his own choice. It will just cost him his job.

Answer 9

"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."

-- Hippocratic oath

This "doctor" is a disgrace. If this has been reported accurately (and that is a major if), he should be forced to resign from his position. He has directly violated the one ethical oath that all physicians agree to and are sworn in on.

Answer 10

I believe that a person should have the right to follow their beliefs even in that situation. The person was not refused treatment, she was refused the morning after pill by that Doctor, their are other Doctors that don't hold his beliefs and would be more than willing to give it to her, as was done.

Answer 11

I'm sorry that the woman had to go through this ... but I don't think that the doctor was 'wrong' in saying that it was 'against his religious beliefs' although he should have been able to give her an 'instant referral' to a doctor who COULD give her the 'morning after pill' ... and I think that this WOMAN is 'wrong' in not going to see ANY ob/gyn now ... she needs to have a 'good one' who AGREES WITH HER AND HER DECISIONS BEFORE she 'gets involved' with any 'man' on an intimate level again. SHE is at least 'partly responsible' for her experience and she needs to 'deal with that' and not condemn ALL ob/gyn's because she met one whose 'religion' didn't allow him to prescribe a 'pill' that is 'the same as an abortion' to some people ...