I’m late posting this story, but Pseudo-Adrianne’s post earlier today reminded me of it.
Earlier this month, Colorado Governor Bill Owens vetoed a bill that would have required hospitals to tell rape victims about emergency contraception.
The bill would not have required hospitals to perform abortions; the bill would not have required hospitals to dispense drugs they found morally objectionable; the bill would have given health care professionals the right to refuse to participate in procedures they found morally objectionable. The bill would only have required hospitals to let rape victims know that the option exists, so that rape victims would have the freedom to decide for themselves.
Amazingly, Governor Owens had the gall to claim that he vetoed this bill to protect people being “coerced by government to engage in activities” they don’t approve of.
The Moral of the Story: When a pharmacist is “coerced” into doing his job by letting people know of their options, that’s facism. But when rapists and right-wing zealot hospitals collaborate to coerce women into unwanted pregnancies, that’s cool.
They really don’t think of women as anything but incubation machines, do they?
I’m first! Yay!
This country is starting to remind me more of “The Handmaid’s Tale” every day. I just finished reading that book, so it’s very clear in my mind.
But, but, but….the rapist went through all that trouble to rape her! After all that work, she can’t be going and stopping the pregnancy that results from happening. They are just standing up for rapists’ rights.
Do they really think that most of the women who would have taken EC won’t try to get abortions later on?
…Never mind.
“This country is starting to remind me more of “The Handmaid’s Tale”? every day.”
Oh, and when can young fertile women like myself expect to be rounded up and taken maternity camps? That’s how the story goes, more or less, right? The fanatical, conservative Christian Right takes over the country and literally turns women into the incubators they have always viewed the female sex to be? Of course that’s a hysterical outlook on the current situation, but really. With all the things the neocons on Capitol Hill and all throughout the country are doing, ripping up Roe v Wade little by little, how long until we get some overt propaganda from the Rightwing emphasizing a “Culture of Maternity and Natalism” and how “important” it is for women to constantly think of themselves as mere birthing equipment?
“Do they really think that most of the women who would have taken EC won’t try to get abortions later on?”
Don’t expect logic from these people. It’s about controlling women’s sexuality and reproduction. The logical thing would be to strongly emphasize intelligent and comprehensive sex-education (push frequent condom usage, birth control pills, etc) and make contraceptives, even emergency contraception, widely available without hassle or even prescriptions. Get people, especially young people, to be smart about their birth control practices and methods. Yes, include the *choice* of abstinence in the curriculum, but be realistic. People are going to have sex and *gasp* outside and before marriage (and after for divorcees) for reasons other than procreation. You want to reduce the number of abortions every year?….then teach sexually women and men how to prevent pregnancy from even happening, using contraceptives. And let women, definitely rape victims, have easy access to E.C.
But, that’s too logical. This isn’t about reducing the number of abortions. If anything, drive women to desperate and lethal and tragic measures to control their reproduction.
*rant over*
What I find ironic about the pro-life – or perhaps more accurately pro-fetus-life – crowd is that, if that fetus who’s life is sooo precious happens to be a girl, the instant she is born, her life becomes meaningless.
Though maybe her life does have indirect meaning, as she may at one point bring more fetuses into the world.
Do hospitals or police in Colorado not have rape crisis counselors who could do this? Nobody is requiring a pharamcist to hand the drug to a victim, nobody is requiring a physician to prescribe the drug to a victim, the bill would require those treating the victim (who is also a patient) to inform her of the additional potential risks/consequences to the rape and what her options are for testing and treatment as appropriate. This is even worse than pharmacists trying to hide the imposition of their religion on women behind conscience interference clauses (and heaven forbid they have to do a job they accepted knowing it was a routine task to fill valid presciptions that are stocked by their pharmacy). There is no reason for someone to work with/treat rape victims if they cannot separate out their particular moral/religious views in favor of letting victims do what is best for them. For Pete’s sake, EC is meant to delay impending ovulation so it doesn’t occur during the while the rapist’s sperm have a chance at penetrating the zp; it does not cause the endometrial lining to suddenly reject an implanted embryo!
This is where mothers can make a difference. Inform your daughters they have choices in life. Let them know they are more than machines. The more parent’s do their job properly, the better off the next generation will be.
Whats a “right wing zelot hospital”?
Question
What do hospitals do? What is their purpose? What do they exist to do?
I believe “The Handmaid’s Tale” was referring to the situation in Afghanistan under the Taliban, rather than being intended as a comment on US politics. It was set in the US, certainly, but I understood that to be an attempt my the author to make the plight of Afghan women more real to American readers. It’s easy to look at another country and say “that’s just their culture”. But when you imagine it happening in your own country, to women who look and speak and act like you yourself, that makes it all a little more real.
Certainly it takes on another level of allegory when you look at the apparantly increasing role of the religious right in US politics. And maybe Margaret Atwood had that in her mind when she wrote it. But I take exception to accusations that she was just writing a “hysterical” and unrealistic prediction of what might happen in the US. She was actually writing about a very real situation in which women were truly oppressed, not some futuristic fantasy.
Duh. Force as many women to become pregnant as possible, of course.
Every patient has the right to make decisions about their course of treatment. These decisions are not free unless they are informed. If hospitals are allowed to keep information about treatment options for women, they are keeping them from making informed choices. This is a violation of their rights. It is monstrously unfair to burden laypeople who have just suffered horrific assaults with the responsibility of researching all options at their disposal, particularly when EC is time-sensitive.
Any hospital that refuses to fully appraise a person of all choices available to them due to religious issues.
The moment your religion steps in the way of anothers right to health or choice, you’ve stepped into the realm of rightwing zealot hospital.
I should add, I wasn’t directing my comments particularly at the person who mentioned Handmaid’s Tale above. That just reminded me of a lot of other comments I’ve heard about it, where the word “hysterical” gets used a lot.
gah – stuck an extra ‘a’ in appraise accidentally. Make that ‘apprise’.
Compelled speech is problematic, as is forbidden speech.
If the legislature passed a bill requiring abortion providers to give the names and addresses of adoption agencies to women seeking an abortion, and the governor vetoed it as being “coercion by government”, would you be outraged? Or would you say “hey, this conversation should be between the health care provider and the patient – the government has no role to play.”
The moment your religion steps in the way of anothers right to health or choice, you’ve stepped into the realm of rightwing zealot hospital.
So if a hospital decides that do to its left-wing Christian views, they will refuse paying patients in favor of focusing on the poor, and as a result my choice to have a procedure done is compromised, they’re right-wing zealots?
That’s absurd. You’re using labels as epithets, not as descriptors.
Bologne. Give me examples of where the situation you are citing is occurring. You know darn well that the people implementing such agenda’s are not on the end of ‘left-wing christians’. You also are perfectly aware of women being refused day after procedures and medications based on religion – and when I say religion, I’m not saying that of the woman getting health care.
I know that there are people with right-wing or conservative views who work to implement their agendas, yes. Is it your serious contention that people with left-wing or liberal views don’t do that?
Sorry, don’t have a real-world hospital counterexample from this country – though doubtless any former Soviet subjects could tell us some hair-raising tales. For some reason, in America it’s the hate-filled Christian rightwing baby-machine fascists who drop billions on funding hospitals.
Every patient has the right to make decisions about their course of treatment. These decisions are not free unless they are informed. If hospitals are allowed to keep information about treatment options for women, they are keeping them from making informed choices. This is a violation of their rights.
So when an abortion clinic doesn’t mention adoption to someone who comes in and asks for an abortion, they’re violating that person’s rights?
Or do women only have a right to hear the side of the story that YOU support?
Robert,
The magnitude and scope of this statement with respect to our individual liberty was not lost on me, but may unfortunately not be appreciated by some on this thread.
Is it reasonable to think that most women don’t know that adoption is an option, or that a woman who wants an adoption won’t know to ask about available services? Or that there are hospitals with independent gag laws surrounding adoption information? I have no problem with healthcare providers providing, or even being compelled to provide, information on state policies surrounding adoption, and on potential avenues of support for women who want to adopt. In many states, women seeking abortions already must be provided with this information, even though adoption, technically speaking, isn’t something that medical professionals provide or prescribe.
Is it reasonable to think that most women don’t know that adoption is an option, or that a woman who wants an adoption won’t know to ask about available services?
Is it reasonable to think that most women don’t know that abortion is an option, or that a woman who wants an abortion won’t know to ask about available services?
Both of these propositions are in fact reasonable.
In fact, the reasonableness of both these propositions is precisely why I generally support neither gag rules nor mandatory informational rules, whether those rules would tend to favor or penalize my own personal point of view. It simply isn’t the state’s concern.
Which, in fact, was the predicate for Governor Owen’s action. The hypocrisy of the pro-abortion position on this seems fairly obvious: “keep your laws out of my uterus”, unless it’s a law that pro-choicers want, in which case the more government, the better.
Anyone care to handicap Godwin? I’m giving it…eighteen hours.
The question of speech, freedom, and duty was tackled in the pharmacists-for-life-discussions. When you join a profession dedicated, in part, to informing the people you serve, you do not have the right to restrict information that they would logically seek first from you.
This statement is ignorant on so many levels, Robert.
First of all, “our” side of the story includes adoption. I think adoption is great if it brings a child who needs a family together with loving parents, and I’ve never met a liberal who thinks otherwise.
There is no such thing as a liberal who wants to force people to abort rather than adopt. The urge to use government force to make people reproduce in a certain way exists in the people you vote for; there is no counterpart at all among the people I vote for. That form of facism is something favored almost exclusively by right-wingers in this society.
I don’t think the abortion clinic vs. hospital comparison is very logical; if a clinic does abortions and nothing else, then it doesn’t make sense for them to offer adoption information, any more than it makes sense for an adoption agency to offer abortion information. However, a clinic that provides general prenatal and reproductive care should certainly provide information about all relevant options to their patients.
I have absolutely no problem with a law saying that prenatal and reproductive care service providers have to provide information about all the legal options a pregnant woman has to choose from – including info about adoption. That way, the patient is free to choose for herself, rather than Big Daddy Government choosing for her, as you and your allies want it to do.
What I do object to is it being legal for hospitals to provide substandard care for rape victims, and that’s the current state of the law in Colorado. If I go to a hospital suffering from a blocked heart valve, I don’t want Christian Scientist doctors deciding for me that surgery is immoral and so not even telling me it’s an option; I want them to tell me the options and let me decide the moral issues myself.
No one is saying that a doctor who is pro-life should be forced to perform an elective abortion if she doesn’t want to. But there’s a difference between saying “as a matter of conscience, I can’t perform this procedure; you’ll have to find another doctor” and a decision to decieve the patient by not even telling them about the medical options that exist.
It’s the difference between thinking women are compentant to decide for themselves, in consultation with their own doctors and their own God, and thinking that your God gives you the right to decide for women whether they like it or not. And we all know which side of that question pro-lifers fall on.
I’d say yes, but then again, as per my experience, you do get counseling of options in such cases – they do strive to make sure that people are committed to their decision before termination occurs.
In fact it is my contention that I’m unaware of any such thing happening. I would not be so strident as to say it couldn’t or hasn’t happened, but by and large, I believe that liberals do not in fact ‘do that’.
And that’s exactly my point. I on the other hand do have real-world examples of this occurring on the right-wing religious side. And we aren’t talking about the Soviet union, are we? This discussion has been specifically about laws in the United States and things happening in the United States.
The post is about EC. I think it is absolutely reasonable to assume that a rape victim would not know about it, or know about the time-frame in which it must be taken. I can’t remember it off the top of my head. Pregnancy and its potential complications would probably be the last thing on my mind in the period immediately following an assault, but that’s when EC must be discussed.
When you join a profession dedicated, in part, to informing the people you serve, you do not have the right to restrict information that they would logically seek first from you.
Since all professions are dedicated in part to informing the people they serve, the logical conclusion of this line of reasoning is that no professional is allowed any moral judgment or individual conscience.
Is this in fact a conclusion with which you agree?
Actually, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that a rape victim might not know about emergency contraception. Lots of people don’t pay attention to the news.
And even if she knows about it, she may not know where to get it if the hospital refuses to help her, or even to tell her the name of another hospital or health clinic she can go to where they will help her.
So you’re saying that the Soviet medical system is a model that right-wing Christians in the USA today are correct to emulate?
Robert – adoption isn’t a medical procedure. Nor is it health-related in any way. EC is a safe medical option. Hospital workers are already compelled for ethical reasons to inform patients of all safe medical options to them. That this bill needs be introduced merely reflects the sad state in which we currently find ourselves.
If I go to a hospital suffering from a blocked heart valve, I don’t want Christian Scientist doctors deciding for me that surgery is immoral and so not even telling me it’s an option; I want them to tell me the options and let me decide the moral issues myself.
Then I suggest you refrain from visiting a Christian Scientist hospital, Barry.
…Or a hospital refusing to tell a PVS-patient’s family that the law does not in fact require them to keep the patient on life support, or refusing to let an elderly patient know about DNR orders. There are a lot of potential abuses here.
No, that’s several logical leaps down the line. It’s perfectly fine to refuse to offer or perform a service yourself. I would not require a lawyer to draw up a will disinheriting a client’s gay son. I would never require a doctor to perform an abortion. I would never require a therapist to write a transsexual a referral letter. It is not acceptable to refuse to inform a client of their available options, especially when the client cannot reasonably be expected to know that you’re holding out on them, and when they have retained you because they do not have the knowledge or resources to become independently informed.
Actually, it’s perfectly reasonable to think that a rape victim might not know about emergency contraception. Lots of people don’t pay attention to the news.
Yeah. But that wasn’t the question.
The question is, if a woman wants to end a potential pregnancy, is it reasonable to assume that she knows about these things called “abortions”, or not?
I believe it is reasonable to assume that she knows that. And if she does know that, and if the termination or forestalling of a possible pregnancy is something that she wishes to do, then why is it not reasonable to expect her to take the initiative in acquiring the information on how to do this?
And even if she knows about it, she may not know where to get it if the hospital refuses to help her, or even to tell her the name of another hospital or health clinic she can go to where they will help her.
Sorry, I thought that adult women were considered to be able to make their own value judgments and make their own reproductive decisions. Surely the corollary of that is taking the individual responsibility to collect the information necessary to make those decisions in an informed manner.
I have the right to vote, but I don’t have the right to compel third parties to inform me of what the issues are and where the candidates stand. That’s my job.
So, Robert, are you suggesting that unless a hospital is explicitly Christian Scientist in its name, that they refuse to hire Christian Scientists. Like a “what is your religion” question, and if there’s any conceivable case where their personal morals might be contrary to their duties they be told not to let the door hit their ass on the way out? Because otherwise, how will Barry guarantee that his doctor isn’t a Christian Scientist?
Keep in mind, by the way, that what we’re talking about here is the right of hospital administrators to put a gag on doctors. What the current law in Colorado says is that if you go to a hospital whose administration morally disapproves of EC for rape victims, then even if your doctor thinks that EC is the best thing for you – even if not only have you been raped, but you have other medical conditions that make pregnancy unsafe for you – the hospital adminstration is allowed to order the doctor to shut up, and not tell you your medical options.
Nor is the hospital even required to tell you they’re keeping secrets from you and gagging your doctor. The idea is to decieve the patient by keeping secrets from her, and not telling her she’s not being told the full truth, whether her doctor wants to tell her the truth or not.
That’s what pro-lifers mean when they talk about preserving freedom of speech; they want to reserve the right of pro-lifers to come between women and their doctors and shut the doctors up.
When my father (an ear doctor) talks to his patients, he tells them what the medically appropriate options are. If he decides to keep the existance of a certain type of hearing aid secret from his patients, even when that hearing aid is S.O.P. for the patient’s condition, then he’s going to get his ass sued off for malpractice.
Every patient has a right to hear all the medically relevant options from her doctor. That doesn’t mean that the doctor has to list every crackpot option in the world; but the options not mentioned should be not mentioned for medical reasons. Patients have a right to that. What pro-lifers want is for pregnant women to have fewer rights than any other patient when they see doctors.
…You have the right to not see a doctor. But if you go to see a doctor, and they agree to treat you, they are obligated to not misrepresent treatment options. There aren’t any professional voting agents. If there were, they’d be obligated to not lie to you, even by omission. They wouldn’t have the right to represent themselves as professional political information agents if they did.
No, that’s several logical leaps down the line. It’s perfectly fine to refuse to offer or perform a service yourself…It is not acceptable to refuse to inform a client of their available options…
Really?
So I’m a lawyer. A guy comes into my office, and tells me that he just finished slaughtering a dozen abortionists at the local Planned Parenthood Clinic. He wants to know his options; the only ones he knows about are facing trial or having a gunfight with the cops, who are closing in. I happen to know that there is an airplane sitting on the tarmac at the private airport across the street from my office, and that the keys are in it. We’re 20 miles from the Republic of Atwood, where abortionist-murderers are welcomed with open arms and there is no extradition treaty.
Is it seriously your contention that it is unacceptable for me to decline to inform him of this option? That I have NO CHOICE but to say “hey, you murdering bastard, why don’t you stroll across the street and take a short flight to freedom?” I can refuse to represent him in court, but I can’t conceal the existence of an option which to me leads to an evil outcome?
The example is extreme for clarity, but the underlying point seems relatively elementary to me: people, including professionals, have the right to decline to participate in that which they consider to be evil. They are not obliged to give people information on how to achieve evil ends. They are not obliged to facilitate wrongdoing.
Not necessarily, no. It is not reasonable to assume that she is fully informed about what abortion is, or what her legal and medical options are.
If a patient has cancer, and knows that it’s a potentially deadly disease, is it reasonable to assume that they know all of the potential effects and side effects of chemotherapy?
There are levels and levels of medical specialization we’re discussing here. Fewer people know about EC–particularly in detail–than know of abortion.
Because otherwise, how will Barry guarantee that his doctor isn’t a Christian Scientist?
By being an adult and asking the doctor, “hey, are you a Christian Scientist or other form of nutjob?”
In your example, Robert, the best thing for you to do is to refuse to help the person at all. “I’m sorry, I can’t take your case.”
However, it’s not reasonable for emergency rooms to be allowed to refuse emergency patients.
Not all professions are analogious. I think a lawyer should have a right to look at me and say “I’m sorry, I won’t take your case, I prefer not to work for fat Jews.” If he has a bizarre morality that tells him that working for fat Jews is wrong, then I think he’s a dork, but I think he should have that right.
On the other hand, I don’t think a doctor in a hospital should have the right to refuse to accept me as a patient when I’m brought in after being assaulted. Even if that doctor has a moral problem with fat Jews, by being a doctor working in a hospital that takes emergency patients, he’s given up some rights to pick and choose his patients.
And once I’m his patient, it’s his obligation to give me medically sound advice about my options. It’s not my obligation to think of asking, “hey, are you a crackpot who plans to keep secrets from me rather than telling me the medical options?”
Maybe you ask that sort of question of every doctor you deal with, Robert. But that would make you very unusual.
It is extreme, particularly since that lawyer has not agreed to represent that murderer. He would be under no more obligation to assist in an extralegal escape than the flight crew. But he would be guilty of malpractice if he were retained and then failed to fight as hard as possible to get his client off. He would also be guilty of malpractice if he were honest about his client’s potential as a flight risk.
In your example, Robert, the best thing for you to do is to refuse to help the person at all. “I’m sorry, I can’t take your case.”?
However, it’s not reasonable for emergency rooms to be allowed to refuse emergency patients.
I agree. But nobody is refusing emergency patients. They’re saying that a particular form of treatment – one of many – is objectionable to their professional and/or personal morals, and that accordingly, they are not going to help the patients with that particular treatment.
And in my hypothetical, if I decide to take the person’s case, I am not required to provide him with any information he requests, despite Piny’s fantasy to the contrary. I can walk him right past the idling plane on the way to the jailhouse, using my professional and personal morals to recognize that he is entitled to a fair trial and a competent defense, but not an extralegal escape.
Health care providers ought to be free to follow their own professional and personal conscience, rather than having the state tell them what they can and cannot say. I have no objection to a requirement that such biases be presented up-front; make the Catholic hospital put up a giant plinth out front that says ‘no abortions, no EC, no nuthin’.
But that’s what the law that Governor Owens vetoed would have done, in essence. It didn’t require anyone at all to actively participate in prescribing EC to a patient. It would, however, had required the hospital to tell rape victims “we won’t help you get EC, we don’t do that here. If you want EC, you’ll have to find some other hospital to help you.”
That’s the law Owens vetoed.
Instead, hospitals in Colorado are free to keep EC secret – and free to keep the fact that they’re not providing their patient with medically relevant advice, secret.
By the way, I don’t know if lawyers are required to tell clients about their “extralegal” options, such as an extralegal escape. But even if you’re right about that, the very fact that you’re talking about “extralegal” options makes your example irrelevant.
What we’re talking about in this thread is hospitals choosing not to tell patients about medical options. Not “extramedical,” but medical.
To make your analogy relevant:
If you’re a lawyer defending a client; and if you notice that the police messed up and illegally collected evidence, meaning that you could make a motion to dismiss the case. As it happens, you think such motions are immoral; in your moral opinion, evidence obtained illegally is still evidence and ought to be admissable. (There’s a rational case for that, by the way; if the police acted illegally in gathering legitimate evidence, then the cops in question should be punished for breaking the law, but the evidence itself should still be treated as evidence).
Anyhow, you have a choice of either keeping this (in your opinion) immoral legal strategy secret from your client; or you can tell your client her legal options.
Surely you’re not saying that, as a lawyer in that situation, it should be legal for you to keep your client’s legal options in the courtroom a secret from your client?
If you decide that your higher morality means you should keep his legal options secret from him, then you deserve to be disbarred. She has a right to know his legal options and make that choice for himself. And she can’t reasonably be expected to ask, “do you have crackpot moral beliefs that will lead you to keep legally important options secret from me?”
And – returning from the silly example to the far more serious reality – rape victims have a right to know their medical options, and make that choice for themselves.
It didn’t require anyone at all to actively pariticpate in prescribing EC to a patient.
That isn’t true. The law required the hospital to participate in the referral of the patient to a hospital where they could get the EC.
And – returning from the silly example to the far more serious reality – rape victims have a right to know their medical options, and make that choice for themselves.
And I agree. The key words being “for themselves”.
For the record, I would say that the vast majority of women do not have the first clue what EC is, or if they do, they don’t know it’s available in the U.S. I was speaking with a friend last night who was fretting about what to do about broken condoms and I said, “Oh, just use EC.” She didn’t know she could call her doctor and get it.
Excuse me? The governor vetoed a law that would have required hospitals to let rape victims know that emergency contraception was an option after they went to a hospital for treatment. And, what, she should have taken the individual responsibility to find out about emergency contraception before she was raped? Yes, how irresponsible of her to not have taken the time to research her contraception options before she was raped. In fact, it was downright irresponsible of her to have been raped without using a condom or other birth control device in the first place.
Emergency contraception is not common knowledge, although it should be. And it is a very time sensitive issue. After the woman takes the time to research her options it could very wel be too late. How can you blame a woman not being aware of EC, and the locations in which it was available, before she was raped?
Oh, let’s watch — I’m sure he’ll find a way.
I’m not blaming anyone. I am declining to shift the locus of responsibility from the individual asserting a right to people who disagree with the morality of a particular action.
If you want EC, go to a medical facility whose originating philosophy and guiding mission do not reject certain forms of medical intervention as evil.
If you are an adult then be aware of your reproductive options. Take the responsibility that accompanies the right. Know who dispenses what. Make plans. Accumulate resources, both material and informational. Build relationships with others to access things that are not within your own direct power to create or acquire.
Be, in short, an adult. Which includes acknowledging that your rights end where other peoples’ consciences begin. Your rights oblige people to refrain from interfering in your choices. They don’t oblige people to facilitate those choices.
There’s the pro-life, republican view on rape victims, in a nutshell. No mercy, no sympathy, no help; just reduced rights for rape victims to appease the demands of the right-wing extremists who want their religious views forced on the rest of us.
Remember, if you’re being taken by the police to a hospital, and you’re in shock after being raped, it’s still YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to make sure that you’re being taken to a hospital where doctors aren’t under a gag rule forcing them to not tell you about all your medical options. Just because you’ve just been raped is no reason for us to show you even a thimble’s worth of mercy or sympathy; you’re on your own. That’s the Christian way.
I’m sorry to be so harsh, Robert, but your most recent post is appallingly heartless.
No woman who becomes pregnant via rape should have to receive a condescending lecture about what she should have done from someone who will never have to worry about being pregnant.
Robert said:
So, I have just been raped. I am injured, bleeding. The police show up. They call the paramedics. They take me to the only hospital in town. That hospital has a gag order on its doctors and other personnel. I am upset, hysterical. I am given a sedative. I am able to answer direct questions put to me, but I am not thinking clearly. I am in shock. But it is still my responsibility to know what questions to ask? I should know to ask about possible STDs. I should know to ask about EC. And if for some reason I am capable of thinking to ask those questions, the hospital, the one with the gag order, is not required to tell me my options or about EC So, how am I supposed to exercise options I am not informed I have?
So, I should make plans for in case I am raped. Perhaps I should carry a little card, like organ donors do? “In the event I am raped, do not take me to the nearest hospital to treat my injuries. Take me to the one 2 hours away that does provide EC.”
Of course, that would only work if I was raped in my home town. What if I got raped while on vacation? I should also reasearch hospitals and what services they provide before I go?
Sounds like I should live in fear of being raped. I should make plans in the event it happens, and plan my activities around the possibility. I should plan on being treated badly afterwards by professionals who are supposed to help me. You know, that sounds awfully familiar.
Repeat after me: EC is not abortion, EC is not abortion, EC is not abortion.
It’s contraception. Not abortion. it’s only moraly dissaproved of be people who want to control women’s bodies.
But it is still my responsibility to know what questions to ask? I should know to ask about possible STDs. I should know to ask about EC. And if for some reason I am capable of thinking to ask those questions, the hospital, the one with the gag order, is not required to tell me my options or about EC So, how am I supposed to exercise options I am not informed I have?
By growing up and taking responsibility for your own life. You have a brain to go along with your uterus, right? You have the ability to read information about contraception and the ability to acknowledge that there are rapists out there and the ability to make plans for contingent events, right? You’ve got the ability to buy four $1 birth control pills and stick them in a baggie in your nightstand, right? You are, in short, a grown up, right?
I am not heartless, nor do I lack sympathy for the victims of this most appalling of crimes. That sympathy, however, does not abrogate the rights of other people. It does not absolve each individual person of the responsibility to exercise their rights in an informed and mature fashion.
Just because you’ve just been raped is no reason for us to show you even a thimble’s worth of mercy or sympathy; you’re on your own.
I have nearly infinite mercy and sympathy for someone who has been victimized by a rapist. I believe they should receive care and compassion and counseling. I do not believe that treating them well overrides the individual consciences of the other 5.9 billion people on the planet. You are conflating “sympathy” with “accepting Barry’s world view as being a self-evidently superior morality”.
Repeat after me: EC is not abortion, EC is not abortion, EC is not abortion…It’s contraception. Not abortion. it’s only moraly dissaproved of be people who want to control women’s bodies.
EC prevents the implantation of a fertilized embryo into the uterine wall. It is an abortifacient. (At least some forms of it work this way; I hear conflicting reports that there are non-abortifacient ECs but I haven’t seen details.) This, by many of us, is abortion, albeit about the most attenuated possible form of abortion. So, EC is abortion, EC is abortion, EC is abortion. There, now we’re functioning at the same discursive level.
You know, the “people who want to control women’s bodies” theme is very rich, coming from folks who apparently want to control women’s (and men’s) MINDS. I don’t want to be involved in your killing of your offspring…so that means I want to control your body. Right.
Sounds like I should live in fear of being raped. I should make plans in the event it happens, and plan my activities around the possibility. I should plan on being treated badly afterwards by professionals who are supposed to help me. You know, that sounds awfully familiar.
Living in fear is futile; pain and suffering are inevitable, and so fearing them is a singular waste of resources. The second and third sentences are what intelligent people do in the face of a harsh world. We don’t live in the republic of ought, we live in the empire of is. And in the empire of is, it is indeed possible that you will be raped, and you should indeed make plans to deal with the contingency – just as we are aware of, and make plans for, any number of horrible things that might happen. Is paying for car insurance “living in fear of a wreck”, or an intelligent creature’s adaptation to a contingent and unpredictable world? Which makes more sense – recognizing that the cop who comes might be more interested in giving us a ticket for driving too fast and thus being emotionally and mentally prepared to handle it as best we can, or expecting that the service people will all be omnicognizant saints who don’t fuck up or have their own issues?
I would hope this does sound familiar; it’s a part of the lecture that everybody blessed with good parents hears when they’re about 13 and start to complain about life being unfair. Yes, life is unfair. Deal with it, or suffer worse consequences for refusing to deal with it – but the unfairness will come whether you prepare for it or not. It really and truly sucks that you (or much less likely) I might get raped, or have been raped – and it really and truly sucks that we need to make plans for that eventuality and/or take steps to try to forestall it or minimize its risk.
But the suckiness doesn’t change the reality. We deal with it, or we don’t, but the reality remains.
“No woman who becomes pregnant via rape should have to receive a condescending lecture about what she should have done from someone who will never have to worry about being pregnant.
I don’t believe that was the intent of Robert’s arguments(correct me if I’m wrong). However, what you are stating is that is alright for the state to force me to provide an option to you that I believe is morally reprehensible.
Furthermore, does the statement ” someone who will never have to worry about being pregnant”, mean that his opinion is meaningless simply because he’s male? Are you also suggesting that male’s should simply remain silent since their opinion doesnt matter because they lack a vagina? If this isn’t the case, please, enlighten me.
You favor laws which say that the State, rather than women, decides whether or not women go through with pregnancies. That is controlling their bodies, Robert, whether you want to admit it or not.
Going back to this case, no matter what the law says – even if the law says that every doctor must perform abortion on demand or lose her license- then they’d still have the right to not be involved in abortions (or birth control, or whatever else you folks decide is evil this week). That’s not at issue.
As you know, a significant portion of what I do for my employer is coordinate weddings, 99% of which are cross-sex. What if I decided that, as a matter of deep moral and religious conviction, I cannot assist with cross-sex weddings anymore – not while the laws still discriminate against same-sex couples?
I have that right. No legal power in the United States can compel me to go against my convictions and be the coordinator at even one more wedding. I am entirely free.
However, what I don’t have is the right to keep my job once I’ve decided that I must as a matter of morality refuse to perform my job duties. If I want to make a moral stand, I should be prepared to suffer the consequences.
You talk about “being an adult” – when it comes to defending the rights of hospitals to withhold medical care from rape victims. But when, exactly, will you tell right wing pharmacists to “grow up! Make your stand if you want to – but don’t ask for a special law protecting your job! Taking a stand is meaningless if you think you shouldn’t face any consequences!”
This issue has NEVER been about forcing doctors or pharmacists or any hospital worker to do whatever their conscience tells them to do. There is no slavery in the USA; no doctor or pharmacist, ever, is forced to assist with birth control if they think birth control is evil. No one will shoot them or put them in jail if they resign their positions.
The issue isn’t “will right-wing Christians be free to follow their consciences?” Right-wing Christians are already free to follow their consciences. The real issue is, “will right-wing Christians be free to not do their jobs and get special government protection from suffering any consequences for their decision?”
I don’t get this. No one is suggesting that the state force you to do anything. You will not be put in jail if you refuse to do your job. You will not be shot by police.
If I were in charge, the only thing that would happen to you, if you’re a doctor who refuses to tell a woman about her medical options, or a pharmacist who refuses to fill a legitimate prescription, is that you’ll be fired. Or perhaps your license to practice will be suspended.
You’re free to do what you want; no one is “forcing” you. What you’re complaining about is the prospect of being fired for refusing to do your job.
Speaking for myself, I don’t think men should remain silent. (Self-evidently). However, I do think men – and especially pro-life men – should remain somewhat humble and respectful when discussing this issue.
This is America, and we all get to decide on all our laws. Non-farmers get to argue about farm subsidies; non-Jews get to speak out about zoning laws that will have an effect on Saturday morning services; and yes, men get to argue about abortion.
But if you’re a decent person, even if you don’t agree with Farmer John when he states his view of laws about farming, you’ll be a little bit humble and respectful, because what’s only a political theory to you is Farmer John’s life. The same things goes for when Rabbi Sheila speaks about how the zoning regulations will impact her shul. And the same goes for when any women speaks about abortion.
You favor laws which say that the State, rather than women, decides whether or not women go through with pregnancies. That is controlling their bodies, Robert, whether you want to admit it or not.
Find somewhere where I’ve written that, and I’ll pay your hosting bill next month. All I’ve ever said is that abortion is wrong.
However, what I don’t have is the right to keep my job once I’ve decided that I must as a matter of morality refuse to perform my job duties. If I want to make a moral stand, I should be prepared to suffer the consequences.
I agree absolutely. As an individual, you are subject to your employer’s policies. (Heck, as a good libertarian, you are subject to your employer’s random psychotic whims.) What’s that got to do with the price of pecans?
Like you, I don’t believe that individual pharmacists should have legal protections for refusing to fill prescriptions against their employer’s policies. (Most of the pharmacy cases I’ve seen have been places where the employer’s policy was to respect the conscience of the individual worker; pharmacists are hard to come by.) So your criticism misses the mark, there. My main concern on this issue has been the question of individual pharmacists who own their own establishment.
In the case of THIS law – you know, the one that you’re outraged was vetoed – there WAS such individual protection – a policy which I am generally in sympathetic disagreement with. It was the EMPLOYER who was required to provide information; individuals who wanted out were allowed to be excused regardless of what their employer said.
So which is it? Do you think employers should have the right to set the policy, or do you think that employees should have the right of individual conscience? Because you’re arguing both sides of your mouth here.
“It’s terrible that this bill, which contains things which I think are horrible and wrong, was vetoed…”
You are an awfully smart guy, but you are so convinced that people opposed to abortion either secretly or explicitly just want to control women and make them incubators and all the rest of it, that it throws your analyses badly off whack. Believing in your opponents’ ineffable evil is rarely a conduit to genuine understanding of what they want.
(But hey, I’ll never have to face the prospect of an abortion, so you can safely ignore me! Of course, by the same logic you yourself should never post on the subject again…)
I don’t get this. No one is suggesting that the state force you to do anything. You will not be put in jail if you refuse to do your job. You will not be shot by police.
This isn’t about individuals, it’s about organizations. Hospitals, to be exact.
If I were in charge, the only thing that would happen to you, if you’re a doctor who refuses to tell a woman about her medical options, or a pharmacist who refuses to fill a legitimate perscription, is that you’ll be fired. Or perhaps your license to practice will be suspended. You’re free to do what you want; no one is “forcing”? you. What you’re complaining about is the prospect of being fired for refusing to do your job.
My job, as you see it.
So I’m in charge, and I decide that part of an artist’s job is to edify future generations, and I decide that the only thing that will happen to you, if you’re a cartoonist who draws things that lead innocent children into depravity, is that your computer and your pens and your paper will be taken away, or perhaps newspapers will be prohibited from carrying your work. You’re free to do what you want; nobody is forcing you. You’re just complaining about the prospect of being fired for refusing to your job, as I see your job.
But if you’re a decent person, even if you don’t agree with Farmer John when he states his view of laws about farming, you’ll be a little bit humble and respectful, because what’s only a political theory to you is Farmer John’s life.
Yeah, OK. So you have some hospital administrators and/or owners who say that they don’t want to provide information about a procedure because they think its profoundly immoral – they think it would VIOLATE their job to do what you want them to do.
So, you going to be respectful and humble about the fact that there are people DOING the job who think that what you want would be terrible?
Ampersand; I agree that one should be respectful when discussing abortion, especially a male. I don’t see how I have not been respectful, and if I have, many apologies.
Alright, lets say the law in Colorado now is that a patient must be informed about EC. I as a doctor feel it’s wrong to promote something I feel is morally wrong. You’re saying that in order to practice my beliefs that I have to either stop practicing medicine, or move out of the state, to another nearby one which may or may not have the same law. Why don’t we just simplify the situation, and leave the government out of it? To quote Ronald Reagan, “the nine scariest words in the English language are, I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
No, the statement is that it’s all right for the state to force you (healthcare provider) to INFORM me of my options and provide referrals if you are unwilling to provide the healthcare options in question.
This is what happened with me with regards to my current pregnancy, in fact. My family doctor refuses (not moral reasons, but instead litigation reasons) to be the attending doctor for VBAC (vaginal birth after c-section), but if I wanted to try a c-section, she would have provided me with the healthcare providers in the area that would offer me that option.
Except for a large part of the ‘unfairness’ you are talking about is not only that there are bad people in the world who do bad things, but also that there will be a group of people who are legally allowed to keep me from even knowing about my options after I’m so unfairly raped. We have to prepare as much as possible because there’s no guarantee that hospitals and doctors will be there for us, to let us know our options after we’ve been brutally assaulted. I just hope that brain that goes along with my uterus isn’t too terrified and in shock to not think clearly and keep all my options up in the front of my mind. And I sure hope that I have access immediately afterwards to that baggie of pills I put together just in case I was raped.
And, of course, you do support spreading the knowledge of EC, right? Perhaps teaching it in health class so that responsible young women have a chance to know that it exists? Or will it just filter into our knowledge?
Sometimes people have to do things that they disagree with in their professions. Sometimes people face tough moral decisions, and they might have to tell someone about the very existence of something that they hate. Life isn’t always perfect, and your job might put you in a position that you don’t like, where you either have to do something that you don’t think is right or you have to quit. Life is unfair.
Deal with it.
Except for a large part of the ‘unfairness’ you are talking about is not only that there are bad people in the world who do bad things, but also that there will be a group of people who are legally allowed to keep me from even knowing about my options after I’m so unfairly raped.
Failing to tell you something is not the same thing as preventing you from knowing about it.
We have to prepare as much as possible because there’s no guarantee that hospitals and doctors will be there for us, to let us know our options after we’ve been brutally assaulted.
That is exactly correct. Now generalize it to the rest of life – we have to prepare as much as possible because there’s no guarantee that other people will do the thinking and preparing for us.
So, any time I go to a tax preparer, or a lawyer, or a doctor, I should already know as much or more than they do so I can check up after them and ask the right questions? I am sorry, but if I go to a professional in some field it is because I don’t know the things I need to know. It is because I need them to advise me. And if I go to a doctor in an emergency room after a traumatic event, like rape, I don’t think it is too much to ask that I be given information I need that I may not have researched beforehand.
It is when it is part of what most would consider normative care. Telling a woman about EC does not mean she will take it, the person informing the woman needs to provide it, just that there is this medical treatment. One can even add: I believe it is equivalent to abortion, so I don’t provide that care, nor does this hospital (which in at least a portion of the cases a woman was brought to rather than made a decision to go to).
It seems you are treating EC as alternative care; in much the same way I would not expect a surgeon to tell me about acupuncture to treat my carpal tunnel. But there is a difference; EC is normative allopathic treatment. If I went to an alternative health clinic after I was raped, I would expect the right to inquire about options offered to me to prevent what I expect most women would want to prevent: a pregnancy resulting from the rape.
I am not pro-choice, at least not to the level most are here. But I am much opposed to withholding information that a woman might need to make an informed decision, especially after her right to make this decision was stolen from her. (And that would include the all the physical reprecussions of the EC.)
Semi-off topic — Sarah, The Handmaid’s Tale was written in 1985, so it couldn’t have been about the Afghanistan under the Taliban, which came into power in 1997 or so. It might, however, have been about Iran under its (still fairly new in 1985) Islamic Republic.
“In fact, the reasonableness of both these propositions is precisely why I generally support neither gag rules nor mandatory informational rules, whether those rules would tend to favor or penalize my own personal point of view. “
From a medical perspective, without mandatory information standards, there is no informed consent. You might very well not support/need informed consent for yourself; still, your MD has a professional obligation to make you/other patients aware of it. Standards of care are not based on personal points of view. They’re based on medical evidence.
“The question is, if a woman wants to end a potential pregnancy, is it reasonable to assume that she knows about these things called “abortions”?, or not?
I believe it is reasonable to assume that she knows that. And if she does know that, and if the termination or forestalling of a possible pregnancy is something that she wishes to do, then why is it not reasonable to expect her to take the initiative in acquiring the information on how to do this?”
Appropriate medical care [in any specialty] is not based on the assumption that the patient knows about [insert meds/procedure/etc. here].
“Sorry, I thought that adult women were considered to be able to make their own value judgments and make their own reproductive decisions. Surely the corollary of that is taking the individual responsibility to collect the information necessary to make those decisions in an informed manner.”
First, rape is not exclusive to adult women; preteens, and teens are also raped. Second, deciding what the appropriate rape treatment should be is not a value judgment, it’s medical care. Third, as a patient, the decisions you make post-rape are in response to an act forced upon you.
“Is it seriously your contention that it is unacceptable for me to decline to inform him of this option?”
Declining to inform a patient of his standard of care options is called malpractice.
“The example is extreme for clarity, but the underlying point seems relatively elementary to me: people, including professionals, have the right to decline to participate in that which they consider to be evil. They are not obliged to give people information on how to achieve evil ends. They are not obliged to facilitate wrongdoing. “
Informing rape patients about EC is not “giv[ing] people information on how to achieve evil ends”. It is giving them information on the standard of care, as per the American College of Ob/Gyn. Medical professionals do not have the right to decline to participate in rendering appropriate medical care to their patients [there are strict rules covering both routine, and emergency situations].
“I agree. But nobody is refusing emergency patients. They’re saying that a particular form of treatment – one of many – is objectionable to their professional and/or personal morals, and that accordingly, they are not going to help the patients with that particular treatment.”
EC is not “a particular form of treatment – one of many”. It is the *only* form of postcoital birth control.
“Health care providers ought to be free to follow their own professional and personal conscience, rather than having the state tell them what they can and cannot say. “
Maybe they ought to [you’d have to deregulate the practice of medicine, and do away with standard of care for that], or maybe they ought not to, but currently healthcare providers have to follow the standard of care. I agree that the state, and politicians in general, should not tell healthcare providers how to practice medicine. But the specialty’s professional organization should.
“If you want EC, go to a medical facility whose originating philosophy and guiding mission do not reject certain forms of medical intervention as evil.”
In cases of rape, the woman doesn’t have a choice of facility. Also, the proper medical intervention/care is not based on “originating philosophy and guiding mission”; it’s based on science.
“If you are an adult then be aware of your reproductive options. Take the responsibility that accompanies the right. Know who dispenses what. Make plans. Accumulate resources, both material and informational. Build relationships with others to access things that are not within your own direct power to create or acquire.”
As I mentioned before, preteens, and teens are also raped. Moreover, so are adult virgin/celibate women. Being raped is not a “right” in the sense that one does not expect it to happen/plan on it happening, thus it is unlikely one would accumulate resources, etc. a priori.
For example, it is possible that one would be aware of the theoretical possibility of having one’s penis severed. According to you, one should make plans, accumulate resources, and build relationships to allow access to optimal post-trauma healthcare. However, it is unlikely one would actually have all the pertinent information handy [ which area hospitals perform the required microsurgery, what that surgery involves, success/failure rates, post-op care, etc.], just in case.
“By growing up and taking responsibility for your own life. You have a brain to go along with your uterus, right? You have the ability to read information about contraception and the ability to acknowledge that there are rapists out there and the ability to make plans for contingent events, right? You’ve got the ability to buy four $1 birth control pills and stick them in a baggie in your nightstand, right? You are, in short, a grown up, right?”
Again, you assume only sexually active adults are raped. That is an incorrect assumption. Moreover, you assume that having a brain to go along with an uterus, having the ability to read, and having the ability to acknowledge that there are rapists out there should equal medical proficiency in the care and treatment of rape patients. Another incorrect assumption. Briefly, you could be a brilliant architect who faints at the sight of a picture of a vaginal tear, and/or your brain’s rational response might be overwhelmed by its trauma response. Having the ability to read is not sufficient; you need to be able to properly evaluate the information. Finally, knowing that there are rapists does not confer any special insight into the proper care of a rape patient.
Furthermore, not all adult women are sexually active [virgin/celibate], or are sexually active but have certain religious/moral objections to using birth control. Just because “there are rapists out there” does not mean all adult women are [or should be] familiar with birth control. For example, I should think it a gross violation of freedom of religion to require nuns to be up on contraceptive options, or to expect them to buy birth control pills and keep them on their nightstand.
[Quick question: could you please provide a link to the $ 4 pack of Preven? I know it’s no longer available in the U.S., and all the other available options here are far more costly. A place where EC is available at such an affordable price would be a great resource. Thank you.]
[Quick question: could you please provide a link to the $ 4 pack of Preven? I know it’s no longer available in the U.S., and all the other available options here are far more costly. A place where EC is available at such an affordable price would be a great resource. Thank you.]
I could, but that would be facilitating evil, and thus a violation of my moral code. Nor would I have felt obliged to make you aware of the information, if I didn’t think you already knew.
But seriously, you are right about the price. The commercially-run EC web site that I found (took 0.2 seconds on Google) charges $79 for an EC package FedExed to anyone (outside some southern states, where I would assume there is some legal or regulatory hurdle – which I oppose, by the way).
That is a substantially larger sum, and I acknowledge the difference, and to that extent stand corrected.
I would think that women’s health clinics or other resources would be available to help poor women have access to the drug in extremis.
Not providing EC to a rape victim is being an accessory to rape. If your religious beliefs were somehow pro-rape, I wonder if you’d be exempt from criminal prosecution if you acted on those.
Drugs do expire, you know. So, once a year, maybe every January 1st to celebrate the New Year, I should pay $79 to order my EC because I have a brain as well as a uterus (we’ll continue ignore the fact that it’s still illegal to buy without a prescription). Then I should carry it with me at all times (since there’s no reason to think I could get back to my bedside table following a rape in time to take the drug). And I would still be evil for not wanting to bear the child of an angry, violent man, but at least I would be responsible for my own uterus and wouldn’t be inconveniencing a doctor’s moral sensibilities.
Amp- if this a duplicate, please excuse- I crashed and I don’t know if it was before I sent.
I’m entering the discussion late, but here are some links that provide information:
http://www.4woman.gov/faq/econtracep.htm
Also info at http://www.plannedparenthood.org:
There is considerable public confusion about the difference between emergency contraception and medication abortion because of misinformation disseminated by anti-choice groups. Emergency contraception helps prevent pregnancy; medication abortion terminates pregnancy. According to general medical definitions of pregnancy that have been endorsed by many organizations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the United States Department of Health and Human Services, pregnancy begins when a pre-embryo completes implantation into the lining of the uterus (ACOG, 1998; DHHS, 1978; Hughes, 1972; “Make the Distinction?” 2001). Hormonal methods of contraception, including emergency contraception pills, prevent pregnancy by inhibiting ovulation and fertilization (ACOG, 1998). Medication abortion terminates a pregnancy without surgery. By helping women to prevent unplanned pregnancies after unprotected intercourse, emergency contraception has the great potential to decrease the rate of abortion. By helping women terminate unwanted pregnancies up to 63 days after their last menstruation, medication abortion is a safe and effective option
Plan B website:
http://www.go2planb.com/section/health_professionals/index.html
Plan B is an easy way to provide EC, but it’s not the only way. There are a number of combinations of regular birth control pills (4-20 pills, depending on the brand) that can be used and have the same effect and are easier to obtain in places that won’t dispense plan B.
Furthermore, does the statement “? someone who will never have to worry about being pregnant”?, mean that his opinion is meaningless simply because he’s male? Are you also suggesting that male’s should simply remain silent since their opinion doesnt matter because they lack a vagina? If this isn’t the case, please, enlighten me.
I thought there was going to be an issue here. What I meant was that it’s very easy to lecture and rationalize and come up with useless analogies when you know you won’t ever have to deal with the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy. To be more clear, I don’t think ANYONE, male or female, should be delivering condescending lectures to rape victims about what they did wrong.
Are we in bizarro world here? I just can’t believe that there are people arguing in favor of this. Would you want this for the women in your family and group of friends? If (God forbid) a woman you know was raped, and became pregnant because she wasn’t given EC, would you basically tell her “Tough shit, you’re an adult and you should have taken responsibility”?
EC prevents the implantation of a fertilized embryo into the uterine wall. It is an abortifacient.
No, that’s not true. It can also delay or prevent ovulation, just the same way that an IUD or a standard birth control pill can.
But giving an unimplanted single cell zygote the same rights as a human being is, to my mind, an absurd proposition. If it were true, birth control pill manufactuters would be guilty of mass murder on a scale that made Stalin seem like a two bit mafia thug.
It amazes me how you can pretend to have a logicaly consistant argument.
/drift.
Amp, you’ve been criticized before as persenting a blog to the public that is only pseudo-feminist. I’m not going to particularly take that stance right now, but I am appalled at your blindness to Robert’s manipulation and participation in this thread. What is more important to you: to present topics of immediate to concern to women (rape and the need to abort after rape) or to give platform to a conservative male whose views are all too familiar and are apparently the basis for public policy (hence the very existence of this thread). Robert posts above about speech but does not see how his railroading of threads into the conservative viewpoint is a tactic to divert speech away from the topic at hand and towards an agenda — in this case a moral, conservative public policy.
Debate is one thing, and has its place and purpose. As a feminist, however, I don’t think that the personal agency of women or their bodily integrity is up for debate. It simply isn’t.
With that said, Robert is also trying to paint a “poor me” picture of pharmacists and doctors who apparently won’t have the professional ability to express their private morals. He is willing for the state to interfere with drugs and health care through the Food and Drug Administration and doesn’t seem to mind that private morals might be trumped by the State through this administration. What he seems to be saying, by avoiding it completely, is that he doesn’t want women to compromize the professional expression of anyone’s private morals. It’s okay if other men do it, or if the State does it; but ultimately women, in his mind, should not be allowed to have this kind of power in public policy. The line isn’t really about speech or morals, it’s about women’s decision-making capacity in the public arena.
The State already disregards the private morals of its citizens in the matter of taxes and war; both of which serve to terminate the lives of others. Why is Robert so concerned about the private morals of male pharmacists? Seems petty.
And if you have the misfortune to live in an area where those facilities have been shut down by all those “compassionate conservatives”, what? Not to mention that any woman who enters such a facility runs the risk of at best, verbal abuse and harrassment (just what you need after having been raped) by all those wonderful “Christians” who love humanity so much they’ve made it their lives’ work to ensure that women and children suffer entire lifetimes due to unwanted pregnancies.
Everything is just so easy, isn’t it? Not every woman who needs such a clinic has access, for dozens of potential reasons. The bottom line is that your religious beliefs shouldn’t dictate what happens to my body. Full stop.
I’m getting really sick of anti-choice men, comfortable in the knowledge that none of this will ever, ever affect them personally, making all these glib remarks about how easy it would be, if only WE “took responsibility”. If they would worry half as much about ensuring that raping men took responsibility for *their* actions, we wouldn’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies coming from rape in the first place. But no, it’s just so much easier to target the women, and lecture us about how evil *we* are, and how selfish and “irresponsible” and whatever other rubbish.
The whole philosophy I’m getting from the anti-choicers is basically, “You were stupid enough to be born with a uterus and a vagina, and therefore stupid enough to have the type of body our society most deems rapeable, so just DEAL.”
Also, what Q said, especially this:
I don’t know why people here bother to debate with Robert. He does not debate honestly, and clearly has no interest in doing so.
Intellectual dishonesty = “The manipulation of facts, statistics, truth, intentions, and of words to create an argument or theory that seems reasonable and believable, while the creator or disseminator of the argument knows perfectly well that their argument or theory is both flawed and deceptive.”
Entirely too much space on this webboard is taken up in circular arguments with this poster.
Robert,
You naughty [I assume] libertarian, you.
Seriously now, the ER protocol for rape pts. is 1st dose/full dose STI/HIV prophylaxis, and EC before discharge.
I’ll debate Robert:
You say uterus bearing members of society are responsible for getting their info about EC, yet are against dispensing that info, even apparently mentioning that it exists and that you are against it, if you were confronted with a woman who might need it. So we’re supposed to inform ourselves, but the information should be withheld from us. You’re not leaving women much of a moral choice, since you’d rather us not know we have a choice.
How do you feel about fertility drugs and treatments? Should hospitals be gagged from mentioning them ?
And here’s something to think about even though you probably won’t: if a woman ever agreed to marry you, or if some poor woman has, she maybe raped one day. You may have to raise the rapist’s child. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
And FYI everyone- “the Handmaids Tale” was inspired by the Islamic Revolution of Iran in the Mid-seventies. There’s even reference to it in the last chapter. Ironically, the Afghan revolution made the Iranian one look moderate, as will our Ameribanist one, perhaps.
“As a feminist, however, I don’t think that the personal agency of women or their bodily integrity is up for debate. It simply isn’t. ”
Excuse me? Since when does a topic suddenly get closed to debate? I’m sorry, but any policy that affects my rights, or will affect the society I live in will always be up for debate. As a citizen, whether or not that child is in your body or not, does not give you the right to have whatever policy concerning it that you deem fit. My parents pay for my food, shelter and clothing, but that doesn’t mean that theyhave full control of my life, and can do anything that they feel like doing with me. The only difference, is that unlike the unborn child, I can stand up for myself.
Josh:
But giving an unimplanted single cell zygote the same rights as a human being is, to my mind, an absurd proposition.
I’m inclined to agree, at least to the extent that I’m not comfortable obliging you to act in that fashion.
Which, fortunately, I’m not doing.
Q Grrl:
Robert posts above about speech but does not see how his railroading of threads into the conservative viewpoint is a tactic to divert speech away from the topic at hand and towards an agenda … in this case a moral, conservative public policy.
I must be a genius. Even something I don’t know I’m doing is a tactic.
He is willing for the state to interfere with drugs and health care through the Food and Drug Administration and doesn’t seem to mind that private morals might be trumped by the State through this administration.
Actually, I believe that the Food and Drug Administration, while well-intended, is an unconscionable imposition on the exercise of our rights as citizens. I object quite strongly to private morals being trumped by the state. However, since the Food and Drug Administration DOES exist, and since the majority of my countrymen and women do not appear inclined to return to a limited Federal regulatory apparatus, I am of course going to advocate that the tool of the state be used in ways that I find congenial.
What he seems to be saying, by avoiding it completely, is that he doesn’t want women to compromize the professional expression of anyone’s private morals. It’s okay if other men do it, or if the State does it…
Could you please provide some attestation or indication that I actually make this dichotomization based on gender? I don’t believe that I do; if I do, then I want to correct the inconsistency in my own thinking.
Crys T:
If they would worry half as much about ensuring that raping men took responsibility for *their* actions, we wouldn’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies coming from rape in the first place.
I support the death penalty for rapists, and asset forfeiture and transferrance to the mother in cases of a pregnancy and a resulting child. Do you?
Lizzbeth:
I don’t know why people here bother to debate with Robert. He does not debate honestly, and clearly has no interest in doing so.
This is a fairly serious charge. Do you have evidence that I debate dishonestly, or is this just an unsupported ad hominem?
Ema:
Seriously now, the ER protocol for rape pts. is 1st dose/full dose STI/HIV prophylaxis, and EC before discharge.
THE protocol? Or A protocol? There are an awful lot of hospitals that don’t follow that – in fact, that say it’s wrong. The choice of articles seems tendentious.
Elena:
And here’s something to think about even though you probably won’t: if a woman ever agreed to marry you, or if some poor woman has, she maybe raped one day. You may have to raise the rapist’s child. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
I am well aware of it; my wife and I have already discussed it. As people who are aware that choices have consequences, we have thought out the ramifications of many of our beliefs. Some of them are uncomfortable. Raising the rapist’s child is a duty in which we would try to find joy. Since we don’t believe in inherited guilt, we hope that we would be able to love and cherish that child as we love and cherish the others.
I don’t support state-sponsored murder for anyone or for any reason, no. I also don’t support condemning the female victims to nine months of torture, possible serious health threats which may include death, and a further lifetime of pain and suffering just because she was chosen by some violent creep to be his victim. The measure you support are far from “just” and in no way humane, especially for the women involved.
So because you might not mind raising a rapist’s child, no one else is supposed to mind either? And if they do, tough shit?
And Will, are you saying the idea of bodily integrity for women SHOULD be up for debate, or just that you don’t like being told you can’t debate something? I really hope it’s the latter, because that I could at least kind of understand.
“Excuse me? Since when does a topic suddenly get closed to debate? I’m sorry, but any policy that affects my rights, or will affect the society I live in will always be up for debate. ”
Your rights don’t trump my body. Get used to it. That’s not a part of the social contract that this citizen agrees to.
And it’s not a “debate” if historically my body has been seen as a public commodity for male consumption. So, I haven’t closed a debate.
If you don’t like the idea of providing abortion after rape, you sure as hell better back up mandatory physical castration of male rapists. I’m sick of boys “debating” what piece of my body they have a right to.
Better yet, let’s just castrate those males who don’t seem to offer much to the gene pool, under jurisdiction of the State, and as defined by the State. Then we won’t have to worry about unwanted pregnancies. And yes, I mean this. If we can dissect the female body into categories of utility, we better fucking be able to do the same to men. Testicles and sperm are of absolutely no social value to me. Chop ’em all off, I say.
I admit I only skimmed this thread, but I’m wondering if Robert acknowledged that refusing to mention EC to rape victims will almost certainly result in more abortions. Women may not know that EC exists, but most are aware that abortion is available.
The only difference, is that unlike the unborn child, I can stand up for myself.
So your mother’s currently carrying you around inside her body? I must say it’s quite a feat that you can type from in there.
“As a citizen, whether or not that child is in your body or not, does not give you the right to have whatever policy concerning it that you deem fit.”
Will explicitly shows that he does not think that women have a right to bodily integrity. My “citizenship” apparently means that I forfeit my body to his “citizenship.”
Suddenly, I have Janet Jackson singing in my head: “So, what have you done for me lately?”
I’m really struck by the irony of all this. When we have a thread about rape and men benefitting from rape, men are outraged. When we have a thread about women needing abortion after rape, men are outraged. But yet they don’t see how they benefit from rape. Hmmm.
It’s all about control ladies. If the men can’t control our bodies through public policy, they can count on those bad meanie rapists to control out bodies through force — which they’ll back up with more policy — which they’ll back up with more force, ad nauseum.
Now THAT’s a debate I don’t see them having!
What Q Grrl said….
Obviously, my goal is not to present a platform for Robert’s views. However, one of my goals is to provide a place where views such as Robert’s can be debated, in order to improve my own thinking and my ability to defend my views. In order to do that, it’s necessary to allow people with Robert’s views to post here.
Another goal is to provide a source of hopefully useful commentary, analysis and news for feminists, fat activists, and others. I don’t think that these goals (debate and source for info) are mutually exclusive. Admittedly, the debate aspects of “Alas” may discourage some feminist readers from reading this forum; but it may also encourage others. Besides, the main way I provide information is not through providing information to regular readers (most of whom are already incredibly well-informed on these topics without any help from me), but through creating information that can be found through google and other searches; those information-seekers will not be detered by the presence of debate.
If an ideal world, it would not be up for debate. It would be like the right of women to vote, or the right to an attorney at trial – things that are agreed to by such a broad consensus that there is, outside of purely academic debates, no need to discuss them.
But this isn’t an ideal world. Even if I ban pro-lifers from debating on my threads on this blog (of course, I can’t speak for Pseudo-Adrianne’s threads), that won’t change the fact that there is not a consensus in favor of reproductive freedom in this country, and that these issues are being debated in legislatures and courtrooms and public forums nationwide. Whether we like it or not.
Robert asks if, under this scenario, a lawyer would somehow be compelled to inform the potential client that there’s a plane awaiting. This example, however, does not present a comparable situation. I am a lawyer, and for very good reasons I am not allowed to advise a client (prospective or otherwise) to engage in illegal conduct, nor may I aid a client in engaging in illegal conduct. Fleeing from prosecution is illegal. If I told the guy where the plane was, I’d be helping him to engage in illegal conduct. Plus, if the guy told me that he was planning to shoot it out with the cops, I’d probably be under an obligation to tell the cops what he was planning to do. He’d have no right to prohibit me from doing so, since a client’s disclosure that he plans on committing a crime (as opposed to the disclosure that he may already have done so) is not subject to the protection of the attorney-client privilege, and as an officer of the court I would be obligated to do what I could to stop the prospective crime of shooting at cops from occurring.
Note that this is a lot different from helping a client who has already engaged in illegal conduct to exercise his legal options.
Neither prescribing nor taking EC is illegal, at least so far. So the comparison fails right there.
I wonder if you’ve thought this through? The practical effect of vastly increasing the harshness of rape sentencing would be to make juries much more hesitant to find rapists guilty. So yeah, maybe some rapists would be executed, but many more would get off scott-free.
“However, one of my goals is to provide a place where views such as Robert’s can be debated, in order to improve my own thinking and my ability to defend my views. ”
And that’s one of the reasons that I come here too. But, when every thread about rape or abortion becomes about Robert’s conservative views, then there is no real debate, nor the spirit of debate. There are a million directions of debate that we could go in, but it seems like the same small circuitous route every time.
you say: “If an ideal world, it would not be up for debate”
I say: I don’t have the time to wait for an ideal world. I am firmly saying: it isn’t open to debate. Which translates to: I cannot find validity in any statements coming from a man who insists that it still is open to debate. Any statements. None. Nada.
There is a fundamental issue underlying all of this: women’s bodily integrity. **If** that is still open to debate, then everything else is just mere speculation and pie-in-the-sky theorizing. If you (read: men) cannot accept women’s rights to their own bodies, what then do you consider the “debate” to be?
That is indeed a troubling consideration. I think in the end, though, that we have to make the punishment fit the crime without tactical calculations of the sort you mention. The suggestion of physical castration is appealing, and certainly just, but doesn’t prevent recidivism; you can rape a woman with something other than a penis. I think that preventing recidivism should be one of the main purposes of a criminal justice system, and death takes care of that nicely.
I’m not sure that juries would be that much more hesitant to find rapists guilty, at least in some circumstances; “fry him in hot fat” is my default position and surely I am not alone. We could have a two-tier penalty phase like in murder cases, with the prosecutors deciding whether to seek death or not. That way, in the cases where it’s more he-said she-said and juries would be reluctant to kill, the prosecutor can adjust the requested sentence to something a jury can support. That’s not entirely just, of course, but in an evidentiary legal system you do have to make allowances for some cases being weaker than others.
“Your rights don’t trump my body. Get used to it. That’s not a part of the social contract that this citizen agrees to.”
Why do we have the death penalty for murderers? Why in fact is it illegal to begin with? Because you are depriving someone of life. Not only are you depriving that person of their life, you are also depriving everyone who would had benifited, who would have been cheered, and had their lives enriched by that person who was killed. The argument, “how many Albert Einstein’s and Mother Teresa’s have we killed through abortion” applies here.
One doesn’t have a right to kill another human being. Maybe according to you it is occupying space in your body therefore you can do what you please with it. I’m so glad I had a mother who felt differently, otherwise I might not be here. And the same goes for you. I doubt your mother thought you her “property“.
“Testicles and sperm are of absolutely no social value to me. Chop ’em all off, I say. “
I’m really curious how you think that the human race will procreate minus those organs. Obviously it takes two to create a baby, but those are still rather vital.
“So your mother’s currently carrying you around inside her body? I must say it’s quite a feat that you can type from in there. “
Do I really have to answer that sarcastic blather? Let me put it this way. I’m fortunate that my mother did carry me around and did sacrifice those 9 months. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, and there wouldn’t a damn thing I could do to stay alive. I am grateful, and recognize the sacrifice that is made. Our society realizes it otherwise we wouldn’t have special privileges in workplace for women who are pregnant. Its part of the social fabric to appreciate that sacrifice, because it affects everyone of us.
“It’s all about control ladies. If the men can’t control our bodies through public policy, they can count on those bad meanie rapists to control out bodies through force … which they’ll back up with more policy … which they’ll back up with more force, ad nauseum.”
This doesn’t seem to be a argument towards abortion at all, merely a diatribe against men in general. Men are not trying to control your body. People in general are against abortion. In fact, I could probably list about 30 women(not men) who agree that abortion is wrong. Please stop trying to make the connection men=evil.
I don’t think that someone that says this:
“You have a brain to go along with your uterus, right?”
and this:
” I don’t want to be involved in your killing of your offspring…”
this:
“an option which to me leads to an evil outcome?”
and wants women to be prepared at all times for being raped (“the ability to acknowledge that there are rapists out there and the ability to make plans for contingent events, right? “)
– should be debated with at all. I understand Amp’s position but I agree with Q Grrl. I suggest that Robert will be treated as a troll and ignored as such. (Personally I would like to call him worse names but I’m trying to be civilized, as to prove that I have a brain to go with my uterus.)
Great post mousehounde!
“One doesn’t have a right to kill another human being. ”
Will — did you pay your taxes this year?
If so you are an: HYPOCRITE.
Or else, you are saying men can kill men, but women cannot decide the fate of the fetus that she is pregnant with.
HYPOCRITE.
So, if you aren’t a hypocrite, then it really, really, does come down to you wanting to control women’s bodies in a way that you are not willing to control men’s bodies. You didn’t even explore the myriad technological ways that the human race could procreate sans men having their testicles still attached to their bodies. Men don’t need their testicles but for a brief amount of time that the State could absolutely legislate. The State could mandate the harvesting and storage of sperm and then mandate physical castration. I see no logical reason that a grown man needs his testicles; especially if he has already fathered one child. Not only could the State manage birth control, but what a handy way to control population!! All we need is a couple of bills passed, and viola! It wouldn’t even be about men’s bodies anymore. We could call it “reproductive rights” or “birth control” or “protecting the not-yet-unborn-child”.
Will, a zygote (which is what MIGHT be denied the chance to implant, if EC is administered) is still not a human being, an unborn child, or anything more than a few cells.
Your position on denying rape victims information to (and presumably access if you could) EC is based on an unnkown chance that a rape victim might have a zygote in the works.
By thiss logic, you ought to be denying alcohol to women who’ve just had sex because there’s a chance they might have a zygote in the works, and alcohol might make them less fertile.
I can’t see how this isn’t taking the position that EC is any differnt from “killing an unborn child”, which means that birth control pills are thee same as “killing an unborn child”, as well as IUDs.
These are totaly absurd positions, and you and Robert are taking them on as if there were no reason to argue against them.
It’s also incredibly tacky to take, as paramount importance, the rights of a zygote that might or might not be there, and place them above those of the woman who was raped to be sure that she’s not going to get pregnant from the semen of a man who just raped her.
That, more than anything else, explains how people here get the idea that you and Robert think of them as bood mares first, and human beings later.
“All we need is a couple of bills passed, and viola! It wouldn’t even be about men’s bodies anymore.”
Heh! Good luck with that. A lot of male politicians would choose to keep their dicks and testicles over preserving women’s rights any damn day. If the State would take any serious initiatives in controlling reproduction, they would start with controlling women’s organs first. As people like Robert and Will are all for whether they openly admit it or not. Restricting a woman’s choice is control! No matter how many sob stories about taking care of the children who are the result of rape or so happy your mother decided to continue the pregnancy and give birth to you you put out, in order to create a distraction from the reality of your position.
“The argument, “how many Albert Einstein’s and Mother Teresa’s have we killed through abortion”? applies here.”
How many Hitlers, Stalins, Ted Bundys, Dahmers, and Charlie Mansons, too? Oh yes, by your logic they would have done wonders for our world too.