Should medical personnel be forced to participate in abortions?

^^^ Well, okay.

How about pharmacists dispensing birth control pills?

_____

As stated above, if an employee has a problem with a certain task, that's fine; the correct course of action is for that employee to seek a situation with another employer.

Until the employer determines that abortions will not be one of the services offered at their facilities, the services must be performed by the employees.

That's why it's called work.

And I would trust that these folks would be Christian enough to avoid intentionally performing their duties poorly, thereby putting patients at risk.

 

This sort of question only comes up in theocracies, underdeveloped countries, and the United States. Sad.

 

what about these laws the lawyer claims are on the books protecting workers from violation of their conscience? i believe there was a case here in mass involving some workers who were asked to work sunday's after the state passed a law allowing certain businesses to be open on sunday that previously were not.

 

Like the death penalty, abortion in some cases is legal in this country. Of course slavery used to be legal too.....but you cannot change societal norms overnight, now can you?
Like Hospitals, some prisons also kill people under the sanction of law. Like Hospitals, they employ people to carry these actions out. So far.....employment at both prisons and hospitals is somewhat voluntary. If you don't like the work...go find something else to do. If you feel that you "have" to work at either, then your convictions where the state sanctioned termination of human life aren't really worth very much, now are they?
I don't think that constitutionally, we should force a woman to bear a child, or eschew such forms of birth control that might cause a fertilized egg to be extinguished. I also don't think that the government should take money from citizens at the point of a gun, for use in killing unborn kids.
You see.....there's an undefined point in time where the fetus stops being just a "viable tissue mass", and thus the property of the mother.
Where that point in time actually is neither I, not the Supremes know just yet.
I don't think that Roe is in the same league as Dred-Scott, since there are "reproductive rights" at play that people defend very passionately---as they should.
However (comma!) there is a point in time where it stops being birth control.
My views are somewhat prejudiced by two facts:
1. I can't have a kid. Easy for me to be anti-abortion, right?
2. I was born premature. Like, premature enough that there are (very few) abortions that are being legally conducted on kids that are further down the gestation pipeline than I was when I was born (7 months and change.)
There are ambassadors on both sides of this issue that want to snap the chalk line at conception (which is wrong, IMHO) or the day before the kid's birthday (also wrong, IMHO!) and both sides are ugly and determined to use "states rights"---the same dodge they always use, for defending their point of view.

So.......
This leaves us with a very wide and very deep chasm where people's beliefs are concerned. When does human life start? When, and under what circumstances can the state terminate a human life? Should we, or CAN we allow a person to "die with dignity?"
Interesting questions, all.
If I knew the answers, I wouldn't be slinging wires and fibers for Ma Bell, or doing the "one weekend a month" gig.

Where the nurses are concerned....they're voluntarily employed. Oncology wards need nurses too. 'Nuff said.

 

Neither does abortion, unless you subscribe to a religious dogma that asserts that a fetus is a person.

Interestingly, in the Old testament, where punishments are prescribed for varying crimes, hitting a woman so that she loses a fetus is treated as destruction of property rather than as murder.

I never said that eliminating religion would resolve the issue. I said that as long as people subscribe to different religions they will be unable to come to agreement, as different religions have different views, and religions insulate themselves from negotiation by insisting that they have the One And Only Truth, and all other religions are wrong or worse.

There's a big difference between what I said, and what you are claiming I said. Religious diversity precludes a resolution. Religious uniformity would not necessarily guarantee a resolution. Religious uniformity would be a requirement, but not in itself sufficient.

Religion is a plague. Religion provided the justification for slavery. Religion provides the only arguments today against equal rights for gay people. Religion is the backbone of the anti-science and anti-environmental movements. Religion is the only source of arguments denying equal opportunity to women. Religion was the sole motivation for the burning of ancient texts and art. Religion provided the justification for the theft of native lands by European colonialists. Religion is the sole motivator for most acts of terrorism. And the people most intolerant of religious beliefs are not atheists, but the believers of other religions!

And in the effort to prevent abortion, the people most opposed to abortion are also the people most opposed to sex education and birth control, which are the most effective ways of reducing abortion. Why do the opponents of abortion so oppose the most effective tactics against abortion? Religion!!!

 

I am sorry I can only answer the question you asked, I do not know the question you meant to ask. They should NOT be forced to perform abortions, they should be free to quit.

 

Treb, I should have been more specific my comment was primarily based on the issue of abortion. My previous reply still stands.

Also, are you speaking of late term abortion procedures that take place during an emergency in a hospital?

In many states an elective, non-emergency abortion under 24 weeks must be performed at an abortion clinic, regardless of situation, or reason. Mothers who concieved a wanted child are forced to endure the sleazy atmosphere of such clinic even if their babies are conceived with congenital, probable fatal defects.

 

Nor does nursing, you just have to choose where you work.

You can build an undocumented series of Guesses to make someone a 'bad guy' if you work hard enough:
IF the hospital just started abortions and IF they had 15 open nursing positions elsewhere, one would hope they would have allowed the nurses unwilling to do their job function as changed to transfer to a department where they were comfortable. IF they did not then they could be painted as a 'bad guy'.

IF the nurses hired on to a hospital that performed abortions and staged a work stoppage for PR reasons, they can be painted as the 'bad guys'.

(I am guessing you did not respond to my example jobs because one DOES require you to consider terminating a life, police officer)

 

Should medical personnel be obligated to treat fundamentalists ? Denialists ? Morons ?

 

Should Seventh-Day Adventists be required to perform blood transfusions? Should Christian Scientists be required to repair air conditioners [obscure Isaac Asimov reference]?

 

I am unclear how ignorance that they would be have to do work to keep their job is a reason to keep them on once they refuse to do the work.

They definitely deserve positive references.

I am opposed to forcing them to do work. That is slavery. They definitely need the option to quit.

Businesses hire employees to do a job, if the employee won't do that job, for whatever reason, the business needs to get new employees. If Police officers refused to carry a gun on the grounds it might terminate a life, you would get new officers. (If you HAD sufficient desk jobs, you might retain the current officers, but you WOULD get new officers)

I see no future scenario where the nurses keep their current positions.

 

If a nurse who believes in the sabbath hires on at a nursing home, should he expect never to have to work on sunday?

 

I am sure we all do, only hypothetical gods are allowed an omniscient view.

[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ectopic_pregnancy"]Ectopic pregnancy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
(each ectopic pregnancy is rare, the chance of never seeing one as a nurse is even rarer)

I can see the joy in going to work each day knowing I am a drain on my employer, only tolerated because there is an even greater cost to getting an employee who can do the work assigned in my position.

All of the sudden, you are worried about the nurse's job prospects? That seems late AFTER they have sued their employer. If it was me, I would have lined up my next job BEFORE dragging my employer through the mud. Getting work once employers KNOW you have no shame will be trickier.