Finally, A Change for the Better

As most of my loyal reader(s) know, I'm not the hugest fan of most of President Obama's ideas. I think the bailout/stimulus proposals are a big pile of suck, and I have no idea how we're going to pay for it. I'm sure we'll all pay for it for years to come, but that's not what this is about.

What I am pleased about is the change in the conscience laws for health care workers. Under the Bush Administration, some pissant pharmacist could decide that they didn't have to fill prescriptions for various drugs. One of the biggies was birth control pills -- some insurances wouldn't cover them either. There are whole chains of druggists around here that won't fill pretty standard prescriptions. Health care workers could opt out of D&C procedures, on the grounds that it could be an abortion. Doctors and nurses could decide they wouldn't do a procedure because it went against their beliefs somehow, but it wasn't defined just how finicky you could be.

While I can still see allowing a provision that would exempt people from physically having to be in the room and assisting on I-just-dont-feel-like-being-pregnant-anymore abortions, other than that, it's ridiculous. (That provision is staying, BTW) Who are these people to know why anyone is having the procedures they're having? Who knows why they're using various contraceptive products? You don't want to 'dirty your hands' with things like IUDs, birth control pills, D&Es, tubal ligations, morning after pills, etc, then don't go into medicine or become a pharmacist. You like the paycheck well enough. What was next -- refusing to give gay people their HIV meds because 'they brought it on to themselves'? Not treating alcoholics because they're flawed? Don't save the drunk driver who gets wheeled in to the ER after hitting someone else (okay, that one kind of grates, I'll admit) Trust me, there are a lot of people that I think shouldn't get scare resources because they're a drain on society, but that's not the way Western medicine has evolved, and I think that's a good thing in the long run.

Now, I'm no huge fan of abortion, and I think that late-term abortions are an abomination -- if you have a life of the mother situation, you attempt to deliver, but if you just don't want to be pregnant any more, too late, there's always adoption, and that should be illegal. They now can save babies that can still legally be aborted. But I'd never want to go for a full ban on abortions, because there are a million situations that can happen, and I know of more than one horrible story where it was the least bad option to have. People who go for this kind of absolute are those who believe they know other people's souls, and that the only way you get to a situation where you have to make a rotten choice is through one clearly defined path. As you can probably tell, I have very strong feelings against abortion under one set of circumstances, but life ain't that simple. And the no-birth-control thing is totally insane. There are lots of reasons why people are prescribed birth control medications, and it's not up to some twink pharmacist to decide I have to prove myself when I go in. I already had to drive all over the state to get a medicine that I needed to keep my baby alive when I was pregnant, because it has other uses in other circumstances. Since the doctor is licensed and assuming that the doctors are following the law as to what can legally be prescribed, if the doctor and patient agree a treatment is medically necessary, the pharmacist should shut up and push the pills.

The basis of modern medicine is subverting nature's plan -- killing bacteria, altering natural processes, going against what happens if you do nothing. If you're going to get on your high horse that something is against 'God's Plan' go sit over there with the Christian Scientists and die from a cut finger.