The doctor who refused to abort

[50yroldTOBfan]

The basic problem is that abortion is diametrically opposed to health care. There is always going to be a contradiction there, because at least some of the people in the health care field go into it to heal, not just for the money, and probably not because they want to have a job where they can (or have to) legally kill people.

If you have a society where most people are repulsed by actually participating in abortion, you are going to run into problems manning your abortion stations. The other side is usually smarter than we religious folks, and the abortion issue is no exception. They are playing chess and we are playing checkers. They are thinking a few moves ahead. Really we are seeing the push to force people to provide contraception against their beliefs because it is a lead-in to forcing people to participate in abortion. The abortion industry is having trouble finding doctors (as well as good quality nurses and other support personnel) who are willing to participate in abortion. They are increasingly feeling the pinch and this is why they are trying to find ways to force people to do it.

Check this out, this guy Wesley Smith sees what’s going on:

The secular Left wishes to use the mostly uncontroversial issue of birth control as the stalking horse for using health care to remake society in its own image.

… Break the back of religious freedom with the contraception mandate–to which few other than orthodox Catholics object–and then use the precedents thereby established to force religious objectors to cover abortion, assisted suicide (if legal), sex change surgery (already happening), etc…

And here’s the broader strategy: Redefine life-style enhancing “consumerist” elective procedures as “medically necessary” for insurance purposes–as California just did to force Catholic colleges to insure all abortions–and stuff it down religious traditionalists’ throats by making them pay for it…

nationalreview.com/human-exceptionalism/386251/contraception-stalking-horse-wesley-j-smith

 

[White_Tree]

As much as I view abortion as a crime against nature, I don’t think this was the best case for the doctor to take a stand for his conscience.

In the article, they’re acting like the mother wanted to abort the baby because it was handicapped. The child in this scenario had acrania. That means he had no skull. That’s not an ordinary handicap. That is a condition with 100% mortality rate. The child would probably have miscarriaged before being carried to term anyways, and even if he survived the birthing process, nothing was going to keep this baby alive.

The time for this doctor to stand up for his conscience was when he was negotiating the contracts for this hospital, not when he is standing up for the life of a fetus that isn’t even viable.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Actually he was still a doctor. If you are promoted to head a software project, you are still a software engineer, you are just managing the project instead of doing the actual work, adding administrative duties informed by your software expertise

I understand the concept. It is not unusual soft a software engineer or other developer to be promoted to a lead or management decision but decide to step down from finding the responsibilities is something they don’t want to do; I just interviewed someone from a west coast technology company looking to step down from a management position to take a different software engineering path. Any given role comes with its set of responsibilities. It sound like the responsibilities of this Administrative role were not a good fit for this doctor. If he had been presented the choice of either conforming to policy or stepping down which path do you think he would have chosen?

I’ve got my own objections of conscious to opportunities that come my way; I don’t take work from companies that produce equipment specifically for militarily applications and I’ve refused opportunities in which I thought my software might be used for spying on people. I also stay away from projects in which death would likely occur from small mistakes in code. If I somehow found myself in one of these positions (such as from a company merger) and it resulted in a change in my role to something like the above if I refused to conform to the responsibilities of my new role I would expect to be moved out of it, and that’s okay with me.

 

[50yroldTOBfan]

I understand the concept. It is not unusual soft a software engineer or other developer to be promoted to a lead or management decision but decide to step down from finding the responsibilities is something they don’t want to do; I just interviewed someone from a west coast technology company looking to step down from a management position to take a different software engineering path. Any given role comes with its set of responsibilities. It sound like the responsibilities of this Administrative role were not a good fit for this doctor. If he had been presented the choice of either conforming to policy or stepping down which path do you think he would have chosen?

I’ve got my own objections of conscious to opportunities that come my way; I don’t take work from companies that produce equipment specifically for militarily applications and I’ve refused opportunities in which I thought my software might be used for spying on people. I also stay away from projects in which death would likely occur from small mistakes in code. If I somehow found myself in one of these positions (such as from a company merger) and it resulted in a change in my role to something like the above if I refused to conform to the responsibilities of my new role I would expect to be moved out of it, and that’s okay with me.

All true enough. But in this instance the only reason the doctor/administrator lost his job was because he refused to participate in abortion. THE VERY THING THE ABORTION CONSCIENCE CLAUSE IS SUPPOSED TO ALLOW HIM TO DO.

Again, either we give people the right of conscience with regard to abortion or we don’t.

 

[50yroldTOBfan]

If he had been presented the choice of either conforming to policy or stepping down which path do you think he would have chosen?

I think this is where we are misunderstanding eachother. From my point of view he WAS conforming to policy, because the policy includes the right to not participate in abortion. If your normal job duty is to sign an approval document for a procedure, and the procedure is abortion, you don’t have to sign that, BECAUSE IT’S FOR AN ABORTION.

I’ve got my own objections of conscious to opportunities that come my way; I don’t take work from companies that produce equipment specifically for militarily applications and I’ve refused opportunities in which I thought my software might be used for spying on people. I also stay away from projects in which death would likely occur from small mistakes in code. If I somehow found myself in one of these positions (such as from a company merger) and it resulted in a change in my role to something like the above if I refused to conform to the responsibilities of my new role I would expect to be moved out of it, and that’s okay with me.

Right, so if you had an agreement with an employer that you are not going to be working on spying or military software, and then you’re assigned to it anyway, whether in a programming or managerial capacity, that would be a violation of the agreement.

True, you could quit that job and find another. And if these spying things were commonplace enough, the same situation could hit you again, where you’d have to quit again.

Where the analogy breaks down is that spying is not abortion. There is not a special law that lets you turn down any spying work and still keep your job.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

I think this is where we are misunderstanding eachother. From my point of view he WAS conforming to policy, because the policy includes the right to not participate in abortion.

Afraid not, doctors there are allowed to decline performing an abortion but are obligated by law to facilitate the operation elsewhere.

Right, so if you had an agreement with an employer that you are not going to be working on spying or military software, and then you’re assigned to it anyway, whether in a programming or managerial capacity, that would be a violation of the agreement.

Per the Dr, “Maybe a way to avoid these problems in the future would be to sign contracts with the governmental National Health Fund (NHF) that specifically exclude abortion procedures.” There’s a question as to whether or not this could be done given the current laws. But it looks that he did not have an agreement with the employer to not conform to the law.

True, you could quit that job and find another. And if these spying things were commonplace enough, the same situation could hit you again, where you’d have to quit again.

Quite right. In which case it might by time to see about applying my skills to a new position or taking work in a place with different laws.

Where the analogy breaks down is that spying is not abortion.

Other than possibly tautologies no analogy is thing thing to which it is being applied. But there are certain attributes are principals that are similar between the two scenarios. But if you find the scenario more fitting consider some one refusing to work on a new project that would involve providing software services to an abortion facility. It’s happened before.

There is not a special law that lets you turn down any spying work and still keep your job.

That’s fine. Employment is a two way relationship. Either one of us (the employee or employer) can terminate that relationship when either one of us decides to do so. All of my employment contracts have been “at will employment.”

 

[weller2]

From my point of view he WAS conforming to policy, because the policy includes the right to not participate in abortion.

No, that’s not what the law actually says:

A medical practitioner can refuse to carry out a procedure in violation of his conscience…

Hospital manager does not practice medicine, he manages the hospital. He does not carry out procedures, he does the paperwork. You don’t have to have a medical degree to manage the hospital (although that’s the case here). The law does not apply. Case closed.

Of course you can argue that the law should be changed, but it does not change the fact that it appears they had enough legal grounds to fire him. That said, you do have a point, so if he sues and appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court, the ruling may be a very interesting reading.

 

[weller2]

Per the Dr, “Maybe a way to avoid these problems in the future would be to sign contracts with the governmental National Health Fund (NHF) that specifically exclude abortion procedures.” There’s a question as to whether or not this could be done given the current laws.

Legally speaking this could be done, the issue is whether NHF would agree to altered contracts – as NHF is state-run, this would be ultimately the decision of the executive branch. Keep in mind that NHF is legally obliged to provide abortion coverage somehow.

But it looks that he did not have an agreement with the employer to not conform to the law.

Precisely. In fact, it’s even worse: he himself signed the abortion-including contract with NHF and then breached it, resulting in the hospital incurring a fine.

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Hospital manager does not practice medicine, he manages the hospital.

Okay, so so then the role of Doctor and the role of Manager (Admin) are non-overlapping (at least in this case).

Legally speaking this could be done, the issue is whether NHF would agree to altered contracts – as NHF is state-run, this would be ultimately the decision of the executive branch. Keep in mind that NHF is legally obliged to provide abortion coverage somehow.

I set and tried to think of a way that something like this could be done. Once it’s allowed at the level of some one managing a hospital that implies that certain medical facilities would be in the position of not performing an abortion, not providing the assistance with the paperwork for one, and possibly not providing some one with information on where they need to go or who they need to speak to for their need; whether it be from birth defect or ectopic pregnancy. I’d imagine that a woman might feel she was given less than the best medical treatment if she found out instead of having a Fallopian tube removed for an ectopic pregnancy she could have also had the less invasive therapeutic abortion.

Precisely. In fact, it’s even worse: he himself signed the abortion-including contract with NHF and then breached it, resulting in the hospital incurring a fine.

Yes, I’m thinking that at the very list that obligation for that role made the position less than a good fit for him.