Dead Cant Rant

In today’s Express-News, guest-columnist Sally Tarasoff bemoans Texas State Rep. Fred Corte’s House Bill 16, which would allow pharmacists to refuse to provide emergency contraceptives if they feel morally opposed to the act.

Her response, “Bill is a slap at women, health care”, makes the typical “progressive” argument that, by allowing individuals freedom to make moral decisions without pressure from the government, somehow this will return women to the 1800s.

It must be noted that HB16 amends previous legislation that already provides “a physician, nurse, staff member, or employee of a hospital, or other health care facility” with the right to refuse to provide emergency contraceptives or abortions without fear of retaliation.

State Rep. Frank Corte’s House Bill 16, which would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions, would not only take women’s rights down a slippery slope, but lead the way to a massive change in health-care delivery.

Point One: This is not about “women’s rights”, it’s about the right of a pharmacist to choose not to engage in what they may see as murder. There are plenty of female pharmacists who would refuse to provide emergency contraceptives under this statute. They, too, must be complicit in the vast right-wing conspiracy to send women back to the dark ages.

After all, if, as a nurse, I can decide against doing something because it is against my beliefs, then I could refuse to take care of “smelly old people” because I don’t believe in taking care of the elderly or refuse to give narcotic pain medications because I don’t believe in them.

Point Two: The bill addresses health care professionals administering abortions and prescribing and administering emergency contraceptives. It specifically does not allow anyone to make any moral decision they want without regard to the law. Refusing to care for “smelly old people” would be illegal, even after this law is passed.

Ms. Tarasoff’s attempt to equate laziness with religious and moral conviction shows a pathetic lack of understanding of basic morality.

When personal feelings enter into how health care is delivered, be it medications or other forms of treatment, chaos will ensue.

Point Three: We would like Ms. Tarasoff to explain why she became a nurse. Given her statements, it seems likely that she entered the health care profession solely for material gain, though we cannot discount the possibility that some shred of human empathy remains. If that is in fact the case, then Ms. Tarasoff is a hypocrite for allowing her “personal beliefs” to influence her daily work.

The influence of personal beliefs in daily interactions is a fact of human life, and refusing to acknowledge this is patently absurd. Ms. Tarasoff’s entire argument against personal beliefs is itself a personal belief. History is replete with examples of individuals changing society precisely because they refused to abandon their principles. It is never a question of whether or not to believe in a certain prinicple — or any principle — but which ones will you choose to believe?

When health-care professionals are allowed to refuse to perform a service that is part of their job, just because of personal beliefs, the health care of citizens of this state, which is already precarious, will only get worse.

Point Four: This is a completely unqualified assertion. She fails to explain how it will get worse, but leaves the threat embedded in the reader’s mind.

Corte is not a health-care professional, but a religious zealot who cannot see the reality behind his proposal. He is too ignorant to realize his “agenda” would allow the floodgates of “personal beliefs” to alter behavior in many unforeseen areas to the detriment of society.

Point Five: She now resorts to ad-hominem attacks to make her point, calling Corte a “religious zealot” and “ignorant” and further undermining her case. Under her system of reasoning, one could equally call Ms. Tarasoff an “ideologically-hidebound lunatic with the mental capacity of a retarded mule.”

In fact, I think we just did.

His lack of respect for women is obvious. Removing women’s choices is a first step away from democracy. Shall we return to the 1800s, when there were no choices?

What is Corte’s real goal — getting women back to the kitchen and out of the board room? Having barefoot and pregnant women slapping food in front of their husbands promptly at 5:30 p.m.?

Is Ms. Tarasoff resorting to a straw man attack? It certainly looks like it from here. She first assumes he is biased against women, then assumes that his supposed bias is “obvious.”

Assuming things makes an ass out of u and me.

She is adopting the same tactics used by the radical leftist feminist National Organization for Women when they disapprove of anything that reduces the “right” of a “woman” to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants, however she wants, at the expense of the men and children in her life. We are hard-pressed to call such a creature a “woman.”

I can’t successfully defend my position. Quick! Change the subject! He’s a bad man who wants to steal your children and make you all slaves! Aarararhrhhrrhhhrrhhrhhh!

Ms. Tarasoff does eventually make a couple of valid points, though they are too little, too late. Her claim that no pharmacy would refuse to fill a prescription for Viagra is simply a straw man. While certainly a touché jab at our oversexed society, it is ridiculous to compare the ability to engage in sexual activity to the deliberate act to terminate a pregnancy. Many view the latter as tantamount to murder, and Ms. Tarasoff feels that their beliefs should be discounted entirely, presumably because they are “far-right Christian whackos.”

More importantly, her point that a pharamacist is not a physician and cannot know why a prescription was ordered makes a certain amount of sense. While we certainly don’t want to see rape victims denied the ability to protect themselves, this can be easily solved by having Texas adopt the same measures as ten other states: emergency rooms must provide emergency contraceptive measures to victims of sexual assault on request, without hestitation. This would provide a true means of control to those women who have been truly raped and desire to protect themselves from the possibility of a criminally-induced pregnancy without forcing pharmacists and other health care professionals to violate their religious beliefs.

However, six states have laws that allow a pharmacist to dispense emergency contraceptives immediately, without a doctor’s prescription. We feel confident that Ms. Tarasoff would be silent on the issue of pharmacists assuming the role of doctor if such a law were passed in Texas.

And if the argument is made that people with deep religious beliefs should not be in a field where they may be called upon to violate those beliefs, we can easily counter that the ACLU and other crusading lawyers have created an entire industry out of whole cloth by arguing that every imaginable insult is grounds for special treatment and exceptions to rules and laws, and that religious beliefs should be viewed no differently.

Ms. Tarasoff, herself a health care professional, sees no irony in using her beliefs to demand that other health care professionals suspend their beliefs.

You, madam, are indeed a hypocrite.

This notion that individuals must suspend all morals and judgement in subordination to the will of the government seems eerily familiar. Amid his bloviations, Robert Byrd had a point recently: even Hitler cloaked his evil in the legitimacy of the law. As the Groningen Protocol for doctor-ordered infanticide has demonstrated, doctors are not always right, and as the Wannsee Conference showed, government is not always good. Individual action has always been the only hope against tyranny and evil.

Doctors have been fired for refusing to perform abortions, and medical students have already been barred from graduation for refusing on moral grounds to participate in abortions-as-coursework. How long before doctors are fired for refusing to conduct euthanasia? Infanticide? Where is the line drawn, and who gets to draw it? If the decision is left in the hands of the government, economics will trump morality and the rights and life of the individual are the ultimate casualty.