Pediatrician refuses to care for lesbians' baby

[WizardofOz]

Can a doctor refuse to treat a prostitute's baby? Or an addict's? Or even the prostitute or addict themselves? Physicians are supposed to be neutral.

Exactly. Does she screen a patient's background before accepting them? Does she reject others for their sins?

Treat the baby. What the heck do the parents matter?

 

[resodko]

But that was the question. She certainly has a legal right (or else justice isn't blind), but are there circumstances where that right shouldn't apply? If you were sick and some doctor didn't like you (for whatever reason) and refused to see you in private practice, would you think that right? Would you like it? Further, what if you were in a remote location and they were the only doctor around for 100 miles?

suppose that instead of lesbians, we are discussing drug dealers, or pedophiles or wife and husband abusers, who are known to the community to be engaging in these activities but for whatever reasons are immune from legal sanction

should the healthcare professional have the right to deny them services?



and your use of the "if you were sick" brings us back to the er paradigm

it's one thing to refuse adding clients to your practice

it's quite another to refuse service to the ill

 

[resodko]

Exactly. Does she screen a patient's background before accepting them? Does she reject others for their sins?

Treat the baby. What the heck do the parents matter?

treat the baby if it's sick, certainly


but adding them to your client list for routine work? :nono:

 

[bybee]

Generally, I would agree with you. But also consider (and this may have been a factor here) that the earnest physician will know his or her limitations. If they realize that their emotions or convictions (be they right or wrong) will get in the way of providing the best quality care that they can, then don't they have a duty to respond accordingly? To be forced to do something like this in violation of someone's convictions is possibly going to create great dilemmas for the physician and, in the end, put the health of the patient at risk.

But I don't see this as an issue that tends to promote the homosexual's "lifestyle". In fact, I would think a homosexual would be more comfortable with a doctor that is sympathetic to their way of life.

You have no business to become a Doctor if you cannot dispense medical care as it is needed. Does the Fire Fighter get to pick and choose?

 

[Granite]

Exactly. Does she screen a patient's background before accepting them? Does she reject others for their sins?

Treat the baby. What the heck do the parents matter?

They don't. The doctor's just being a four-star bigot. What happened to "whatever you do to the least of these," out of curiosity? Turning away an unborn child wasn't something the carpenter suggested, last time I checked.

 

[nikolai_42]

suppose that instead of lesbians, we are discussing drug dealers, or pedophiles or wife and husband abusers, who are known to the community to be engaging in these activities but for whatever reasons are immune from legal sanction

should the healthcare professional have the right to deny them services?



and your use of the "if you were sick" brings us back to the er paradigm

it's one thing to refuse adding clients to your practice

it's quite another to refuse service to the ill

Personally, I don't think anyone should be refused medical treatment unless there is a really good reason for it. But I also believe there should be a right of a doctor to refuse treatment in some situations. The problem here is that the crossover territory is blurry. To "abstain from doing harm" is quite different from "you must help everyone you meet". Whose jurisdiction wins out when the two have different guidance? From a legal perspective, the doctor's rights are being protected. From a medical perspective, the doctor is entrusted with the health of the public. You can't assert both with full force and not run over the other one.

So, as a moral question, what factors should the doctor (being bound to her conscience) consider when determining whether to provide health care or not? Legally, when does declining to provide become negligence?

For the record, I don't see why anyone should be denied health care - except in situations where it clearly and explicitly sanctions something destructive.

 

[nikolai_42]

You have no business to become a Doctor if you cannot dispense medical care as it is needed. Does the Fire Fighter get to pick and choose?

That's what I think...but the main reason I asked the question is if there are factors that could justify this sort of thing. Morally, I mean.

 

[resodko]

this isn't about treating a sick kid - it's about choosing a doctor for wellness visits, checkups and the potential, inevitable sicknesses

DETROIT — Sitting in the pediatrician's office with their 6-day-old daughter, the two moms couldn't wait to meet the doctor they had picked out months before.

"Dear Jami & Krista, I am writing this letter of apology as I feel that it is important and necessary. I never meant to hurt either of you. After much prayer following your prenatal (visit), I felt that I would not be able to develop the personal patient doctor relationship that I normally do with my patients."

if the patients get to choose which doctor they want, why shouldn't the doctor get to choose which patients to accept?

 

[nikolai_42]

this isn't about treating a sick kid - it's about choosing a doctor for wellness visits, checkups and the potential, inevitable sicknesses



if the patients get to choose which doctor they want, why shouldn't the doctor get to choose which patients to accept?

Don't confuse moral right with legal right.

 

[GFR7]

Before I had time to go to the link, I believed the doctor had NEITHER the moral nor the legal right to refuse care (I assumed this was emergency care, and that as with police and fire fighters and emergency care-givers, complete objectivity was warranted).

But when I saw her statement to the parents, and realized this would be an on-going and routine relationship, I feel she did the right thing. I would not want a pediatrician who felt uncomfortable with me for any reason. Morally, it is alright as there are plenty of pediatricians out there who will not be put off by such parents ( a physician who is him/herself gay is also an option). Some attorneys won't take certain cases, etc.

 

[resodko]

Don't confuse moral right with legal right.

would it be morally right to encourage these two perverts in their perversion, to support them by implying that their perversion was "normal"?

 

[nikolai_42]

would it be morally right to encourage these two perverts in their perversion, to support them by implying that their perversion was "normal"?

I don't see how this explicitly does that.

Again, what about the Christians from the first centuries who would rescue babies left to die on the cliffs. Is that encouraging people to put their babies on cliffs? The pediatrician's responsibility is to the child.

I would say you might have an argument when it comes to drug use. If a doctor "cleans up" a druggie he knows will just go buy more drugs, is he morally obligated to keep helping him? I don't think so. But in this case, the doctor's moral obligation is to the child (immediately). What if the child were put up for adoption and the state brought the child in? It's still the same child. Are you then implicitly supporting everything CPS does?

 

[resodko]

I don't see how this explicitly does that.

more's the pity

we've become so used to overlooking perversion, we don't recognize its evil anymore

 

[Jose Fly]

Just another reason why the continued decline of Christianity is a good thing.

 

[resodko]

Just another reason why the continued decline of Christianity is a good thing.

can you explain why patients can choose which doctor they wish to see but doctors can't choose which patients they wish to see?

 

[nikolai_42]

more's the pity

we've become so used to overlooking perversion, we don't recognize its evil anymore

This has nothing to do with overlooking perversion. And from the Christian point of view, hasn't this woman given up an opportunity to testify to God's saving grace? When Jesus met the woman at the well, He didn't refuse the woman simply because she had been married multiple times and was even then cohabiting while unmarried. He didn't condemn the woman caught in adultery either. But was He in any way legitimizing what they had done or were doing?

I'm not saying what this doctor did was wrong, but I don't think the matter is - like it was with "wedding" cakes - as much about condoning homosexuality as it is a whole host of things. And that may be a consideration, but if there is some separation between the doctor and the women (i.e. the child is the immediate concern), then there is no overt acceptance of these two women.

 

[Jose Fly]

can you explain why patients can choose which doctor they wish to see but doctors can't choose which patients they wish to see?

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some of the Christians at ToL are completely baffled by the concept of anti-discrimination laws.

 

[resodko]

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that some of the Christians at ToL are completely baffled by the concept of anti-discrimination laws.

so you can't


ok



is it ok for black parents to seek out a black pediatrician?

 

[Jose Fly]

so you can't

The fact that you even have to ask to have the rationale behind anti-discrimination laws explained to you says all I need to know.

 

[resodko]

another fail from jose



:mock:jose, the fag-lover