Unbelievable
The Michigan House of Representatives just passed a bill saying that doctors and other health care providers can opt out of treating a person because of moral, ethical, or religious objections. WHAT? Since when do health care providers get to not treat someone for any reason (practically anything can be called a “moral, ethical or religious objection”)?! Hopefully, the Michigan Senate will have some friggin’ sense in its collective head and defeat that one.
Unbelievable. It’s just flat-out, no holds barred discrimination, and we should call it like it is.
You can read about it here.
This isn’t about moral values or “culture of life” or any of the other b.s. conservative buzzwords—this is about the fact that a lot of Americans are just f–king stupid. They are ignorant, hateful, spiteful, etc. And f–k that “proud to be an American” crap—I’m embarrassed to be an American these days.
Damn, that’s really low…
I seriously hope that one doesn’t get through. I mean, the rest is bad enough, but this is way too close to Nazi Germany…
What’s their saying, “you don’t have to treat the Jews unless you want to”?
And hey, Becca, at least you’re not the only American like you who can see PEOPLE as PEOPLE even if they aren’t white Americans, right?
Yeah, thanks to the Internet, I know I’m not the only one.
What cracks me up is that these conservative bigots call themselves “moral.” HA! WE (i.e. progressives) are the ones with actual morals. Just call us the Moral Minority, LOL!
I just read the actual text of the bill and it provides protections for the following (meaning a person cannot file “conscientious objector” status against a health care service or patient):
-if the objectionable health care service is specifically described in the job description.
-if the service constitutes more than 10% of the hours of the job.
-if the patient is protected under the Elliot-Larsen civil rights act: this includes religion, race, color, national origin, age, sex, height, weight, familial status, and marital status. Sexual orientation is not mentioned in the bill.
-if the patient’s condition is an emergency.
-if there is a related public health emergency.
-if the health care service is required under some other law.
The bill also says if the conscientious objector is treated differently in hiring, promotion, transfer, terms of employment, blah, blah, because of their objections, they can sue their employer.
The bill specifically mentions that someone cannot claim objector status to the provision of contraceptives.
Based on the text of the bill, it seems it is aimed at allowing people to not be party to abortions. But the exclucsions for the job description and 10% of the hours of the job mean that you couldn’t take a job as a nurse at Planned Parenthood, then claim objector status to abortions. You might be able to do that at an OB Gyn’s practice if abortion services are not specifically mentioned in the job description.
Discriminating against a patient because of their sexual orientation would be permitted because it’s not specifically mentioned as a protected group.