U.S. Politics 20

[awesome possum]

You don't think it's raised his profile? Anyway, here's an interesting story about that:

Oh, it's raised his profile alright, but not in a good way unless you're a tea partier. One article I read this morning had his approval numbers dropping almost ten points from when he took office. He'll be extremely lucky if he's not recalled after his first year of office.

[TrackerNeil]

Democrats here and elsewhere have chided Republicans for not sticking to their small-government principles and in supporting and expanding spending. To a large extent, that's a fair criticism. But now that some Republicans themselves are trying to stop that by going after those GOP officeholders most likely to compromise on those principles, they get labelled extremists.

Actually, I chide Republicans for not having any real plan except to win elections and cut taxes. And I chide Republican voters for thinking that this time the right-wingers they elect will actually balance the budget and shrink the size of government even when they never, ever do either one. It's like Charlie Brown refusing to admit that no matter how many chances he gives Lucy, she's just going to yank away the football.

BTW, this stuff about Lugar strikes me as mere speculation. Has the man ever shown any real sign of wanting to change parties? If we're to blue-sky, I think Olympia Snowe, also up for reelection in 2012, is more likely to become a Democrat simply because she votes with them more often than Lugar.

[TrackerNeil]

Nevermind.

[Tempra]

United States obtains dismissal of lawsuit challenging healthcare law in Washington.

That makes the count 3-2 favoring the constitutionality of the Healthcare law.

[Jon Sprunk]

One person's right cannot be based upon compulsion of another person.

So one person's view of what is fundamental to their happiness justified compelling another person to engage in an action that is anathema to theirs? You're all about freedom of choice unless someone chooses something you don't like.

Some freedom of choice is given up voluntarily when one engages in certain professions. For example, a fundamentalist police officer might believe that women are subserviant to men, but he still needs to do his job when he's called to answer a domestic dispute where the husband is beating the tar out of his wife. Religious (or other) beliefs do not give the officer justification to walk away from the situation.

Same with doctors. They choose that profession, and all that goes with it.

I'm sorry, FLoW, but it seems like you're the one who only supports freedom of choice when it suits you. And it's not just you. The entire national GOP has this problem. They cry loud and clear about respecting individual rights, except when you want to terminate an unwanted pregnancy, or collectively bargain with your employer, or marry someone of the same sex.

[The Progressive]

United States obtains dismissal of lawsuit challenging healthcare law in Washington.

That makes the count 3-2 favoring the constitutionality of the Healthcare law.

Not really; when counting the number of lawsuits dismissed outright by the courts, it's more like 20-2 favoring the constitutionality of the ACA.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Some freedom of choice is given up voluntarily when one engages in certain professions. For example, a fundamentalist police officer might believe that women are subserviant to men, but he still needs to do his job when he's called to answer a domestic dispute where the husband is beating the tar out of his wife. Religious (or other) beliefs do not give the officer justification to walk away from the situation.

Police are public employees paid by the public to enforce all laws. Doctors are not. To illustrate the point, a civilian doctor should have the choice to treat whom he chooses. A military doctor does not. If he's got a problem with that, he should quit and return to private practice.

Our of curiosity, let's say you had an entire state in which all of the doctors refused to perform an abortion. How would you compel them to do so, and what if they still refused?

[lokisnow]

Police are public employees paid by the public to enforce all laws. Doctors are not. To illustrate the point, a civilian doctor should have the choice to treat whom he chooses. A military doctor does not. If he's got a problem with that, he should quit and return to private practice.

Our of curiosity, let's say you had an entire state in which all of the doctors refused to perform an abortion. How would you compel them to do so, and what if they still refused?

Let a nice, married, pretty, late-twenties WASPy woman die from complications of pregnancy in a hospital in which an abortion would have saved her. Add to that, she explictly requested (as did her husband) an abortion treatment when they realized she was rapidly dying and that an abortion would save her, and then charge the whole state with malpractice for refusing to provide her life saving treatment?

I rather like the comparison to hospitals refusing to provide blood-transfusions and antibiotics. there are well known religious objections to both treatments here in the United States.

[Lord of Rhinos]

I'm shocked that some people don't seem to have even a passing familiarity with what doctor's do or are required to do. Doctors are private employees, not public employees (except for cases where they are public employees), they get to choose what operations they are willing to carry out and which they won't. Hospitals also get to choose which services they want to provide. Abortion is not a right in the US, it is a choice. I can buy potato chips but that doesn't mean every store has to stock them.

The Bush rule was actually about protecting hospital staff from the hospital. It allowed the staff to opt out of performing procedures that the hospital was comfortable with performing. Theoretically it made the hospitals incapable of firing staff for taking this course. Frankly, I'm of the opinion that if a hospital asks you perform a procedure you think is unethical you should quit.

This sort of thing is what overzealous crusaders come up with when they never actually encounter the area their passing rules for. This wouldn't be an issue in any real world hospital I've ever been to. It seems to be some elaborate thought experiment that has no place in reality.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Tarent,

Are you trying to say that Doctor's are, usually, self employed independent contractors who contract to provide services to Hospitals but are not, usually, direct hospital employees?

[Guest Raids]

Anybody want to take bets on whether March 4th will be my last paycheck for who knows how long?

Previously, I just thought they'd pass another continuing resolution, but apparently the House Republicans will not agree to that without cuts either.

All the agencies are preparing for potential shut down. Which doesn't mean it's more likely to happen than not, of course, since nobody wants to be caught off-guard, but it's not exactly good news.

I don't see any possibility of an actual budget getting passed by March 4th.

[Guest Raids]

I'm shocked that some people don't seem to have even a passing familiarity with what doctor's do or are required to do. Doctors are private employees, not public employees (except for cases where they are public employees), they get to choose what operations they are willing to carry out and which they won't.

Interesting. So if a person shows up at a hospital with a life-threatening condition, the Doctor could just choose to not perform the life-saving operation?

Yeah, didn't think so.

I don't think you thought this through very well.

Most professionals take on duties are part of the their professional responsibility obligation. For instance, where I in private practice as an attorney, I could not choose to drop clients at will either, nor could I just represent whoever I want. You have extra duties to the public that are created by your licensing body, and you can be sued in tort (or maybe even criminal law) for a failure to live up to those professional obligations.

Not saying whether performing abortions should be one of those things, unless one is needed to save the life of the mother - in that case, if there was not another doctor available to perform the operation I would think that it would be.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

How many OBs would actually refuse an abortion that would save a woman's life and let her die by refusing? I think the more significant "professional" problem are pharmisists who refuse to prescribe Emergency Contraception.

[Guest Raids]

Oh I know all about it. I have worked on those cases (and not on the side you think, probably...). All the same issue - Title VII religious accommodation.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Most professionals take on duties are part of the their professional responsibility obligation. For instance, where I in private practice as an attorney, I could not choose to drop clients at will either, nor could I just represent whoever I want.

It's true that you can't drop at will clients who you have previously agreed to represent. On the other hand, I've been in private practice for 17 years and never been compelled by any government body to take on a particular client in the first place.

The mantra for Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice advocates has been that abortion is an issue of privacy between a woman and her doctor, and that the government has no business interfering in that decision. The "constitutional right of privacy between a pregnant woman and her physician" was the basis for both the Roe and Casey decisions. It's important to note that, because one of the analytical problems in jumping from Griswold (right of privacy to use contraceptives in your own home, based on 4th amendment right to privacy in one's home) to Roe is that abortions do not occur in a home protected by the 4th amendment. So they had to include the relationship between the physician and patient in that privacy interest to make that doctor's office a protected site as well. And the foundation in Roe is that the government does not have the right to interfere in that relationship.

But in this context, that's exactly what some folks seem to be demanding. Abortion is no longer a private matter between a woman and her physician, but rather, the government has the right to interfere in that supposedly private relationship by compelling the doctor to do something he doesn't want to do. And once that occurs, there's no longer any logic behind the "privacy" interest because it's not private anymore.

To be honest, that reaction short of surprises me. I figure that people who were really committed to the idea of personal automony would agree rather quickly that a doctor shouldn't be compelled to do something he doesn't want to do.

[Guest Raids]

The law school example: If you ran across a man dying in a car accident, and, after you avoided moving him so as to not incur legal liability, he said "Sir, by your unwillingness to get my crushed legs out from under this steering wheel, you appear to be an attorney. Unfortunately, I do not have a will, and my only son is a scoundrel who will squander my wealth on hookers and blow. Instead, I would like to donate it all to the local area food bank. Please draft it for me."

Would you not be called upon to draft it for him, or to at least instruct him on the finer points of drafting a holographic will himself?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Raidne,

Why would I be obligated to do something like that for a non-client? That raises all sorts of problems. I get people asking me to do things for the all the time (I frequently do them despite the derth of remuneration). The only thing I have to sell is my time and effort and you appear to be positing a circumstance where I have an ethical obligation to give away my services.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

The law school example: If you ran across a man dying in a car accident, and, after you avoided moving him so as to not incur legal liability, he said "Sir, by your unwillingness to get my crushed legs out from under this steering wheel, you appear to be an attorney. Unfortunately, I do not have a will, and my only son is a scoundrel who will squander my wealth on hookers and blow. Instead, I would like to donate it all to the local area food bank. Please draft it for me."

Would you not be called upon to draft it for him, or to at least instruct him on the finer points of drafting a holographic will himself?

That depends. Is he going to pay me? :D

The real answer is no. I'm not a trusts/wills guy, don't do wills, and don't want to do wills. I'd probably commit malpractice if I did.

Also, I've turned down lots of clients for representation because I didn't like them, or didn't like what they had done, or disagreed with them about something or other. That's quite common.

[Ser Vlad]

But in this context, that's exactly what some folks seem to be demanding. Abortion is no longer a private matter between a woman and her physician, but rather, the government has the right to interfere in that supposedly private relationships by compelling the doctor to do something he doesn't want to do. And once that occurs, there's no longer any logic behind the "privacy" interest because it's not private anymore.

American jurisprudence always makes me do a double take. Roe v Wade is based on privavy between the patient & physician? Then again, abortion in Canada is protected as violating Sec. VII of the charter, our ''right to life, liberty and security of the person'' provision, which our pro-life advocates find, shall we say, a little ridiculous.

That being said, could the US government (either state or federal) interfere in a case where a doctor or pharmacist refuses service for a reason like race or citizenship, i.e. someone who will not serve either immigrants or, say, Asian-Americans? I always have a hard time understanding just how precisely the US handles it's private medical system from a legal standpoint.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

That being said, could the US government (either state or federal) interfere in a case where a doctor or pharmacist refuses service for a reason like race or citizenship, i.e. someone who will not serve either immigrants or, say, Asian-Americans?

Yes.