Okay, so this Amish lady, Rebbecca, goes to an airport to apply for a job as a flight attendant. Her resume is amazing. She can (and does quite frequently) cook for 80 people, she's really friendly, and is used to dealing with "the angry English."
"I have to warn you, the job is not easy, you have to know exactly what the needs of each passenger are at all times. Your job isn't being a flight attendant, really it's more like being an indentured servant," says the interviewer.
Rebbecca insists that she can handle it.
"Great" says the guy interviewing her, "we have a spot open for you, come by on Monday to start your training."
That Monday the Rebbecca shows up, and she breezes through the training -- twice as fast as anybody has ever done it. Even the simulations go great: she foils the fake would be terrorist, serves another cup of decaf, and gives little Johnny a pillow all while keeping her bonnet perfectly straight.
"Wow" says the trainer, we usually make everybody go through three weeks of training, but we all feel that you're ready. Show up tomorrow for your first flight."
"Flight? I can't fly, I'm morally opposed to airplanes and everything they stand for." says the Amish lady.
"So why did you apply for the job?" asks the trainer.
"Well I figured I could do all of the things the job requires me without getting on an airplane," Rebbecca says.
"Without getting on an airplane? But that's what the job is! It's even the title of the handbook, 'Being on the Plane: a guide to serving people on a plane!' How did you expect to do the job properly?" Says the trainer.
Rebbecca retorts "well you can't make me get on the plane. Where's my check?"
Okay we all see the problem here. We all like Rebbecca, she's talented, able to do her job, and has every intention of doing her job unless it interferes with her beliefs. But the story presented illustrates the problem with executive legislation pushed through by the lame-duck administration recently.
You see, a new rule grants medical professionals of faith to withhold medical attention if it interferes with their religious beliefs.
Says Mike Leavitt secretary of the Department Health and Human Services: Doctors and other health-care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience
You see the problem with that thinking is that no one is being forced to choose between violating their conscience and their professional standing. This isn't Stalinist Ireland (just go with it, it makes sense). Nobody is forced into a professional career, these people spend tens of thousands of dollars to go to school in order to get into the lucrative business of providing medical care.
The far-reaching regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable. It was sought by conservative groups, abortion opponents and others to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.
If I had gone to my job interview with Beans n' Cream and said "I will do everything except help people who arrived by car because I have the belief that cars are evil, and are destroying the earth," I wouldn't have been employed -- and rightfully so.
It's not like this shit sneaks up on you. You know exactly what you're getting into, and if you don't it's up to you to fix it by finding new employment.
My biggest problem with this sort of faith based initiative is that it always assumes people are doing good when it comes to making decisions in good faith. We live in a society that tries to level the playing field as much as possible for those that are playing the faith card. But it's bullshit. If someone is unwilling to give care based on their religious views, they are unqualified to hold the job. It's that simple.
The Freakin' (pissed) Deacon
4 comments:
Ian, do you like selling beer to alcoholics (i.e. Shnoids) and furthering the poor hand they were dealt in life?
I for one can tell you, as a CNA I had a hard time justifying keeping some of those people alive. But that wasn't my job. My job was to care for those people to the best of my ability. I took an oath and signed about a hundred thousand documents that pledged myself to that duty. And I did it, not because of that oath, nor because it was my job, but because it was the right thing to do. My job was to care for these people. I knew what I was getting into as a CNA.
You know, another thought. It frustrates me to know end that we have to have this conversation.
It makes it feel like the opposition has some merit. But you're right, this is Idiocracy. Welcome to my nightmare...
Although this might lead to some good. Since this is on the books maybe it will shut up some of the rabid pro-life crowd. I'm not saying that argument isn't worth having, but at least the anti-abortion argument makes some sense to me.
i sell booze not because it's my job (it is), and i do further the poor hand people are dealt--not just the schnoids, but students, closet alcoholics, diabetics, and so on...because i am not a fucking nanny. screw the nanny state.
Speaking as a health care professional who happens to be working at a Catholic hospital despite my alleigance to a very non-Catholic church....
I am of the opinion that birth control should be offered to all women, especially if people want to decrease the abortion rate in our country. I also believe that abortion should remain legal and SAFE, and sterilization should be an option. However, working for a Catholic institution means that any birth control options I wish to pursue will not be covered by my health insurance.
The hospital I work for also does not perform sterilization, except under special circumstances. I have cared for several women who, in conjunction with a c-section, had tubal ligations. Patients have to write an appeal and have the procedure preapproved. My sense of this process is that, if you write the appeal and have a documented medical need, your request will be granted. Obviously, St. Clare Hospital has a sense of humanity, compassion, and decency that pharmacists who refuse to fill specific prescriptions are missing.
Honestly, if your beliefs are such that providing a grown woman (or even a minor, for that matter) with a packet of birth control pills is more than your concscience can bear, than reexamine your desire to work in a pharmacy (or hospital or clinic or wherever). Or, find a place of employment which, like mine, does not condone the use of birth control. Then it's much less of an issue. But for frak's sake, stay out of Walgreens!! (or any other public, non-religiously affiliated business)
I really have no problem with Catholic hospitals refusing to perform certain procedures. There's no subterfuge here. With a Catholic hospital, you expect that they won't be performing abortions or sterilizing people willy-nilly. At a public institution, however, things are different. Religious beliefs are not supposed to affect the policies. Certainly hospitals will staff their ethics committee with pastors, reverends, what-have-you, even hospitals that are not aligned with a religion. This is part of our society's (grossly mistaken) equation of religion and morality. But when a patient comes to a public hospital for a legal procedure and is told that they can't have it because their care provider has moral objections to said procedure... that becomes a case of one person infringing on another person's rights. And that is just wrong.
The bottom line is that health care providers, in seeking and accepting employment to provide care, are accepting the responsibility to provide care to ALL patients, not just those with whom they can morally relate.
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