Does this mean doctors/nurses/other people who can dispense medicine actually cannot allow their personal views on rape/EC/abortion/what-have-you to come between a rape victim and EC? If so, fan-fucking-tastic. :)

I know we've talked lots about docs/nurses/etc. getting to opt out for religious/moral reasons and all that jazz... but I wonder... do they get to opt out of ANYTHING that infringes on their moral/personal beliefs? Like, say, they're anti-immunizations. Do pediatricians get to refuse to immunize their patients? If not, isn't this a little inconsistent? Why does birth control get special treatment by the law?

(This is rhetorical of course. Obviously, the difference is that denying children important immunizations means denying MALE children what they need/want. We're only interested in telling WOMEN what they can't do with their bodies).

Birth control does not get special treatment under the law. It just happens that we talk alot more about BC and reproductive rights as that is a hot button issue, and the most likely to callup the spectre of moral/religious obligation. As far as I know, The LAW on most of this is mostly silent, but doctors are expected to practice according to a code of ethics. In general, most people expect this to mean that if a given doctor objects to a certain treatment, but a patient wants it, they may decline to provide it, but should provide information to the patient on how to obtain it - say, by a referal to another physician. This type of ethical expectation does include things like vaccination, medically unnecessary surgeries, prescribing high amounts of narcotics for pain control and the like, as well as BC. However, things like this often don't work in practice - I think there was a discussion on here about the recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine reporting, based on survey results, that may doctors are, in fact, unwilling to provide referals to patients for services to which they object. And many patients don't know that they have other options, or face other barriers (such as insurance companies refusing to pay for duplicate visits) when they try to expand their options on their own. EC is the most vital of these, in my opinon, because it is one of the few 'objectionable' medical procedures that is time sensitive, and if ERs will not provide it when the woman presents, she may very well miss the window of efficacy.

reba, right -- that makes sense, I was just wondering what the practical effect would be. Like, if a doctor says "I have a moral objection to tetanus vaccinations," does s/he really get to deny that treatment to the patient? I honestly just don't know the answer to this question, but unless we're going around withholding tetanus vaccinations from people with cuts, then, yeah, I think we're giving special treatment to birth controlin a manner that isn't appropriate. Whether that's a legal standard or a medical standard or a social standard, it's fucked.

Before everyone gets all lovey-dovey about Wisconsin, remember that this is the state that last year passed legislation prohibiting female students from obtaining contraceptives in health clinics at all Wisconsin public universities.

law fairy - I don't think we are giving 'special treatment' to EC. Its just that this is the only area where it has really come up as a legal issue where the right of the patient to acess care has been vigourously asserted. You can bet that if, suddenly, the majority of doctors started objecting to tetanus shots on moral grounds, and lockjaw once again became a major public health issue, and 'affected families' began petitioning their representatives, we would see legislation on that as well. These EC laws are a direct result of patient advocacy and legal actions by women who were denied care in ERs - not special treatment, just a response to a particular area of irresponsibility in the medical field.

We do in fact have a similiar problem with abortion; if you walk into your docs office 3 weeks pregnant and not wanting to be, your doctor may refuse to provide an abortion, vigourously try to talk you out of it, and refuse to refer you to someone else. This is in fact a major reason many women end up with late-term unwanted pregnancies. There is no legislation pending to force physicians to guaruntee a woman's access to this legal procedure - what politician, in today's climate, would risk being seen as wanting to increase the numbers of abortions performed? Anyone wanna try to get the ACLU to do a test case on this one? Get preganant, go to a conservative doc, get refused and sue? Push through some legislation forcing docs to send their patients to Planned Parenthood, with a smile?

reba, I think we need to back up a second. From your comment it sounds like you think I think that this legislation is bad. I don't. I'm actually coming at this from the opposite side. I suspect that if doctors started denying people tetanus shots en masse, people would be pissed at docs, and it would be kind of a no-brainer. Meaning, it would be so patently absurd to everyone that docs would have a moral objection to tetanus shots, that you'd have immediate and swift legal action. There wouldn't be "debate," there wouldn't be posturing, there wouldn't be moralists pointing fingers at people careless enough to cut themselves on gardening tools. People would balk at the fact that their doctors were withholding important medical treatment on the basis of dubious moral reservations, and the law would change almost instantaneously to ensure people got the proper medical care.

That's what I mean when I say "special treatment." Doctors and the media treat this as special because -- horrors -- it involves women, specifically, exercising control over their bodies. If this were an issue that equally affected men, it would be a non-issue in a matter of months.

I actually have heard of one pharmacist in my area who refused to fill a man's perscription for Viagra because he knew the man was not married. Obviously, this man (my grandmother's boyfriend) had no problem getting the perscription filled elsewhere, but it was a little satisfying to know that at least one pharmacist applies his Catholic beliefs to both genders. That said, I do think that Emergency Rooms should be required to provide EC because it's an emergency. The word is right there in both the name of the place and the medication. That's the kind of care that they should be providing, EMERGENCY care. I hope this bill goes through and that similar ones are introduced in other states.

I used to work in a pathology department in a local hospital (that's where biopsies are taken to be analyzed and the like, for those unfamiliar), and one of our pathologists was a very staunch Catholic, and thus disapproved of birth control. Which meant that whenever a specimen from a vasectomy came to him, he would refuse to look at it. But he didn't pass it on to anyone else either. It would just sit in his box untouched until one of us secretaries figured out that it had been languishing for several days and then we'd pass it on to someone else for him.

I don't know that it was ever something that he was "allowed" to do, policy-wise, but it was something that the rest of the office staff just figured out and learned to work around.

Personally, I doubt many doctors are refusing to perform treatments on "ethical" grounds besides those related to reproduction, but if they are, I suspect their office staff wind up figuring out how to work around it if they can.

The other thing I suspect some doctors do (I've seen hints of it, but not enough to be certain), is cultivate a sort of "deliberate ignorance" about certain treatments. If a doctor refuses to learn about it, they can later refuse to perform that treatment, because they "don't have sufficient experience" to feel comfortable with it. Which is exactly what happens with all those med students who don't get trained in how to perform abortions.

“this is the state that last year passed legislation prohibiting female students from obtaining contraceptives in health clinics at all Wisconsin public universities.�
What??! That’s crazy!

sad but true

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/07/27/64850

sad but true

http://www.mndaily.com/articles/2005/07/27/64850

dee & sojourner -- I live in WI & my sister goes to UW, and I'm pretty sure that never actually became law here. Doyle probably vetoed it, I'm not really sure. Scary close call, definitely, but as far as I know the UWs do still prescribe all available contraceptives, including ECs.

my apologies, i remember when the WI legislature passed the bill, and i just read where Gov Doyle promised to veto the legislation. i am sure that's what happened. sorry for the faulty info.

No problem....it's still pretty digusting that it got as far as it did....the Dems took back the legislature in the last election, but before that happened it did feel like WI was on a fast track to moving backwards....for example, the gay marriage "ban" that passed here last fall and the "yes" vote to revive the death penalty. Grrrr. So I'm just glad to see some more positive things happening now. :D