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Why do 85% of GPs not provide abortion services? - mod warning in OP (01/01/20)
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Do you have evidence of JW doctors carrying out blood transfusions? My understanding is that it doesn't really happen just because there are very few JW in higher education at all because, like Orthodox Jews, they are generally encouraged to study their religion rather than secular education.One eyed Jack wrote: »You’re going to have to come up with a better example than the idea of a Jehovah’s Witness being a conscientious objector to carrying out blood transfusions - JW’s don’t have any issue carrying out blood transfusions on their patients, their objection is to themselves receiving blood transfusions.
I haven't ever seen anything that says there is no possible objection to carrying out transfusions, but perhaps you are right. There are plenty of other examples though.
And yet your choice as the patient was what counted, right? Nobody performed the transfusion against your wishes, no matter what they personally thought of your views. Which is my point: the doctor's professional role requires him to put his personal opinion aside in favour of the patient's medical best interests and the patient's choice. When those two conflict, it is the patient's decision, and not the doctor's beliefs, that take priority.I can think of an example though - I objected to potentially receiving a blood transfusion when I was having a hip replacement done. The consultant who was to perform the operation simply wished me luck as they were unwilling to perform the procedure while I was I was unwilling to give consent to a blood transfusion.
No I'm not. You are forgetting that a pregnancy, even a healthy one, carries many times more risk of injury or death for the woman than a safe legal abortion. That's fine, when the woman wants to be pregnant, she chooses to take that risk - like you chose to take the risk of not having a transfusion.To me personally, their objection was perfectly acceptable, I didn’t blame them for not wanting to be responsible for me bleeding out on the table. You’re trying to argue that medical professionals should be compelled to provide treatment and care in circumstances which aren’t an emergency, in spite of their conscientious objection.
Ending a pregnancy, however, mathematically increases her safety, so a doctor refusing to do so is nothing like refusing to operate.
In your example, the doctor refused to put you at what s/he felt was unreasonable risk by obeying your requirements. In the case of a doctor refusing to end a pregnancy for their own beliefs, the doctor is putting the patient at an unwanted increased risk.
Okay then, should someone who refuses to handle pork be taken on in an abattoir and then facilitated in his refusal to handle pork, or should he be told to get a different job?I don’t think medical professionals should be expected to put their personal beliefs to one side, as they’re just as human as their patients, and I don’t see how attempting to strong-arm medical professionals into doing something they object to could ever lead to a positive outcome either for medical professionals or patients. I don’t think portraying medical professionals as automatons without a conscience is particularly useful or helpful to the perception of the medical profession either tbh.
Should a Jewish male midwife or obstetrician be allowed to avoid contact with menstruating or bleeding women?
At what point do we decide that if someone won't fulfill part of their job specs for religious reasons then they should just get a different job?
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One eyed Jack wrote: »I don’t see why I need it when I know that JW’s objection to receiving blood transfusions applies only to themselves, it doesn’t prohibit them from carrying out blood transfusions.
I asked for evidence of the bolded claim, it seems you don't have any. You don't need evidence because you already know - without evidence? That's called believing, not knowing.Nope, the consultant chose afterwards to go ahead with the procedure, but the anaesthesiologist who assumed I was a JW was replaced for the procedure and another anaesthesiologist took their place - goes back to what I said earlier about some medical professionals being willing to take risks where others aren’t. The original anaesthesiologist couldn’t and shouldn’t IMO be compelled to do something which they object to.
You seem determined to miss the real point here - the doctor who refused to operate was refusing to put you at increased risk because s/he did not have the skills to operate safely - not because they had a personal belief that it was wrong to operate without a blood transfusion.
The other anaesthetist did have those skills (often developed due to JWs refusing all blood transfusions even for essential operations - which yours apparently wasn't) and was therefore able to participate in the surgery.
Not because he was a player of medical Russian roulette. :rolleyes:Doctors are only required to provide treatment and care in emergency circumstances, they aren’t required to accede to the persons wishes. Whether that puts the person at an increased risk or not is entirely dependent upon the circumstances in each particular case. It’s no different to the consultant or anaesthesiologist who were initially unwilling to accede to my request - they couldn’t be compelled to do so any more than a medical professional can not be compelled to provide treatment according to their patients wishes!
God this is tedious. It's very different, for the reasons I explained. You're doing the same as when you repeatedly ignored studies that contradicted what you believed in favour of this non existent study that you were convinced was out there but wasn't: you are fitting the facts to your beliefs.
You're suggesting that every single case has to be decided in court? More nonsense.That can only be determined based upon the circumstances of each particular case. Jessica Yanniv for example recently tried to use anti-discrimination legislation to compel aestheticians to wax their genitalia, in violation of their religious beliefs. The Human Rights Tribunal decided their case had no merit. I wouldn’t suggest anyone should just get a different job as it’s not my place to do so. I would suggest that instead of expecting one should be able to compel another person to violate their conscience, it’s that person should find another medical professional who is willing to carry out any procedures they want in accordance with their wishes.
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The first point is an enormous leap of deduction. "The people" did not decide that abortion is not killing babies. Many if not most of "the people" are perfectly aware of the fact that life is being extinguished in an abortion, because that is biologically factual, but they voted to allow women to have the personal choice to do so according to those womens needs and to have convenient access.
As for the second point, it echoes some of the other fascistic views expressed in the thread where posters would like to see doctors stripped of their work for not performing certain tasks those posters have peremptorily decided they aught to perform.
Perhaps you do not realise the extreme authoritarianism inherent in the position? When euthanasia becomes legal, which it will, as that is the next great liberal right, then will you have doctors stripped of their work who refuse to supervise euthanasia, perhaps on patients they have known for decades? When the transition services for gender dysphoric children are moved from the UK, which is starting already with training in Our Ladys Hospital in Dublin, will you have doctors stripped of their work if they refuse to medically castrate a minor? Where does this authoritarianism have its limit?
Conscientious objection has a long and noble history, and much of it was practised in the left wings of the historical divide. The right to freedom of conscience was enshrined as an honorable goal in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. It was the left wing, pacifist, freedom loving people who pushed for that kind of thing., the right for the common people to have freedom of thought especially in the wake of fascism. How the tables turn.
For your first point, it's not incompatible with mine. "Life is extinguished" all the time, including human life for all sorts of reasons. For instance spermicide kills living human sperm cells, and we don't have an issue with that any more.
So what counts is not the vague notion of "life" but whether something we consider as a person is being killed. The people, as I say, have decided that at least up to 12 weeks, the embryo/fetus does not come into that category.
As for your second point, it's just the usual slippery slope hysterical nonsense we had during the referendum. Forced castration of minors FFS. But even if that were the case, conscientious objection is only relevant when people are/were forced into military service. It isn't granted when someone signs up voluntarily for the army and then decides he doesn't want to kill people. There's no conscription of doctors, they're all free to leave if they don't want to do the job.
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That is what you decided. You cannot casually claim the mantle of "the people".
The people voted to enable women to have a choice, that is the logical deduction as it is the least extreme position. It was probably pragmatic compassion that motivated most. To extend that any further, especially to an ideological extremity to encapsulate your view of abortion as not killing living beings that are entitled to personhood, is an extrapolation not justified by any proof. You simply cannot make such a claim. Not for emotional reasons, but simply because you have no such proof.
As for your rejection of the second point as an hysterical slippery slope, that is a groundless non argument. I leave my argument stand. People can read it for themselves.
For obvious reasons I will not debate this further. Doctors have the human right to conscientiously object to ANY procedure and I would defend that right of theirs to object on literally any matter. Others will fulfil the functions required. To force doctors out of work for going against their freedom of thought and conscience is fascist and authoritarian.
What I said was that the people have decided abortion in the first trimester is not equivalent to killing babies. This is the only logical interpretation of the vote. Otherwise it would mean that even though many people believed that abortion at 12 weeks was like killing babies, they just decided that was okay because "compassion" - really? Are there other examples where we would legalise killing babies out of compassion for their mothers? Clearly not. Nobody would. We don't even allow victims of crime to have their attackers killed.
So yeah, your argument was hysterical nonsense, nothing more.
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Shefwedfan wrote: »I don't think this is true and this was certainly not a topic of discussion at the time of the vote.
The reason the vote was yes was based on the health of the mother. To give the mother options. It was not even raised that this made killing a baby in first trimester legal. If that was raised I think the vote would have went another way.
No it wasn’t the health of the mother, that only comes into play after the first trimester. First trimester is for whatever reason the woman wants, or none.
And it’s simply not true that the claim that abortion is killing babies “wasn’t raised”, either. The anti brigade never stopped saying that. It’s just that they didn’t convince people that it was true. Like I say.
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