Okay, try this …<\/p>\n
I am going to force you to do something — something you consider immoral, abetting behavior you consider immoral, something that violates your conscience, your religion, your holy vows. I am going to force you to do it. If you don’t, I’m going to ruin your livelihood, your business, and I’m going to sue you for every last penny you own. You have no choice. No choice at all.<\/i><\/p>\n
And, on the other hand …<\/p>\n
I don’t like you. I don’t approve of you, or of what you do, or why you do it. So you know what? To hell with you. I’m not going to help you. I don’t care if it makes you suffer. I don’t care if it hurts you. I don’t care if it’s my job to help you. I just don’t care for trash like you and your kind. Get out of here.<\/i><\/p>\n
Michigan’s legislature is in the process of passing the “Conscientious Objector Policy Act” and related legislation. It shields health-care workers and insurance companies from firing <\/a>or law suits if they refuse to perform a medical procedure, fill a prescription or cover treatment for something they object to for moral, ethical or religious reasons.<\/p>\n In most of the debate on the matter, the focus is on abortions and emergency (morning-after) contraceptive services. But as this article <\/a> notes, it could also give someone an out to turn away someone from (non-emergency) medical care just because they’re, say, gay. While there is evidently a provision in the bill to prevent discrmination based on race, deciding that homosexuals are abominations before the Lord, and therefore can be refused treatment or insurance coverage would evidently be perfectly legal.<\/p>\n Yeesh.<\/p>\n And yet, by the same token, should a Catholic pharmacist who believes that abortion is a sin be compelled to sell someone morning-after contraception? I’m not sure I’m willing to say yes — but I’m also not sure I’m willing to have someone be unable to get such a (legal) prescription because of it.<\/p>\n (Oddly enough, ordinary contraception is excepted by the bill, which seems to fly in the face of its basic principles.)<\/p>\n In other words, the ostensible principles <\/a>(never mind for a moment anything about ulterior motives) behind the bills seem sound, but their application is troubling.<\/p>\n Republican state Rep. Randy Richardville of Monroe, who introduced the main bill of the package, said the legislation is intended to protect religious, moral and ethical freedoms of health-care providers. “Nothing in this bill, not a thing, denies a patient from receiving medical care,” he said. “This simply means a medical professional cannot violate their religious obligations.” But the odd set of exceptions — the two noted above, race (can’t folks be bigotted for religious reasons?) and birth control (which, last I checked, was also against Catholic doctrine) — make this a bit less than a pure First Amendment defense. And the breadth of what discrimination could be allowed, and the pain and suffering that could stem from that (even if emergency services cannot be denied), seems a dangerous path to take.<\/p>\n And that doesn’t even get into what constitutes a “legitimate” religious objection, something I’m as loath to let the courts decide as I’m sure they are — but which I’ll be damned (so to speak) if I’m to let someone claim it as a rationale for whatever they do or don’t want to do.<\/p>\n If the specific, openly-debated matters of conscience were themselves the only target of the bill, I might see it as a reasonable compromise between religious convictions (even ones I don’t share) and the public good. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but unhappiness is usually part of compromise. But by turning it around and making it about everything except a few sacred cows, it seems to open the door far too wide to let individual — and institutional — discrimination prevail.<\/p>\n
\nPaul A. Long, vice president for public policy for the Michigan Catholic Conference, said the bills promoted the constitutional right to religious freedom.
\n“Individual and institutional health-care providers can and should maintain their mission and their services without compromising faith-based teaching,” he said in a written statement.<\/p>\n