Abortion is morally wrong

[Losty]

We need doctors. Everyone. All of society. They must be required to drop their personal issues at the door and do their jobs. It's a necessity.

I'm about as pro-choice as they come - but there are lines to be drawn. One line I draw is that I would not *ever* seek to compel a physician to perform a procedure that they believe is morally equivalent to murder.

If we *did* do that - you know what you'd see? A whole lot less practicing OB-GYNs, and the world would be worse off for it.

I completely get your point, but if someone's life is on the line then I still think they should be required to save their patient.

[The Grand Nudger]

My question is, why do you think a doctor being required to save a dying patient would ever mean waiving their rights? They're not legally required to be doctors. They have a right to quit their job. Do you think requiring Christian strippers to strip is a violation of their rights?

It''s trivially easy for me to imagine such a scenario. I've done it in this thread. No, they're not legally required to be doctors - but they don;t simply waive their rights -by becoming doctors-. I think that stripping, as a christian, is a violation of ones own religious values - but who cares? There aren't exactly rights strictly delineated about when/where/why someone can take off or put back on articles of clothing.

I'm sorry, love, you're going to have to dumb it down for me because I don't think I understand what you're trying to say.

If we insist that doctors somehow can waive (or should waive) their rights for the priveledge of being a doctor we have little ground to claim that another person may not waive another right (my slavery example) for the exact same reason. Rights are foundational, fundamental to law. Everything flows from them. I'm not interested in special pleading, or discretional application - when it comes to rights. We either have them or we don't. They are either "sacrosanct" or they are not. All of them, together - for the same reasons...and lets make em good ones.

-or-

Maybe liberty is a right, and religious expression is just a strongly worded suggestion (or vice versa).



I'm trying to point out that some posters are treating one right differently then they are treating other rights. That in this thread - religious expression can be (and ought to be) waived by doctors...but no one is willing to entertain the man who waives his rights and sells himself into slavery. Better?

[Losty]

My question is, why do you think a doctor being required to save a dying patient would ever mean waiving their rights? They're not legally required to be doctors. They have a right to quit their job. Do you think requiring Christian strippers to strip is a violation of their rights?

It''s trivially easy for me to imagine such a scenario. I've done it in this thread. No, they're not legally required to be doctors - but they don;t simply waive their rights -by becoming doctors-. I think that stripping, as a christian, is a violation of ones own religious values - but who cares? There aren't exactly rights strictly delineated about when/where/why someone can take off or put back on articles of clothing.

I thought we were discussing religious freedom. What right is being waived by requiring doctors to save their patients?

I'm sorry, love, you're going to have to dumb it down for me because I don't think I understand what you're trying to say.

If we insist that doctors somehow can waive (or should waive) their rights for the priveledge of being a doctor we have little ground to claim that another person may not waive another right (my slavery example) for the exact same reason. Rights are foundational, fundamental to law. Everything flows from them. I'm not interested in special pleading, or discretional application - when it comes to rights. We either have them or we don't. They are either "sacrosanct" or they are not. All of them, together - for the same reasons...and lets make em good ones.

-or-

Maybe liberty is a right, and religious expression is just a strongly worded suggestion (or vice versa).

Better?

Yes but if we call liberty a right we need to define liberty as something other than freedom. Otherwise everything is a right. Right?

---

I'm trying to point out that some posters are treating one right differently then they are treating other rights. That in this thread - religious expression can be (and ought to be) waived by doctors...but no one is willing to entertain the man who waives his rights and sells himself into slavery. Better?

Yes, I now understand what you're saying. Hmm...I have to think about that one I guess. I don't have a good response for that hehe

[The Grand Nudger]

Frankly, neither do I. But that's okay, it's a living document after all.
(I wouldn't let folks sell themselves in the meantime while we figure it out, of course...lol)

[Jackalope]

I'm about as pro-choice as they come - but there are lines to be drawn. One line I draw is that I would not *ever* seek to compel a physician to perform a procedure that they believe is morally equivalent to murder.

If we *did* do that - you know what you'd see? A whole lot less practicing OB-GYNs, and the world would be worse off for it.

I completely get your point, but if someone's life is on the line then I still think they should be required to save their patient.

As I said in a previous post, individual doctors are not. Hospitals are obligated to provide emergency care.

Compelling individuals to act in this case opens up a bunch of issues - not the least of which is personal liability (i.e. malpractice) if something goes wrong.

From another angle: I'm trained and certified in (scuba) diver rescue. To a diver in need of rescue, I'd say rescue is a necessity. Does that obligate me to attempt to rescue someone? No. I would almost certainly *try*, if I could, if it would not put my own life in real peril. I'm certainly not going to try to bring someone up from 130 feet when all I've got to breathe is 45% EAN - because the likelihood of oxygen toxicity is too great a risk. (I realize that this is an esoteric example - suffice it to say that such a scenario is FAR beyond any certifying agency's recommended limits, and the risk of going into convulsions is unquantifiable, but very very real - this is an extraordinarily bad thing to have happen underwater under any circumstances).

Some might try anyway - it's their choice, made given their personal level of risk aversion. Apply your imagination and I'm sure you can come up with a few analogous situations where requiring physicians to act would be unconscionable.

[GrandizerII]

I completely get your point, but if someone's life is on the line then I still think they should be required to save their patient.

As I said in a previous post, individual doctors are not. Hospitals are obligated to provide emergency care.

Compelling individuals to act in this case opens up a bunch of issues - not the least of which is personal liability (i.e. malpractice) if something goes wrong.

From another angle: I'm trained and certified in (scuba) diver rescue. To a diver in need of rescue, I'd say rescue is a necessity. Does that obligate me to attempt to rescue someone? No. I would almost certainly *try*, if I could, if it would not put my own life in real peril. I'm certainly not going to try to bring someone up from 130 feet when all I've got to breathe is 45% EAN - because the likelihood of oxygen toxicity is too great a risk. (I realize that this is an esoteric example - suffice it to say that such a scenario is FAR beyond any certifying agency's recommended limits, and the risk of going into convulsions is unquantifiable, but very very real - this is an extraordinarily bad thing to have happen underwater under any circumstances).

Some might try anyway - it's their choice, made given their personal level of risk aversion. Apply your imagination and I'm sure you can come up with a few analogous situations where requiring physicians to act would be unconscionable.

The difference is that physicians aren't being put at risk of dying in the scenario being debated.

There are certain rights that are far more important than religious rights that, if necessary, should override these religious rights.

[The Grand Nudger]

A man who wants to sell his person is also at no risk of dying. What rights are more important than the "religous ones" - and how have we decided that (could I get an ordered list)?

[Losty]

A man who wants to sell his person is also at no risk of dying. What rights are more important than the "religous ones" - and how have we decided that (could I get an ordered list)?

You're killing me with this slavery thing. I keep thinking about it and starting to come up with a response....and then I get nothing.


What about a law that says, if a doctor chooses to take a patient that doctor is then required to treat said patient in whatever way necessary to save his/her life. To me, that negates and issues with slavery and such. And I'm still not sure what right doctors would have to waive to abide by this law.

[GrandizerII]

A man who wants to sell his person is also at no risk of dying.

Yeah, but let's not move away from the main point being discussed here. This quote above should be for another topic.

[Jackalope]

The difference is that physicians aren't being put at risk of dying in the scenario being debated.

I don't disagree. The illustration was an imperfect one, to be sure - that's why I asked the reader to imagine scenarios where that might *be* the case, and why that mad compelling physicians to act untenable.

I'll note that we have been discussing two different scenarios a) being compelling doctors to perform abortions, a b) compelling doctors to save lives.

In the case of a) what is being asked of them is to do is something that they believe to be tantamount to murder, that will put their immortal soul at risk of damnation. Who am I, who are WE, to compel someone to perform such an act? In the case of b) what is being asked is that they, amongst other things, put themselves at risk of personal liability.

There are certain rights that are far more important than religious rights that, if necessary, should override these religious rights.

Are there? Such as?

We have very different notions of what "rights" are, if one's rights are allowed to override those of another.