We Know What's Best For The Little Woman

[filkertom]

By way of vixyish: Read, and read. And then, after you're done throwing up and gnashing your teeth and cursing these fucking evil moron Puritan babysitter wannabes to the skies, act, and act.

ETA: Honestly, gang, while I appreciate you asking if you can copy a link, you can pretty much assume that if I put the links up here and tell you to go do something about them, [a] they're reasonably safe, at least on a browser/system security basis, and [b] it's okay to copy 'em to your own LJ or wherever. Dang, but I've got a polite buncha friends. :)

Comments

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

"One day, the government issues an edict stating that you must also perform abortions."

Nice try at misrepresenting the issue.

The actual issue is that you want the government to nullify your boss' property rights, by nationalizing his decision about whether to put up with an employee who won't perform certain job functions. In principle, it's no different from a rule forbidding employers to fire people because they sit at their desks playing Minesweeper all day.

"We're talking about people who say "We don't do this procedure, at all"

Er, no. We're aren't talking about people who decide which procedures will and will not be performed at their facilities. From one of the original news cites (http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2008-08-21-hhs-abortions_N.htm):

The proposed rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers.

Obviously, nobody needs to certify in writing that they are respecting their own rights to decide how to run their own businesses. What is being demanded is a committment to keep someone on the payroll for playing Minesweeper all day because the spreadsheets offend their sensibilities.

[stevemb.livejournal.com]

"property rights?"

Since the concept seems to escape you, I'll explain it in more detail. In a free-market economy, someone with the ability to start a business purchases capital and hires labor. This involves various judgment calls, including who to hire and who to fire. Typically, someone's unwillingness to actually do the job you hired them for triggers that last decision. This is distinguished from a communist economy, in which people who share the ruling clique's political prejudices get to keep their jobs regardless of whether or not they actually do them.

Oh, and it turns out that the regulations do say that you're entitled to enter a job you have no intention of actually doing. From the above-linked news coverage:

The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.