Tuesday, July 18, 2006
The First Veto by Our President - Crusader Against Evil
Stem Cell Research, Morning After Pill, Women's Right to Choose
The warrior is about to put his money where his mouth is -- ready with his pen to sign the first veto. The issue: Federal funding for stem cell research. It will play well in certain quarters. "But Bush is unwilling to tolerate deviations from his policy restricting federal funding for stem cell research that he set out in his first prime-time television address in August 2001. If all goes as scheduled later this week, he will do something he has avoided for nearly six years: veto a bill."
- "The president feels he made the right decision, and a principled decision, and he's not going to be swayed by the fact that he may not have the votes on Capitol Hill," said Jay Lefkowitz, a New York lawyer who helped Bush craft his position while a staff member at the White House.
- By refusing to budge from his position, the president also appears to be reaffirming his bona fides with religious conservatives who make up an important part of his political base, even while he differs with other prominent Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and former first lady Nancy Reagan.
Where Are We Heading?
A sign of the times. Things have come to such a stage in our 'land of the free' that one has to look into religious orientation of doctors and nurses at local hospitals before seeking care. Did healthcare workers always refuse service to those whose needs infringed on their religious beliefs or are such actions resulted from the Bush Administration's overt support for them? I am with those who feel that people with strong religious convictions ought not to choose a field of work in which they are likely to face such decisions. Rob Stein in the Washington Post: "In Chicago, an ambulance driver refused to transport a patient for an abortion. In California, fertility specialists rebuffed a gay woman seeking artificial insemination. In Texas, a pharmacist turned away a rape victim seeking the morning-after pill."
Excerpts:
- Around the United States, health workers and patients are clashing when providers balk at giving care that they feel violates their beliefs, sparking an intense, complex and often bitter debate over religious freedom vs. patients' rights.
- Legal and political battles have followed. Patients are suing and filing complaints after being spurned. Workers are charging religious discrimination after being disciplined or fired. Congress and more than a dozen states are considering laws to compel workers to provide care -- or, conversely, to shield them from punishment.
- The issue is driven by the rise in religious expression and its political prominence in the United States, and by medicine's push into controversial new areas. And it is likely to intensify as doctors start using embryonic stem cells to treat disease, as more states legalize physician-assisted suicide and as other wrenching issues emerge.
- For Debra Shipley, her duties as a nurse began to conflict with her Christian faith when the county health clinic where she worked near Memphis required she dispense the morning-after pill."I felt like my religious liberties were being violated," said Shipley, 49, of Atoka, Tenn. "I could not live with myself if it did it. I answer to God first and foremost."
- But Paige Gerson, 37, of Leawood, Kan., believes doctors and nurses should never let their personal values interfere with patient care. Her doctor refused to give her the morning-after pill, citing religious objections.
"Seeking Care, and Refused". Love of God, fear of God, or just inability to accept those who are different?
- Desperate to have a baby, Guadalupe Benitez was hoping her next try would finally work. So Benitez was stunned when a crucial moment arrived in her cycle and her fertility clinic refused to do the insemination procedure.
- "I was in tears," said Benitez, 34, of Oceanside, Calif. "I wanted to be a mom. I was in a panic."
- The clinic told Benitez, who is gay, that staff members were uncomfortable about treating her because of their religious values. "I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was almost surreal," Benitez said. "It was so upsetting."
- Benitez eventually conceived a boy, then twin girls, with the help of another specialist. But she sued the clinic and two of its doctors in 2001, charging discrimination."
- When the dispatcher called, Stephanie Adamson knew this might be the run she had feared. But it wasn't until her ambulance arrived at the hospital and she saw the words "elective abortion" on the patient's chart that she knew she had to make a choice.
- "I just got a sick feeling in my stomach," said Adamson, an emergency medical technician from Channahon, Ill.
- Adamson called her boss to say she could not transport the patient to the other hospital where the procedure was scheduled.
Federally funded "pregnancy resource centers" are incorrectly telling women that abortion results in an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility and deep psychological trauma, a minority congressional report charged yesterday.
Comments:
<< Home
I would like to personally thank the President for stopping this unfit piece of legislation. If the research was truly work the money, private organizations would be willing to pay the monet.
# posted by 
: 2:24 PM
: 2:24 PM
The White House would be happy to receive your comments, typos and all. I suppose one can request a meeting with the president to personally thank him but I wouldn't bet on receiving an appointment.
Post a Comment
<< Home
