[Rhodes22-list] Politics - The Camel's Nose Is Well Inside The Tent

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/26/2006 9:25:04 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
hnw555 at gmail.com writes:

As I  understand it, the RU84 (did I get that right) is a morning  after
contraceptive.  Hardly a treatment for a serious medical  condition. 


Hank,
 
WRT your post, I think unwanted pregnancy is a serious medical condition  and 
there are likely many thousands of poor women that will tell you that.   You 
and I, as men, probably ought not to judge.  Still, there are a zillion  
drugs, and if a particular pharmacy didn’t stock RU84, or whatever, I would not  
hold it against them.  If they did stock RU84 and declined to sell it to  some 
person that needed it, I would charge discrimination.  The job of the  pharmacy 
and the pharmacist, and the reason they have been granted a license by  the 
public, is to sell/dispense authorized drugs, not to judge utilization of  the 
drugs or the people that use them.
 
Re requiring ob/gyn practioners to perform abortions, I would require  
doctors to perform abortions  if abortions were part of their board  certification.  
If the doctors don’t want to do abortions, they could be  recertified in a 
specialty that was more agreeable to them, or they could  relocate their 
practices to a jurisdiction that did not authorize  abortions.  Also, if abortions 
were NOT part of the board certification  process, and there was no reason to 
assume a specific doctor was medically  competent to perform the procedure, I don
’t think their declining to undertake a  procedure they were not certified to 
perform amounts to  discrimination.
 
The overriding point is that there is an implicit, and sometimes explicit,  
guarantee of service to the consumer for most licensed professions and  
occupations and those services should be provided without discrimination.   If the 
practioner has been granted a license by the public to provide a  service on a 
commercial basis, it should be provided.  We went through that  drill with 
barbers that opted not to cut the hair of black people, and realtors  that only 
wanted to deal with white people.  Those cases are now clear  law.  Doctors and 
pharmacists (and cab drivers) should have to follow the  same laws.
 
Note: In the above I am not arguing for or against the ethics and legality  
of abortion or birth control, I’m saying that IF those arguments have been made 
 and that abortion or birth control is legally permitted in a jurisdiction, 
THEN  persons licensed to provide that service on a commercial basis in that  
jurisdiction have an obligation to provide service on a commercial basis to  
the best of their ability without discrimination.
 
JMO.
 
Sorry to take so long to respond, but I took off yesterday to start  
winterizing the boat.
Actually, it was an interesting experience, the tide on the Chesapeake was  
very high, by my standards.  It was the first time I had to step UP to get  in 
the boat from our pier.  I'd be interested regarding the experience of  others 
that might have been on the Chesapeake yesterday.  It was quite a  tide. 6" 
higher and the pier would have been underwater.
 
Dave