Compromise Passed on Compassionate Care Bill
CT April 12th, 2007Maura succinctly summarizes the compromise that was reached:
The compromise allows Catholic hospitals to exempt their own employees from providing Plan B by contracting with an indpendent provider. The compromise allows hospitals to administer a pregnancy test before providing the medication, but does not allow for the current protocol by Catholic hospitals - which involves administration of a highly unreliable urine test for ovulation - to be used. The compromise is great news for everyone.
This sounds good to me, but I honestly don’t know if it sounds good to the bill’s opponents. Probably not. Because for them, it’s not about religious liberty, it’s about imposing their beliefs on others. In this case, “others” happen to be victims of sexual assault. If the Family Institute of Connecticut is satisfied with this compromise, then perhaps their claim to have opposed “An Act Concerning Compassionate Care for Victims of Sexual Assault” on the basis of preserving their religious liberties is plausible.
But there’s a part of me that wants to keep the costs of healthcare low. I fail to see how contracting with an independent provider is much different than just hiring a non-Catholic employee to do it–except that it’s probably way more expensive to have an independent provider on-hand or on-call 24/7. If there is not an independent provider at the hospital 24/7, who makes the call to get him or her to the hospital? What happens if the call isn’t made? Does making that call violate the religious liberties of Catholics? Whether or not it does, will that be the claim?
Christine Stuart has more.
April 13th, 2007 at 10:34 am
Yes, I still believe that this does violate Catholic civil liberties. Just as a bill passed (washington maybe-I can’t recall and don’t feel like looking) stating that all pharmacists must fill Plan B and Birth Control Pill subscriptions does. I believe those are wrong, I won’t fill them. If you want your stuff go somewhere else and get them filled. Thankfully it does not make the Catholic hospitals dispense the medication themselves.
But all this misses the point…A woman is violated and gets pregnant…is she really going to be healed mentally and emotionally by terminating or preventing a possible pregnancy. I doubt that…maybe in the short term but not in the long run. I have family who have children conceived from an act of gang rape. The mother does not resent her child and has routinely had reason to be thankful that she chose to give birth to Amanda. The mom is not religious and she was not forced to have the baby but she did. She has healed and seen some good come of out of a hellacious nightmare. But the women I know who aborted their “products of rape” never get past that…because they are always victims both to the act of rape and to the fact they felt compelled to abort.
Opal