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Stanley Fish--Still one of the bad guys, big-time

Several readers have written me e-mail asking me to blog on the Obama administration's apparent plan to revoke the Bush federal conscience protection rule, put into place late in the Bush administration, which protects health-care professionals against discrimination if they refuse to act against their consciences. (The rule says that federal funds can be withheld from entities that do so discriminate.)

I have struggled literally for weeks with the rhetorical problem of how to write such a post. The two biggest causes of this brain-freeze/blog-freeze have been a) the fact that Wesley J. Smith had some worries about the Bush rule and some recommendations for its revision, yet clearly (and Smith knows this) the Obama administration isn't concerned with those issues and b) the fact that the revocation of the Bush rule would merely return us to the status quo ante, which is where we had been living for umpety years past. In other words, its revocation doesn't amount to the imposition of requirements that doctors engage in abortions (for example); it merely removes an extra, brand-new, federal obstacle to such requirements as might be put in place by states (see here) or by employers.

Okay, well, let's take all that as read. I am galvanized to put up a post now that refers to this issue because I believe that W4 readers need to be informed of the following fact, especially if they happen to read W4 more religiously than they read the New York Times blog: Contra the implication of one of our commentators here less than three months ago, and with all due respect to that commentator, Stanley Fish is not some sort of deep-respect-deserving "pilgrim" gradually moving in a pro-life direction. About as far from it as possible. On the contrary, Stanley Fish is so pro-abortion that he doesn't like the Bush rule because, heaven forbid, it provides some measure of protection to doctors who refuse to be involved in the taking of human life, and Fish thinks they should be forced to be thus involved as a matter of "professionalism." In other words, Fish is a pro-death ideologue for whom "choice" means only the choice to kill.

How bad is it? Well, you can read the post, if you can stomach it. It's so bad that Fish says that if doctors bring conscientious considerations into play they are violating the entire premise of Western civilization according to which "religion" must be "sequestered" in a "private sphere." Such doctors are also violating the "rules that define the profession [they've] signed up for." So, let's get this clear: 1) Any conscientious objections to performing or referring for abortions, for example, are ipso facto religious. Strike one. 2) It's essential to the continuation of our civilization that considerations of conscience be completely "sequestered" from all public transactions. Well, heck, so much for professional ethics. Strike two. 3) The requirement that one be willing to be involved in killing innocent people is, and is presumed by Fish to have been for some time, one of the "rules" of the medical profession. Strike three. He goes so far as to say that doctors who dare to refuse to be involved in such actions are being "sectarians" rather than "citizens."

I mean, the guy is a foaming-at-the-mouth, you-will-get-on-board-with-the-culture-of-death bad guy.

As usual, liberals talk as if everybody has always agreed with them and as if the new craziness they just made up last year, whether it be calling two men "married" or requiring all doctors to be involved in abortions, are the astonishingly minimal moral norms of the entire world, norms that only the most benighted kooks could possibly question. What's really scary is that this kind of faux outrage which invents itself anew with every new depth of evil that comes into some lefty's mind actually fools some people. Before I wrote that last sentence, I had been about to write, "Who do they think they're kidding? Do they really think we're all such idiots that we won't realize they're just making it up as they go along?" But the truth is, some people will indeed just start repeating "professional standards" after the Stanley Fishes of the world.

God bless all the doctors out there, and all those young people who are thinking of going into the medical profession. The skies grow dark.

HT Wesley J. Smith at Secondhand Smoke

Comments (63)

Fish has always believed that opposition to abortion is essentially religious. Perhaps he believes Nat Hentoff is kidding himself.

Anyhow, Robert P George rebutted Fish on this point over a decade ago.

Stanley Fish is begging the question. After all, the prolife physician believes, and has good grounds to believe, that the intrinsic dignity of persons requires that he not participate in abortions or refer patients who want to procure them, since the prolife physician thinks of the unborn as a patient as well. Thus, the question that Fish is obligated to answer is this: to whom do members of this profession owe their healing powers? For the prolife physician, it includes the unborn. For the non-prolife physician it does not. Thus, the question is not one of professionalism, for the question at issue is logically prior to "professionalism": who is the proper subject of the profession's moral concern. Consequently, Fish assumes, without argument, that it does not include the unborn. But whether it does or not is the issue on which the nature of the profession turns. Fish, therefore, begs the question.

There are additional problems with Fish's argument. First, he points to U.S. case law, but neglects to mention that in the two cases he uses as bookends that the government was compelling people not to do things that their religion allowed (bigamy and smoking peyote), rather than compelling them to do things that their religion does not allow. The bar for the latter must be much higher than what Fish seems to allow -- it would be akin to requiring Muslims to eat pork. Second, Hobbes is hardly the final word in questions of conscience in relation to the state and is in fact overturning a long western tradition of individual conscience against unjust laws and actions (see, for instance, Aquinas at ST I-II.96.4). I think most people, even non-Christians, would tend to side with Aquinas over Hobbes on this. Third, the idea that law is the public conscience is only useful if the conscience of the community is well formed, but certainly we can point to unjust slavery laws in our country to show that there are times when the conscience of a community is neither lawful nor correct (Nazi Germany also comes to mind). Finally, Fish fails to make the case that the convenience of getting an abortion from a doctor who does not want to do it is of such overriding concern that the conscience of the doctor must be violated. He does not make the case that the abortion is of such societal benefit that the doctor must be compelled to do so -- as is the case with compulsory taxes and education.

It's not just an assault on doctors and unborn babies, it's also an assault on reason.

The question-begging point Frank makes is extremely important, and especially so w.r.t. abortion. It can also be extended to other areas where the liberal totalitarians want to turn doctors into mere agents of their agenda. For example, a doctor might quite reasonably consider it unprofessional to give birth control to a minor, on the grounds that this is encouraging premarital sex and promiscuity, which are both mentally and physically risky and unhealthy behavior. A doctor might legitimately consider it his professional duty to warn a homosexual patient about the physical dangers of the homosexual lifestyle. A doctor might legitimately consider it his professional duty to tell the parents of a minor with a sexually transmitted disease that the minor has this disease, although informing parents of this is _illegal_ in a number of states.

Wesley J. Smith warns that there may soon be a push for laws forcing doctors to write prescriptions for suicide drugs in Oregon and any other state where suicide is legal. It is exceedingly easy to see how a doctor would legitimately consider this to be distinctly _unprofessional_ conduct, _not_ treating his patient but killing his patient, and unethical, regardless of the doctor's religious opinions.

Fish and other radicals secure many strategic benefits from the extremism of their proposals. They're considered so off the wall that most people think they can't possibly be serious. But each time such unrefuted radicalism is propounded, it persuades a few more journalists, judges, NYTimes readers and students.

I can't figure out anymore, Kevin, how many people consider the extreme positions to be "too extreme to be serious" and how many people just swallow the extreme positions because they are boldly stated as if they are completely obvious. I expect the "too extreme to be serious" crowd have their heads in the sand. After all, there are laws under consideration right now in the U.S. (as I documented in California, for example) that would indeed require doctors to refer for abortion, and in Illinois that require pharmacists to dispense Plan B. I can only conclude that people who think someone like Fish is too extreme to be taken seriously are uninformed.

Lydia is right that we cannot and should not as a matter of principal and strategy ignore those who boldly state extreme (wrong) positions as if they were obviously morally correct. For example, I am someone who is sympathetic to the idea of some sort of marriage rights for gays (although the gang at W4 is working to change that sympathy) but when I came across this column in the local paper accusing anyone who opposes gay marriage of "Bible-based bigotry" I immediately wrote in to the editors to attack this ridiculous position. But I wonder how many people read that column and nodded their heads in agreement? We need to fight all of these ridiculous arguments with all our intellectual firepower ("We demolish sophistries and every proud pretension that raises itself against the knowledge of God" -- 2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

I am in an odd position because while I agree in part with Lydia and Francis, I think you're missing the central point, evidenced by the fact that Lydia's references to professionalism tend to be couched in individualistic terms:

It is exceedingly easy to see how a doctor would legitimately consider this to be distinctly _unprofessional_ conduct,
while Francis makes the surprising claim that
Thus, the question is not one of professionalism, for the question at issue is logically prior to "professionalism": who is the proper subject of the profession's moral concern. Consequently, Fish assumes, without argument, that it does not include the unborn.
The issue that Fish is talking about is the nature of the professional community. Fish is not intending to talk about any questions logically prior to "professionalism," so I think Francis is being a bit unfair, since the admittedly important substantive question of "who is the proper subject of the medical profession's concern" is simply not in view here (surely we may bracket off certain subjects to talk about others, no?).

What Fish is talking about is the nature of a community, specifically a profession, which is why I think Lydia's comments about an individual doctor's individual conscience simply miss the point. What Fish is arguing for is the ability for a community to maintain its integrity based on communal standards, which necessarily includes the ability to excommunicate individual members in violation of those communal standards. I use the word "excommunicate" intentionally, because I think the analogy of the Church being able to excommunicate a member whose conscience (and actions) is in violation of Church standards for membership as defined by the Church is helpful.

I don't see this situation for the community of physicians to be any different with respect to the scope Fish is talking about, which concerns the ability for a community to transcend the individual by creating and defining its own standards as applicable to its members.

This means that while an instance of the medical community's standards of exclusion may be wrong and evil (Francis's point), it is nevertheless legitimate for the medical community to choose the standards on which basis to exclude members (Fish's point). This also means that public debate, choices and persuasion of communities actually matter. The failure to persuade communities of certain moral truths have consequences for those within the community that we ought not try to evade by appealing to individualism. At most, if the community cannot be persuaded, those individuals might consider the need to leave the community and form another.

We actually have here an instance of sanity breaking through modern individualism. Unfortunately, it is wrong in content, as Francis has noted.

I will grant that Stanley Fish grounds his belief in the necessary ability of communities to maintain their integrity in a weird Hobbesian public politics/private religion dualism central to enlightenment liberalism, and he does so explicitly, and perhaps that incoherence put some readers off-track. But his observation of the necessity of communal standards for communal integrity is nonetheless true, if for different reasons than those liberalism offers.

But Albert if this was just left to the medical community then it wouldn't be an issue. Instead it is the government that might now be determining the ethics of the profession and thus Fish's appeal to Hobbes' idea of the law as the public conscience. The AMA's Declaration of Professional Responsibility leads off with the statement that physicians are committed to "Respect human life and the dignity of every individual". They left it open broadly enough so that someone can interpret human life in different ways (which isn't necessarily a question of conscience), but still the point is that there is in fact already a broad consensus of what is professional behavior among physicians. Even if one physician understands human life to begin after birth and the other at conception, asking the latter to perform an abortion is an assault on the publicly formed standards and ethics that the community of physicians has agreed upon. Replacing the public conscience of the profession with the public conscience of the force of law is where the problem is.

baconboy, read the Fish blog again. I am fairly certain that Obama is attempting to remove the Bush-era conscience clause, which if true is precisely what ought to be done because the clause itself is an illegitimate government intrusion into the medical community for the reasons discussed in my comment. By now we ought not be surprised that the "conservative" Bush was never really conservative with respect to the principles of limited government. We ought not follow his example of legal fiat when it seems *good for our side*, because it paves the road for illegitimate legal fiat the other way as well.

Getting the government involved by manipulating communities through "conscience clauses" is the wrong way for the government to stop abortion. Getting the government to recognize abortion is homicide is the right way.

Here's the problem, Albert. The principle on which Fish grounds his position--one ought to be bound by the consensus of the community of professionals--is neither self-evident nor unassailable nor the product of the community of professionals. And if it were the latter, then Fish would be begging the question. And thus, on Fish's own grounds we ought to reject Fish's principle.

Fish is engaging in the distinctly modernist project of moral check kiting.

No, Albert, Fish isn't just engaging in some generic meta-level discussion of whether there ought to be standards that transcend the individual's ideas. He may want you to think that, but he isn't doing that. The fact that he isn't doing that is manifest by the following: A) As others have pointed out, heretofore the medical community has not tried to force doctors either to perform or to refer for abortions. The pro-aborts are unhappy and restless about this "flex" that remains for pro-life doctors in the professional standards, and hence they are _pretending_ that professional standards require participation (one way or another) in abortion, but actually seeking (as in California and as already in Victoria, Australia) to force new standards by mechanisms other than the ordinary deliberation process of the professional guilds. B) Fish clearly wants the purely private, individual desires of the patient to be paramount (when he happens to agree with them). Hence, if the patient wants an abortion, the doctor is a mere technician who provides it or helps the patient find someone who will provide it. If the patient thinks he is a man trapped in the body of a woman, the medical professionals are mere technicians who have to go along with this purely private idea of what the person needs, medically. If the patient wants to die, the doctor is supposed to be a robot who provides the drugs. This is _exactly the opposite_ from upholding the notion of objective standards. On the contrary, it is making this particular set of subjective desires on the part of the patient the guiding principle. Of course, Fish would doubtless (like most liberals) not be consistent with that, either, for if the patient wanted a feeding tube after entering a so-called "vegetative state," I have little doubt that Fish would then do a switcheroo: "Professionalism" would then mean that the doctor was supposed to have deep conscientious objections (which of course must be respected) to providing food and sustenance for the patient.

In other words, this isn't about objective truth vs. subjective desires. This is about the triumph of whatever set of subjective desires liberals like Fish happen to agree with. And all the world must bow down before them.

Wesley Smith has suggested an _actual_ solution to these problems--the reinstatement of the idea that the medical profession exists to promote innocent human life, a distinction between elective and non-elective procedures, etc. In other words, real objective standards. Fish's are pseudo-objective. And disgusting. The man is a pro-death Nazi.

Sorry for the double comment, again, but to address your point of Fish's appeal to Hobbes's idea of the law as public conscience, I might be wrong, but I think his point was regarding the "law" of the medical professional community, not the "law" of the political community. It's tricky because there are communities within/overlapping communities, but his point is of communal integrity and order:

Hobbes’s larger point — the point he is always making — is that if one gets to prefer one’s own internal judgments to the judgments of authorized external bodies (legislatures, courts, professional associations), the result will be the undermining of public order and the substitution of personal whim for general decorums
Here I think the "authorized" community in his view is the medical professional association. If "legislatures, courts", i.e. government, were in view, Fish would be supporting the Bush conscience clause as the political community's standard. Of course, he does not have the political community in view, does not support the conscience clause rightly because it undermines the medical community's integrity.

Albert, I think you are just uninformed. Really, seriously, uninformed. And oddly, you seem to be ignoring my attempts to inform you. The liberals of Fish's stripe _are trying to pass laws_ to require doctors to perform or refer for abortions. What part of that sentence do you not understand? They aren't happy with the fact that the professional bodies aren't "getting with the program" and forcing doctors to advance the liberal agenda fast enough. You just don't get it. I mean, you really do not get it. Fish is fooling you by his reference to professional associations. Mind you, there _are_ bad professional associations, particularly in the area of professional counseling, which is totally nuts. But when we're talking about life issues in medicine, it just isn't happening by way of the professional associations. I have no doubt that there will be somewhat of a feedback loop: As various states and other jurisdictions (e.g., New York City) pass laws requiring doctors to get abortion training, refer for abortions, etc., the professional associations will probably start more seriously considering incorporating these evil standards themselves. But as it happens, it's starting at the legal end. Sorry, your attempts to cast Stanley Fish as some sort of honorable and principled small-government libertarian are...poorly thought out.

Francis, the grounds on which Fish argues against conscience clauses are certainly inadequate and ultimately incoherent, being based upon Enlightenment principles of liberalism.

But he used what little is right about Hobbes' liberal ideas (individuals ought to submit to community standards for order) to come to the right conclusion. The conscience clause is inappropriate.

Lydia, I'm not unaware of the machinations of pro-abortion activists. Those manipulative acts are rightly opposed for reasons particular to each act. Secondly, you may be right that Fish "clearly wants the purely private, individual desires of the patient to be paramount (when he happens to agree with them)." If so, I can't find that in his blog post. Instead I find: "Isn’t it a matter of conscience (in Hobbes’s sense) to abide by the rules that define the profession you’ve signed up for?" Forgive me if I am unaware of places where he has contradicted his words here; I would love to be informed as to why you think Fish is so two-faced. Seriously. I don't really want to be a useful idiot...

That said, be careful of your tone. On the basis of an interview, I don't think Stanley Fish is like "most liberals" even though he is a modern. I think Stanley Hauerwas and Dinesh D'Souza would agree.

Lydia, I am sorry if I appear to be ignoring your welcome attempts to inform me. I appreciate it, and it only seems to be the case because I think for a while before I write and so our comments may be timed weirdly (I don't refresh the page before I click Post so I don't see additional comments).

That said, while I am aware (though doubtlessly not as knowledgeable as you) that liberals are attempting to pass laws to interfere with medical community standards by requiring doctors to perform abortions, I did not know Stanley Fish is implicated in these attempts. Has he in fact supported such laws? I would be indebted to you for such information.

"But he used what little is right about Hobbes' liberal ideas (individuals ought to submit to community standards for order) to come to the right conclusion. The conscience clause is inappropriate."

But the conscience clause is itself a legally binding deliverance of a community that requires submission of the professional community under our laws. So, Hobbes is of no help to Fish on this matter.

But the conscience clause is itself a legally binding deliverance of a community that requires submission of the professional community under our laws. So, Hobbes is of no help to Fish on this matter.

Francis, even for Hobbes, the conscience clause is self-defeating because it undermines any and all communities including the political community itself, which Hobbes valued. The question to ask Hobbes, I suppose, would be "Could a community ever choose to destroy itself?" For Hobbes, I think, an attempt by a political community to create a conscience clause policy would undermine the good of public order, which he believed in, so I would think he'd answer No, with the caveat that Hobbes may have considered the political community fundamental and ultimate and by virtue of that able to legitimately dissolve/change other communities. Even if Hobbes believes this, I don't think Fish does, nor do I think one has to completely subscribe to all a figure's ideas to get help from that figure.

The point is that as long as one believes in public order and communal integrity, for whatever reason, conscience clauses are illegitimate in themselves. I suspect Fish at some level holds communities as goods, and so opposes conscience clauses, affirmed by any community, as intrinsically inconsistent, even if applied to a different community (political onto medical). But I'm not sure. It certainly seems to be the case.

I don't think Fish needs to go into principles governing the appropriate natural limits of one community vis-a-vis another, since one may well observe within such principles the inconsistent nature of conscience clauses for communities and oppose them on those grounds.

In the last sentence, "within such principles" should be "without such principles."

Albert, two can play that procedural "all it says is" or "all he says is" game. So: Is it your position that the Department of Health and Human Services is morally obligated to pass out funds to every and any medical establishment, so long as it is following "community standards"? So if the "community standards" in some heavily Indian area support a hospital's killing newborn baby girls, would it maybe be _okay_ for the feds to, you know, withhold federal dollars from said hospital? Please remember that the Bush conscience rule didn't federalize any crime. It was a rule about the distribution of funds. "All it says is..." that funds can't be given to an organization that fires or otherwise penalizes doctors for acting according to their consciences. You and I might or might not agree over whether there should even be such a thing as federal funds for medical care, but given that there is such a set-up, even so staunch a states' rights advocate as I am would not say that the federal funds have to be handed out indiscriminately with no moral judgements being made about how they are used, or with the highest moral arbiter being "community standards." If this is some sort of paleo thing I'm running into with you here, you are only confirming my long-standing worry that a certain way of casting the paleo love of "communitarianism" leads right straight to the hell of moral relativism. And no, I won't "watch my tone."

Now, secondly, on the assumption that you are an educated person living on Planet Earth in the year 2009, I hold that you are responsible to know what the deuce Stanley Fish is talking about when he babbles on throughout his post about how a doctor should be a "citizen, not a sectarian" about so-called "religious" norms, and the like. Hint: There is no widespread Mormon plot to refuse to treat people who drink coffee, nor does Fish think there is. He's talking about liberal hot-spot issues, chiefly abortion, but also, in all probability, the dispensing of contraception prescriptions, as well as Plan B. Other "standards" will develop as time goes on, and I heed Smith's warnings regarding suicide. Fish doesn't have to use the word "abortion" for anybody who knows the social context to know that that is one of the central things that he has in view here.

And given that that is the case, I grow rather weary of your wilfully dense pretense that _all_ he's doing is asserting the importance of "community standards" over individual beliefs. Rubbish and balderdash, and you should know better. He's saying that the professional standards of medicine include a doctor's having to be complicit in abortion, by referral at a minimum. Everybody should know that, because everybody should know that that is what is in fact being pushed in various venues at this very moment when the Bush conscience rule is about to be taken down. And that is an evil thing to say. I don't know how else to put it. Even if it were true, as it is not, that the professional medical organizations have just spontaneously adopted this as one of their "standards," it would be _completely legitimate_ for some level of government--state government, for my preference, but federal is also legitimate if we are talking about dispensing funds--to come in and try to challenge that. Let us please remember that the professional organizations have their guild status _enforced_ by the government, in the sense that it is a criminal offense to practice medicine without a license. Hence, if the professional guild _did_ begin telling people that they must be complicit in the murder of innocent people, it would be _wholly legitimate_ for the government to refuse to continue to uphold their guild status under those circumstances and to stop that evil requirement.

... pretense that _all_ he's doing is asserting the importance of "community standards" over individual beliefs.
Fish's approach is at least mildly interesting, as a forensic matter, inasmuch as when the wicked and despicable outcome he wants is not dictated by individualistic moral relativism he appeals to a community-based moral relativism to get the wicked and despicable outcome he wants. I can see how that - communitarian moral relativism as contrasted to individualistic moral relativism - might appeal to certain kinds of paleoish perspectives, as we've discussed before. Perhaps we ought to have a name for this particular sort of appeal to moral relativism -- "neopaleoconservatism", anyone?

Lydia, you can get angry and adversarial if you wish, but I think it's making you sloppy in your thinking.

"All it says is..." that funds can't be given to an organization that fires or otherwise penalizes doctors for acting according to their consciences.
Yes, indeed. You'll note the clause does not speak to specific immoral and unjust acts. It does not say, for example, that funds won't be given to organizations that fire doctors for refusing to kill babies. I would support such a clause as a legitimate instance of government enforcement of justice, because that's what it would be. Likewise, that Indian hospital killing girls should not receive federal funds not because the institution's communal integrity has no value, but because, as a matter of actual justice and therefore within the realm of the government's authority, it deserves to be shut down and its staff executed.

So yes, given that federal funds will (illegitimately) be given for medical care, it's preferable to morally guard those funds. Unfortunately, the conscience clause does not specifically morally guard those funds; instead, it is a pure assault on the integrity of communities for the sake of individualistic conscience, whatever the heck the conscience may believe. In fact, whatever the good intentions or consequences of a conscience clause, as a pure, disordering assault on communities, it is itself unjust and immoral.

I hold that you are responsible to know what the deuce Stanley Fish is talking about when he babbles on throughout his post about how a doctor should be a "citizen, not a sectarian"
Yes, he's saying that a doctor should abide by the laws of his community, whatever they may be, or leave. He's not saying that federal laws or the medical profession's bylaws should be written that would force doctors to perform abortions, at least here. He may have somewhere else. I fully admit that possibility, which is why I asked for a reference. You have none for me. That doesn't mean you're wrong about Fish; there could be references out there you don't know about or don't have time to provide. That's fine and I'll keep my eyes open. But you should stop acting like you know Fish, because you don't, or that he's just like most other liberals, because that is not true.

Listen, for the last time, I agree that claiming doctors ought to be professionally required to perform abortions is evil. But I also believe that doctors ought to be professionally required to adhere to a medical community's norms and to leave (and create another medical community if possible) if they will not so adhere. Those two work together because I believe that a medical community's standards ought to prohibit doctors from performing abortions. In fact, the government itself, as a political community properly concerned with justice, should also prohibit doctors from performing abortions because that is unjust. But the government also may NOT pass generic "conscience clauses" that intrinsically undermine communities because doing so is actually unjust as well due to the nature of conscience clauses.

I just think you're succumbing to the liberal progressive tendency to cut corners because the ends justify the means. They do not.

Tschüs.

Yes, he's saying that a doctor should abide by the laws of his community, whatever they may be, or leave.

That's it, huh? And that's all?

That's ridiculous. Whatever else Fish may be, he is no fool. He knows perfectly well (as do his commentators, I might add) what the context is for both the Bush clause and the assault on it. He knows what issues are involved, and he uses all the language about religion for a very specific reason--because, as Mike Liccione has noted above in this thread, he believes that all opposition to abortion is essentially religious. We are fools if we pretend that just because he doesn't use the "a" word in the column that isn't the context of the entire discussion.

I should add, too, in (perhaps) fairness to communitarians, that Fish nowhere uses the phrase "community standards" in the post. In fact, he talks instead about the supposed "rules of the profession you signed up for." Now, one can _call_ professional associations "communities," but that's a pretty weird use of the term anyway, as such associations are usually much bigger than any given real community and in some cases nationwide. Moreover, anyone who has been paying attention (WJS, for example) knows that all this "if you don't want to follow the rules of your profession, take up a different profession" talk is now widely used, in fact, _about referring for abortion and about pharmacists dispensing emergency contraception_. (There is a court case on the EC thing in Illinois even as we speak.) That is what the controversy is _about_. That's what's _going on_. There isn't something else Fish could plausibly be talking about. It's all a pretense, of course, because in actuality it isn't the "profession" that is usually threatening people in these cases. There is a widespread attempt going on right now to _define_ the medical profession as requiring one to be involved in these specific things and to _define_ it as "unprofessional" to refuse. That's the whole context of the debate, and Fish is openly taking sides therein. He doesn't have to name abortion for his readers to know that, anymore than a writer in Germany in the 1930's needed to tell you what he meant by the "master race."

Apologies for the triple post: I want to call attention to the clear implication both in my main post and in this comments thread that I support Wesley J. Smith's ideas regarding _revising_ the conscience rule so as to (for example) make the distinction between elective and non-elective procedures and so as to put the taking of human life in a different category from anything designated as a "treatment" or mere "procedure." In no way am I saying that the Bush rule as written cannot be improved. I share Smith's worries that such an open-ended clause cd. be used to support doctors in, for example, refusing feeding tubes for stroke patients. I thought I made all this clear in the main post; indeed, I said that that consideration had delayed the writing of a post on this subject. But that's not what the Obama administration is about. That's not what's causing this political ping-pong ball to go back and forth. No one pushing for the overturn (as opposed to revision) of this clause is trying to get tube feeding for brain-damaged patients!

Albert, I appreciate the sense you are trying to establish here about the "rules of the community" that Fish is talking about. But I think perhaps you have overlooked the critical point: the "community" of doctors, in one sense, includes all who have studied medicine and graduated. But in the more common sense, the sense everyone uses day-to-day, it is restricted to those medical personnel who have not only done their medical training, but ALSO have a medical license. The medical license is issued by the state. It is absolutely the case that the context Fish is talking about is precluding doctors from getting or keeping their license from the state if they refuse to help with abortions. This "purely legal" result will effectively banish them from the "community" of doctors, regardless of whatever standards the medical professional associations themselves have established.

Have we noticed the generational double-talk here? Back in the 60's and 70's, when liberal professors wanted to defy the standards of their own professions and their universities because of their personally held opinions (not even matters of conscience, often), the new-speak moralism was that they could not be banished from their profession even by their own profession's watchdogs over a "professional" difference of opinion, and certainly not by the university, which stood outside any one department of study (and therefore, by presumption, could not judge within it). Now, of course, the shoe is on the other foot, and when a doctor wants to abide by his conscience AND by the literal rules of his own profession's standards, he is about to be forced out by an outside agent ramming new standards upon both the individuals and their professional associations.

The sad fact of the matter is that although there may actually be a few deluded "innocent" liberals out there who actually want to stick to liberal principles, pretty much all of the liberals in positions of power, and most of the rank and file ones, don't care a rap about principles at all.

His invocation of Hobbes was simply moronic. First of all, there is no such thing as "the public conscience," unless one means that to be some bastard, mutant form of natural law which he clearly did not. Second, the very fact that a significant portion of the population has a deep-seated, even attavistic moral revulsion toward abortion eviscerates any pretense to his use of conscience which is to say "two or more men knowing a thing."

Oh f#$%ing really Dr. Fish? Many of us know from our instincts first, reason second, that abortion is homicide. Guess that little theory went out the window.

Francis, even for Hobbes, the conscience clause is self-defeating because it undermines any and all communities including the political community itself, which Hobbes valued.

That is a simplistic take on it. The conscience clause is actually quite enlightened and rational, as it recognizes that there are cases where people may be compelled to do things which they legitimately believe are immoral. The best retort I've seen from the lunatic left is that right-wingers will claim a moral opposition to paying taxes, but no one would really take that sort of "conscience issue" seriously unless the state suddenly made Molech worship the established, subsidized state religion. A community which can force many of its members to commit what they believe is an act of murder, is a community that is demanding the God-given right to destroy its own legitimacy and encourage open revolt.

The last verses of Romans 1 come to mind regarding what a community deserves for approving of and mandating evil.

I think there is a certain amount of deception that goes on, though I actually don't think Fish expected people *not to know* that abortion is one of the main things in view in the context. But the example I've heard is, literally, Mormon doctors refusing to treat alcoholics or people with lung cancer. However, the lunatic left brings that up as a supposed consequence of the conservative position, a clunky and stupid attempted reductio: "If you believe that doctors should be permitted not to refer for abortions, or you think pharmacists should be permitted not to fill Plan B prescriptions, on the grounds of conscientious objections, then you will be forced in consistency to agree that it's professionally legitimate for Mormon doctors to refuse to treat alcoholics." It's not that they really think the latter is likely. It's just a ridiculous attempt at argument.

I saw a commentator over at VFR try this very thing with regard to the following example: A psychologist got in trouble for refusing to counsel a lesbian in the attempt to salvage her lesbian relationship. As I pointed out at VFR, it needn't have been that the psychologist wouldn't have counseled her under any circumstances. For example, if he could have treated it as a live option to counsel her that her lesbian behavior is unhealthy and that she will do herself the most good by _getting out of_ the relationship, he might not have tried to get out of the doctor-client relationship. But he knew well that what he was being asked to do was to help her _work out_ her lesbian relationship, to "enable" it, in the present jargon, so he refused. So Auster's commentator implied that if you think that counselor should be allowed to bring his moral views to bear on the situation, you should also think it's okay for a Mormon doctor to refuse to treat lung cancer! Oh, and he also made it very clear (by a reference to Roe v. Wade) that abortion was very much in the context of the conversation as well, even though the thread was initially about homosexual attempts to coerce cooperation with the homosexual agenda.

What it is coming to is this: The left is telling us that we must accept _their definition_ of professional medical standards (upside-down and backwards as they are, usually consisting of demanding that the medical person do something that is bad for the patient!) or else we are stupid religious right-wing medical anarchists who have _no notion_ of objective professional standards. This is the _clear implication_ of Fish's sophomoric column. This is rot, of course, and I have pointed out that a careful person like Smith has attempted to suggest revisions of a conscience clause that would address this very issue of professional standards. But we are not heeded either by Fish and his ilk or by his silly defenders, some, alas, apparently on the right.

Fish performs the invaluable service of laying bare Liberalism's natural end, allowing us to reflect on the resistance we will be called to offer against the blood-thirsty Leviathan.

What will the apparently inevitable removal of “conscience clause” protections do? It will not change the behavior of those doctors and nurses who refuse to murder children in the womb on principle rather than out of convenience or velleity. It will rather change the kind of witness they bear. At present, such persons are signs of contradiction in a culture that believes the question of technocratic possibility-can one do it?-alone matters, and that questions of moral necessity-should one do something?-are private affairs, pleasant to entertain when watching a murder mystery on television but irrelevant to questions of public policy. But if Obama and his Catholic Democratic sycophants have their way, such persons will be something more than signs of contradiction; in losing their careers or at least their positions, they will be martyrs.
James Matthew Wilson
http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/?p=2597

What will the apparently inevitable removal of “conscience clause” protections do? It will not change the behavior of those doctors and nurses who refuse to murder children in the womb on principle rather than out of convenience or velleity. It will rather change the kind of witness they bear. At present, such persons are signs of contradiction in a culture that believes the question of technocratic possibility-can one do it?-alone matters, and that questions of moral necessity-should one do something?-are private affairs, pleasant to entertain when watching a murder mystery on television but irrelevant to questions of public policy. But if Obama and his Catholic Democratic sycophants have their way, such persons will be something more than signs of contradiction; in losing their careers or at least their positions, they will be martyrs.

Economic martyrdom is meaningless in modern America. The only martyrs that draw universal sympathy are those who are the targets of violence. It will only impress those who already agree with them, and most people who are sympathetic to abortion rights activists will simply call it "mindless right-wing extremism against women's rights."

The time for active, if not violent, revolt is coming soon. Christians can start by unconditionally refusing to cooperate with the police, refusing to bear witness in court against anyone accused of failing to provide an abortion, and conspiring to maintain a position on the jury so as to nullify the verdict.

Tony:

It is absolutely the case that the context Fish is talking about is precluding doctors from getting or keeping their license from the state if they refuse to help with abortions. This "purely legal" result will effectively banish them from the "community" of doctors, regardless of whatever standards the medical professional associations themselves have established.
I continue to be puzzled at the suggestion that I am somehow unaware of the cultural and legal context of pro-abortion activists trying to pass laws to force, either directly or through intervening in the medical associations, doctors to perform abortions or else lose their Nanny-state licenses. As I've stated repeatedly, I'm not. Really. My point is a narrow one: the conscience clause as it is currently formulated ("do whatever your conscience says") is intrinsically unjust because it undermines a community's ability to maintain itself, despite the clause's positive consequences. NO ONE here would have difficulty grasping the destructive effects of an open-ended conscience clause if it were applied to a Christian church, that you can believe/do whatever your conscience tells you without fear of being removed from the community.

So, being aware of the cultural/legal context, I suggest, once again, that we do things the right way: 1) Oppose this dumb, half-baked conscience clause. 2) Oppose State laws forcing doctors to do abortions not because it happens to be against their conscience, but because abortion is objectively evil without regard to anyone's personal conscience.

If we let this conscience clause (increasingly) become a standard cultural principle, it will destroy communities because it enthrones the individual conscience as supreme over against communities which will have zero recourse, even if it happens in this one case to result in good effects. No, people are not using the conscience clause to refuse to treat dying patients because it would "cruelly extend their suffering"... yet. But you all must realize that that time will come, and all the more sooner if we open this "conscience clause" Pandora's box now.

It's tempting though, to do what will result in good consequences with the wrong but easier means. It's the standard liberal progressive rationalization.

Mike T:

That is a simplistic take on it. The conscience clause is actually quite enlightened and rational, as it recognizes that there are cases where people may be compelled to do things which they legitimately believe are immoral.
I'm not talking about theoretical enlightenment philosophy. I'm talking about what Hobbes thought, and he would not have thought the conscience clause was "enlightened and rational" because he already thought individuals should give up their rights/responsibilities to the all-powerful State, thus relieving individual consciences of even the possibility of guilt. So any "conscience clause" would have been totally irrelevant to Hobbes, for his individual citizens would have already given up their consciences to the King. For Hobbes, only the King has to worry about his conscience, which bears the weight of all the citizens' consciences given up to him as well.

I think that's evil, but that's what he thought.

So, Albert, are you just _ignoring_ what I have said about supporting Smith's suggestions for revising the conscience clause? Are you also _ignoring_ what I have said about Fish's support (and the support of many others like him), not for revising, but for ditching, the conscience clause? If they were concerned about the kinds of refusals you are concerned about, they could easily have sided with Smith and suggested revisions. But we all know that isn't what this culture-war battle is about on the left.

I'm not talking about theoretical enlightenment philosophy.

And I wasn't talking about The Enlightenment. I was just using "enlightened" as an adjective.

I think that's evil, but that's what he thought.

It is positively evil, as it either compels good men to do evil or gives evil men freedom from responsibility. I haven't gotten around to reading The Leviathan, but if that's what Hobbes argued, I think he ranks right up there among history's small list of philosophers and leaders who, as we southerners sometimes say "just need killin."

I mean really, there are people like Hobbes and Marx whose ideas are so vile and yet powerful that killing them in cold blood would have been a mercy toward the human race.

One of the many problems with both Hobbes and Fish is that they simply refuse to take into account human nature. The conscience clause takes human nature into account and provides society with a safety valve that limits the possibility of open revolt. The threat to public order from doctors not providing abortions is mostly backed by the paranoid, diseased and demented arguments of the pro-abortion side. The threat to public order from forcing doctors to provide abortions, however, is non-trivial. That might actually cause a serious revolt.

My point is a narrow one: the conscience clause as it is currently formulated ("do whatever your conscience says") is intrinsically unjust

But that's not what the clause does. The clause denies funding to a facility which refuses to allow a practitioner to NOT PARTICIPATE in an action he objects to on moral grounds. In other words, the root thing that is the subject of the policy is the right of a practitioner to NOT ACT. Other than in a good samaritan situation, there is never a moral obligation for a physician to take on a professional activity, so there is no way the hospital or local community policies (refusing the right to not act) are directed toward preventing an injustice.

If there should arise a new situation in which there were doctors committing injustices by refusing to act, then we can always modify the regs. As it stands now, there is no injustice the "community" policies (and state) laws are aimed at.

There might indeed be valid concerns about whether this regulation is properly a federal role, or is rather a usurpation of state rights. I think that in absolute terms, it probably is usurpation. However, the Supreme Court's Roe decision was pretty much was a complete usurpation of state rights also. Until that one is fixed - until the country as a whole gives the power back to the states to decide on how they want to protect humans and human rights suitably - there is a damaged, tilted playing field. It should not be surprising, then, that the best types of corrections are unavailable, and we have to make do with less perfect ones. I will advocate not using federal power to override unjust, evil state rules on abortion when the states can freely act to restrict and limit abortion as they ought.

The time for active, if not violent, revolt is coming soon.

Please.

Iron-clad rule; People unwilling to use the tools we have now, such as praying in front of abortuaries, aren't going to be able to engage in more demanding stuff later. Thinking otherwise is kind of like the blowhard softball player with a knack for producing gentle pop-ups to short-stop, claiming he could hit major league pitching if given the chance. They'll simply satisfy themselves by reading samzidat from the underground Church and waving packets of Lipton at CNN camera crews at state-sanctioned protests.

Let's employ the tools we have now before blustering about violence, o.k.?

While I would not dare advocate the kind of violent action as uttered in the above-cited quote, at the same time, I would not dare leave such things to prayer alone.

As I recall, there were certain interlocutors who virtually depended only on prayer rather than engaging in specific action, especially when it came to the elections of last year.

Though it may ring undoubtedly true that the prayers of the righteous man is efficacious (for which I have but great respect for such persons who happen to recommended this kind of spiritual activity insofar as requesting divine assistance of the "ask & you shall receive" variety), the fact that a viscous pro-abort like Obama won the elections and who, just at the start of his administration, began a global crusade for abortion (the likes of which will undoubtedly have even far greater negative repercussion not only within our own nation but now across the world as well), should serve as a stark reminder to those who would solely rely on acts of prayer alone but do not go so far as to engage in far more appropriate action to more effectively resolve such matters as grave as these on behalf of the innocents (which death toll will exponentially rise than ever before) through, among other things, the political process that is afforded us in our nation (i.e., not only through legislative action but also through the electoral process as well).

As I recall, there were certain interlocutors who virtually depended only on prayer rather than engaging in specific action, especially when it came to the elections of last year.
I don't recall any such thing, though I do recall some people pretending, in intransigent hyperbolic fantasy which apparently still persists, that refusing to cast a vote for a specific candidate was the same thing as refusing to act at all and in general.

Zippy:

As they say, you sow what you reap.

This will unfortunately be a painful lesson that we will all have to apparently endure for the next 8 (and even more) years.

Whether or not this particular lesson will at all be learned by certain individuals and, even more specifically, a certain (dare I say even, "hopelessly") lost party, is another matter entirely.

I think that in absolute terms, it probably is usurpation.

I don't agree with that, given that it's an issue of federal funding. The _existence_ of federal funding _at all_ may be unconstitutional, if one takes one's 10th amendment seriously. But the _limiting_ of federal funding can't really in itself be a usurpation of the rights of the states, because federal funding isn't an entitlement, either for the states or for health care facilities. Of course, threats of such funding limitation can be used in an evil way; I've conjectured they may be used to try to force Catholic hospitals to allow abortions on-site. But that's different from any sort of states-rights issue.

Let me emphasize again that I share some of Wesley Smith's concerns regarding an absolutely open-ended conscience clause. For example, one can imagine that a group of doctors at a given nursing home might refuse to provide tube feeding for a resident who had a stroke, thus causing the resident to die of dehydration. The nursing home might be at risk of losing federal funds if the home director fired the doctors and they claimed that letting the resident die of dehydration was a matter of their "refusing to act" out of "conscientious objections." That's why I think the clause needs to be revised. But that's just not going to happen. The Obama admin is going to revoke it altogether, and meanwhile at various levels of government crazy pseudo-"standards" will be put into place forcing doctors _at least_ to refer for abortions, possibly to refer for suicide prescriptions (in states that have legal suicide), etc. So people have "access," you know. In Boston a Catholic charity has agreed in theory to provide _transportation_ for abortions in order to get a contract to give poor people healthcare.

...should serve as a stark reminder to those who would solely rely on acts of prayer alone but do not go so far as to engage in far more appropriate action...

Ari, no one here has said prayer alone will suffice, since it is an active prayer life that generates the desire, courage and energy to act.

Below is the unabridged, comprehensive list of all the appropriate actions you have recommended in the past;


Vote Republican.


Feel free to update it.


For the record, I have never been pro-abortion--Stanley Fish

“I do not support abortion rights. Although what I would support in this vexed area is not clear to me.” -Stanley Fish

Stan,
Your ego won't allow you to run from the cleverly designed, but oppressive and claustrophobic mental landscape pf your own making. No one envies your moral confusion and the resulting madness.Humility is your only route of escape, but can you take it?

But if it is legal, Prof. Fish, those doctors who refuse to (at least) refer women for abortions are "sectarians" rather than "citizens," are unprofessional, and should not be protected from sanction?

Well, if that was really Mr. Fish, I'm pleasantly surprised he found this website, though I wish he could have seen one of Lydia's better entries, instead of this over-the-top piece.

Lydia, I read what you wrote. My thoughts on those points are in my previous comments.

Mike T:

And I wasn't talking about The Enlightenment. I was just using "enlightened" as an adjective.
Right... and yet, nevertheless, I was talking about Hobbes, and you were responding to me. So, if you want to respond to me, maybe you should try to address what I'm talking about. That's generally helpful when trying to respond to someone.

Tony:

But that's not what the clause does. The clause denies funding to a facility which refuses to allow a practitioner to NOT PARTICIPATE in an action he objects to on moral grounds. In other words, the root thing that is the subject of the policy is the right of a practitioner to NOT ACT.
The "act" and "non-act" distinction is irrelevant with respect to a community, which may certainly impose both positive and negative duties on its members. For instance, according to your "non-action is okay" understanding, a doctor may NOT PARTICIPATE in providing fluids to a patient if the doctor objects to it on moral grounds such as "It extends suffering." This is precisely the danger that W. Smith and others have seen. The "non-action" and "action" distinction is irrelevant in this situation.
Other than in a good samaritan situation, there is never a moral obligation for a physician to take on a professional activity, so there is no way the hospital or local community policies (refusing the right to not act) are directed toward preventing an injustice.
I really have no idea why you assume this so strongly; at best, it applies to the general population, not to a doctor within the context of his profession. But not only is the act/non-act distinction irrelevant in this situation, this brings up the point that it is the medical community's responsibility to decide their profession's obligations (though it can certainly ask for feedback from the outside). Not yours or any random outsider. Not the government's, unless, as I've said over and over again, explicitly in pursuit of justice (the realm of the govt), for example, by banning doctors from performing abortions. The medical community can certainly be wrong about their proper boundaries, but it's their responsibility to make and sustain the boundaries of their community, and the conscience clause simply undermines the community's capacity for integrity with no explicitly defined purpose of justice, and is therefore unjust in itself.

As I've said before, the idea of a conscience clause is dumb. Any revisions to conscience clauses to make them acceptable would only succeed by revising the "conscience" out of the conscience clause. Either a government-legislated clause supports/prohibits something just/unjust or not. What any given individual conscience feels about whether it is good or not is irrelevant to the community's standards, and if the individual does not desire to adhere to the community's standards, the individual does not desire to be a part of the community and should leave; it could not be any other way, it seems.

For the record, I have never been pro-abortion--Stanley Fish
Lydia, it's been two days since "stanley fish" corrected you, and you haven't updated your post that confidently declares Professor Fish to be "so pro-abortion...." I wonder whether you are still insisting that he is pro-abortion. If not, an edit and an apology for the error may be in order.

Albert--I'm very used to the, "Oh, no, I'm not pro-abortion, I'm just pro-choice" nonsense one hears from the liberals. So I'm not impressed by Prof. Fish's brief statement. I continue to assert that anyone who says that doctors should be forced to participate in abortions, even by being forced to refer, _is_ pro-abortion, whatever such a person may say to the contrary. What such a person says to the contrary is sheer sophistry. You will notice that I gave Prof. Fish a chance to say that his rants against "sectarians" did not refer to doctors who refuse to be complicit in abortion (even by referral). Had he said that, I would have asked him what the dickens he _was_ talking about in the post. Was it pharmacists who refuse to dispense Plan B? (But in that case, we may be talking about abortion after all.) Was it doctors who refuse to dispense suicide drug prescriptions? (That's hardly better, if better at all, than doctors who refuse to refer for abortion.) No silly hypotheticals allowed. No balderdash about the hypothetical possibility of a vegetarian doctor who refuses to treat meat-eaters or a Mormon who refuses to treat smokers. That _isn't happening_. Let's talk real. Obviously, he didn't write the column because of some stupid pure hypothetical that isn't happening. He had some real "sectarians" in mind in his rant about people who should set aside their so-called "religious" scruples and do what (his version of) "professionalism" requires. So let's have it: Who is it? Who is the target? I want to know. Because we all know that abortion is very much in the context of this, and if he didn't mean doctors who refuse to (at least) refer for abortions, he _certainly_ should have said so, and he should also tell us what else he meant. Hey, if he thinks refusal to participate in any way in abortion is an important freedom for doctors, he could even update *his* post:

"To avoid any unclarity, let me say this: I am so far from being pro-abortion that I think it's very important that the status quo should be maintained whereby doctors are permitted not to participate in abortions in any way. They are not the 'sectarians' in mind. It is entirely professional for a doctor to refuse even to refer for an abortion. Instead, I was thinking of people who refuse to dispense prescriptions for suicide drugs in states where suicide is legal." For example.

Then I'll update my post here to say, "Correction: Dr. Fish is actually mouth-foamingly pro-suicide, not pro-abortion." And we can get on.

Kevin,

"Vote Republican. Feel free to update it."


I thought I had done this given my subsequent comments on the April 17, 2009 8:28 PM post.

Still, in spite of my tremendous displeasure at so disappointing a political party as that, although this is (since that fateful day in November) entirely moot, I hardly think that a McCain administration would have engaged in so similarly as sweeping a visciously pro-"Culture-of-Death" program as the present administration has done so notoriously (aspiring even to a global scale) at its very start.

(dearest apologies to Lydia -- that will be the end of that tangent.)

Iron-clad rule; People unwilling to use the tools we have now, such as praying in front of abortuaries, aren't going to be able to engage in more demanding stuff later. Thinking otherwise is kind of like the blowhard softball player with a knack for producing gentle pop-ups to short-stop, claiming he could hit major league pitching if given the chance. They'll simply satisfy themselves by reading samzidat from the underground Church and waving packets of Lipton at CNN camera crews at state-sanctioned protests.

I have already resolved in my mind that if I ever get called for jury duty, and I believe that an act of injustice has taken place, I will do whatever I can to get on and stay on the jury. I would go so far as to deceive the defense and prosecution as to my real motives to ensure that I can do my part to secure justice.

Let's employ the tools we have now before blustering about violence, o.k.?

Check that comment again, Kevin, I said that we are not at the point for violent revolt.

Right... and yet, nevertheless, I was talking about Hobbes, and you were responding to me. So, if you want to respond to me, maybe you should try to address what I'm talking about. That's generally helpful when trying to respond to someone.

And yet, I did. I pointed out that the conscience clause is a useful and necessary exception in modern society because of the way that government has its tentacles in everything. You say it is not necessary, even absurd. I say that it is an intelligent, enlightened patch on a greater problem that keeps the system from collapsing in on itself by forcing a large number of people to do what their consciences tell them is irredeemably evil. People have gone into open revolt over less, and considering the sway that the Catholic Church has over the medical profession, it has more than enough influence to cause an incredible trauma to the nation's medical system if forced to do evil.

Not that I would blame the Catholic Church in the least for inflicting that on society. A society that forces its doctors to murder babies is a society that deserves tyranny, poverty and societal chaos.

Okay, Lydia, you can project whatever assumptions you want into whoever's words you want and demand that Fish write about what you want him to write about rather than what he actually wrote. Go for it. That seems presumptive, silly and pointless to me, and I'm a bit tired of this nonsense. You can have the last word.

Mike T, it's pretty sad that you simply reduce the discussion to a "you say, I say" without actually addressing any of the numerous points that make up my argument. Whatever, man.

I'm done here. There's certainly enough written for people to read and understand the discussion.

...considering the sway that the Catholic Church has over the medical profession, it has more than enough influence to cause an incredible trauma to the nation's medical system if forced to do evil.

You seem to overestimate the seeming power of 'the Catholic Church over the medical profession'.

More accurately put, given the tremendously severe cost of medical care today, those hospitals under the Church are actually at the mercy of the government, upon whom they predominantly depend on for financial support and medical reimbursement.

You seem to overestimate the seeming power of 'the Catholic Church over the medical profession'.

More accurately put, given the tremendously severe cost of medical care today, those hospitals under the Church are actually at the mercy of the government, upon whom they predominantly depend on for financial support and medical reimbursement.

What's the cost to the Catholic Church if it disbands its hospitals in protest of a mandate to provide abortions? The price of hiring lawyers to liquidate its assets and pay severance to the hospitals' employees.

aristocles,

Don't forget too that there are a number of protestant-run hospitals that would follow suit as well, such as the ones that are affiliated with the Southern Baptists. The RCC would not be alone in this fight.

Mike T, I wish I could share your predictions. My own prediction is that there will be a lot more compromising. Consider the following facts: When the Vatican published a piece recently stating that food and water are ordinary rather than extraordinary care, there were reports of consternation in some Catholic hospitals which had been justifying dehydrating people to death as "letting die," a position defended, I gather, by some Catholic theologians. I doubt that any of them radically changed their practice. At the time all I saw was talk about "having to investigate whether this would require a change in practice," or words to that effect. Second, the diocesan charity in Boston recently accepted a government (I believe city, but it might be from the state) contract which, at least in theory, requires them to be willing to provide a phone number and even if necessary _transportation_ to women seeking abortions.

If I had to make a prediction, I would guess that the direction most Catholic hospitals and hitherto-prolife doctors will go on this is to refer for abortions. That, they will consider, splits the difference between performing them and defying the leftists outright. They will hope that it will be accepted as a compromise. It may be accepted as a compromise for a while, but not forever. The next step will be requiring Catholic hospitals to allow abortions on-site, and my guess is that by that time, resistance will have been whittled down to the point that they will cave.

You see, there is a great feeling of grief at giving up a ministry where you are helping people. How many lives are invested in the Catholic medical system? Do you remember how much Catholic Charities in Boston was blamed for closing rather than placing children with homosexual couples? That would be multiplied a thousandfold with hospitals. And individuals who believe they have been called to the vocation of medicine will quite understandably not want just to _get out_ and give up the vocation to which they are called.

As for outright civil disobedience--staying in business and defying the law--my own guess is that very few individuals and no hospitals will do it or even consider it.

Mike T,

Though your passion for the cause seems admirable, it appears entirely misplaced where the very principle for the defense of Life itself is greatly misapplied.

I think you are neglecting the kind of significant harm done to the populace of various cities should any of these entities, as a consequence of so awful an action as this, turn away patients especially those in desperate need of immediate medical care.

Are you seriously proposing to save Life by being complicit in or even by actually committing what essentially is murder?

I don't follow, Aristocles. Maybe I just haven't read Mike T's comments carefully enough. I think he's just suggesting that Catholic hospitals close rather than be complicit in abortions. Am I missing something?

I think he's just suggesting that Catholic hospitals close rather than be complicit in abortions.

Do you know just how many hospitals are typically situated within a certain city?

Not too many hospitals in the city where I'm located. Most of them have closed down.

Simply put, should Catholic hospitals in particular cities proceed in the sort of action both you and he are advocating, you'll render inhabitants (both innocent children and adult alike) of entire cities at the mercy of death.

For my part, I'd rather see them engage in civil disobedience. But I certainly would rather see them close than compromise on abortion. What's your suggestion?

It would certainly not be one that means turning away the helpless elderly, children and adults that require immediate and other necessary medical care that only the nearest (and, in many cases, the only existing) Catholic hospital can provide.

Aristocles, at some point people are going to have to make a choice. If you are saying hospitals must never close or act in such a way that they will be forcibly closed, then they will have to cooperate with anything. Next after abortions on-site it will be assisted suicide and active euthanasia of the elderly on-site. After that, infanticide for born infants. If they continue giving in to anything, there will be no point in calling them "Catholic" hospitals. My question to you was serious. I'm actually rather shocked if what this means is that you think they should just say, with reluctance, "Okay, we'll provide referrals for abortions. Oh, that's not enough. Okay, doctors can now perform abortions at our sites. Okay, okay, we'll do whatever the state demands at our hospitals." At some point, the evil of stopping good people from doing good things has to lie with the evil people who stop them.

As I've said, I certainly would consider it legitimate for them to just keep operating and not do what the law demands, but in the end they will be forcibly shut down then as well. If you think they have to do whatever it takes to stay open, then you're going to have the most despicable active crimes being aided, abetted, and performed at Catholic hospitals in the end. The culture of death brooks no dissent.

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