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Archive for November, 2008

Bush Administration Makes Last Ditch Effort to Diminish Women’s Rights

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

Apparently the Bush administration just wasn’t satisfied with all the other steps they have taken to bring the government into our bedrooms and our doctors’ offices: blocking over-the-counter access to the morning-after pill, granting fetuses a higher legal status than women, likening abortion to terrorism, promoting ineffective abstinence-only education, and fighting congressional efforts to give aid to overseas groups that provide contraceptives.¹ It wasn’t enough. They had to make one last ditch effort to further diminish women’s reproductive rights.

Opposition is growing quickly to a Bush administration proposal which seeks to grant sweeping protections to health care providers who oppose medical procedures, such as abortion, based on their religious beliefs. The proposed rule² would prohibit entities that receive federal funding from discriminating against health care workers who refuse to assist in performing abortions or other procedures because of their religious beliefs. It would also prevent hospitals, clinics, doctors’ offices and pharmacies from requiring any employee to “assist in the performance of any part of a health service program or research activity” financed by the Department of Health and Human Services, if that employee refuses because of religious or moral objections.³

Under the current laws, employers must make reasonable accommodations for employees’ religious practices, so long as those practices do not cause “undue hardship” on the business. Under this new proposed rule, family planning providers could be forced “to hire employees who may refuse to do their jobs,” according to the Ohio Health Department. Pharmacies have said this rule would make it legal for their employees to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives and could “lead to Medicaid patients being turned away.” The rule could also overturn state laws which require insurance companies to cover contraceptives and which require hospitals to offer rape victims emergency contraception, according to state officials.⁴

Among those in opposition to the proposed rule are the American Hospital Association, the American Medical Association, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, a vast number of doctors, pharmacists, and hospitals, the attorneys general of 13 states, 28 senators, more than 110 representatives, and many other political leaders, including President-elect Barack Obama. Among those supporting the proposal are the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Catholic Health Association.⁵

Three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, including its Bush-appointed legal counsel, Reed Russell, as well as members Stuart Ishimaru and Christine Griffin, are opposing the rule and have stated, along with other senior members of the commission staff, that their agency was not consulted at all before the proposal was issued. The proposal was received by the White House Office of Management and Budget on August 21 and was approved the same day. These officials have said the rule is unnecessary for the protection of employees and could potentially cause confusion for employers. Mr. Russell pointed to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,⁶ which already prohibits religious discrimination in hiring practices. Mr. Ishimaru and Ms. Griffin issued a letter stating that 40 years of court decisions have “carefully balanced employees’ rights to religious freedom and employers’ business needs,” and that this proposed rule would “throw that entire body of law into question.”⁷

A line needs to be drawn. If your child needed a blood transfusion in order to survive, and your doctor happened to be a Jehovah’s Witness who believed that blood transfusions were forbidden by her God,⁸ would it be acceptable to you if she refused to treat your child? Of course it wouldn’t. You are welcome to believe whatever you want to believe. You can believe that tiny, invisible faeries live underground and whisper your morals to you during the night. Whatever floats your boat. But as soon as you try to enforce those beliefs on me, I have a problem with that. And the next time I go to the pharmacy to receive my doctor-prescribed medicines, be they contraceptives or otherwise, I expect those medicines to be provided to me, regardless of what my pharmacist believes about them.

Download Procrustes’ Crappy Podcast of this Otherwise Excellent Article!

-Laura

Tags: Abortion, abstinence, administration, agency, America, association, attorney, Barack, Barack Obama, belief, Bishop, Bush, Catholic, Christ, Civil Rights, Congress, contraceptive, family, freedom, god, Government, human, Jehovah, Law, legal, medical, medicine, moral, Obama, Ohio, political, president, Procrustes, rape, rights, Senator, terrorism, tolerance, Washington
Posted in Government, Morality, Religion, Sexuality | 7 Comments »

Daily Dose 11-20

Thursday, November 20th, 2008

I’m looking forward to the Blackberry Storm coming out tomorrow. Yay.

The Daily Dose: (I’m a day behind on some of these, but, hey, it’s early — or, at least it was early at some point today)

On Godriddance, AIGBusted reviews the Problems with Presuppositionalism and the Transcendental argument

Presuppositionalism is a term describing the philosophy of a branch of Christians Apologists who either hold that 1) One must choose a worldview upfront, before looking at any evidence, and must use this worldview to interpret all other evidence, and/or 2) Christianity must be assumed in order to use logic, inductive reasoning, or have a consistent worldview.

Barry Leiba, at Staring At Empty Pages, criticizes a recent study linking sexual content on television to teen pregnancy: Carrie Bradshaw might get you pregnant

If you’ve read some of my other complaints about survey-based studies, you’ll know what my complaint about this one is: they have shown correlation, but not causality.

It’s entirely likely that teens who are inclined to be sexually active are also inclined to want to watch TV shows that talk about or depict sex. Inversely, teens who would prefer not to have sex are likely to be more put off by titillating TV.

The New Humanist Blog asks if Obama is a “real” Christian. Sad that they didn’t link to StOP’s “Thank God Obama Worships the “Right” God” article, but I guess since StOP is fairly obscure, I’ll forgive them. An excerpt from their post:

Apparently it all comes down to an interview the now president-elect gave in 2004 in which he described Jesus as “a bridge between God and man”, which some say suggests he doesn’t believe Christ was literally the son of God. According to some bloggers, this amounts to a denial of the Nicene Creed…

Vjack, at Atheist Revolution, proposes a secular community, making the following recommendations:

1. Even though a broad secular community (i.e., atheists, agnostics, humanists, freethinkers, etc.) may be our ultimate goal, we should start with building atheist community.
2. One of the more important initial steps should involve atheist identity, educating our fellow nonbelievers about the meaning of atheism and giving them something with which to identify.
3. Initial efforts to develop atheist community should emphasize common political concerns where support is likely to be nearly unanimous (e.g., preserving separation of church and state, opposing religious extremism, ending informal religious tests for political office, opposing anti-atheist bigotry, etc.).
4. When encountering resistance from our fellow nonbelievers, we should frame the issue as one of ensuring political representation.

My response:
1. Why? Would that create a greater segregation within the skeptic community, or is it a way to join together those with a solid and unwavering characteristic, which might be more effective than trying to add in agnostics, deists, etc.? If the latter, might work.

2. What’s the meaning of atheism? Do you think an organized community of so-called atheists could agree on a definition, and do you think that by doing so, it would dissuade potential members who have slightly different definitions? I’ve seen this happen a lot in atheist forums where different factions emerge, some claiming that atheism is merely a passive godless point of view, while others claim that atheism is an active position against theism.

3. That’s a good one.

4. That’s a start, certainly.

Note that Vjack does address some of my questions in his post, so go take a gander.
StOP

Tags: agnostic, AIGBusted, apologist, Atheism, atheist, bigotry, Bradshaw, Carrie, Christ, Christianity, church, Evolution, god, human, humanist, Interview, Jesus, Logic, Nicene, Obama, philosophy, political, pregnancy, president, secular, sex, skeptic, theist, transcendental, UK, war
Posted in Atheism, Government, Religion | No Comments »

The Land of Ire

Monday, November 17th, 2008

I’ve just returned from a lovely tour of Ireland. The tour was informative, the people were friendly, and the scenery was bright and interesting, despite the drizzle and cloudiness.

I managed to snag one of the many Sunday newspapers, the Sunday Independent, and a front-page article caught my attention. Obviously while I was there, I was curious about the religiousness of the denizens. The Irish seem more practical, with a hint of harmless superstition, than many Americans. The American religious (“Real Americans”) seem obsessed with condemning everyone to hell. The working Irish seem more concerned with keeping themselves alive and having a decent pint. Of course, Irish history is full of religious turmoil (read up on Henry VIII and the eventual split of Ireland, which, up to recently, has been a very dark time for Ireland, indeed), but it doesn’t seem like the issue of religion pervades their everyday life.

The front-page article, though, hinted at the fact that there might be a religious-based element simmering beneath the politics.¹ The article was about the HPV vaccine, and how Ireland had just recently implemented the HPV screening process for adult women. It seems that the Irish government was halting the vaccinations of girls (around the age of 12) because of funding issues. However, the proponents of government-backed vaccinations argued that the real reason was based on the false argument that having vaccinations leads to promiscuity — an argument echoed in the U.S. debate over the very same vaccinations. A prominent Irish politician noted that the antagonists were playing “sexual politics.”

Here’s an excerpt: (emphasis mine)

[A] memorandum, which was drafted in the Department of Health, also sets out various arguments against now going ahead with the vaccination programme by placing significant emphasis on the risk factors associated with the cause of cervical cancer.

It states: “The virus that leads to cervical cancer is transmitted by sexual activity. It is very rare that a girl or woman who has not been sexually active would contract cervical cancer from this virus. The risk factors for cervical cancer are: early onset of sexual activity; multiple sexual partners; and smoking. These risk factors are reduced by health promotion measures.”

The Sunday Independent has established that serious concern exists among several Fianna Fail TDs and senators at the highlighting of what one called “sexual politics” in the debate.

A Fianna Fail TD said: “The whole notion of so-called promiscuous women being linked, albeit subtly, to the withdrawal of the vaccination programme is worrying for many of us in the party — but not all, I should add.”

Another TD said: “There is a real risk here of actually stigmatising women with cervical cancer as some kind of ‘woman of loose morals’.”

James McDaid failed to vote with the Government on a Fine Gael motion critical of the Government’s decision to “abandon” the vaccination programme. Dr McDaid subsequently asked the Dail: “Is there anyone in this House who would not give the vaccine to their daughters today?“

In a related article, it’s argued that, in light of the Irish minister’s assertion that cervical cancer screening obviated the necessity for vaccination, it’s better to have both that and an effective form of prevention rather than just the treatment.²

The vaccine prevents the great majority of these cancers and pre-cancers. It also prevents treatment and treatment side effects. That any serious authority could suggest that early detection is better than prevention is simply absurd.

Well, I suppose we’re not all that unlike, Ireland and America. How many Irish families will be able to afford the 600 Euro (about $758) private HPV vaccinations, now that the health minister has absolved the national vaccination program?³

The Irish government, the health minister in particular, used the “cost” excuse as its primary reason for halting the vaccine, but today, a letter to the Independent performed a simple cost/benefit analysis,⁴ which I think should put any government in its place when it weighs the value of a dollar over that of a life. Here’s an abridged version:

The value put on a life by the National Roads Authority is about €2m….

It is estimated that the cervical cancer vaccine would save 70 to 80 lives a year… a benefit of €150m per annum for a cost of €10m per annum for the vaccine.

The plan is to give the vaccine to 10 to 12-year-olds, but as the average age of onset of cervical cancer is 47, it can be argued that we may have to wait, on average, some 36 years to see the benefits.

This means we have to discount that benefit using the Department of Finance discount rate of 4pc per annum. For example, a benefit of €104 promised for next year, is only worth €100 to us this year, and so on.

Doing this calculation over 36 years means we can only count about one quarter (0.24) of the eventual benefit of €150m. That leaves “only” €36m of benefit today.

Therefore, we would spend €10m every year and we would benefit by €36m every year. That is a benefit to cost ratio of 360pc, rather better than most of our public investments.

It’s necessary for a government to weigh the value of life — the government can’t save every life, and trying to spend the money to do so would end up likely killing more than it saves. However, if it’s purely economic, treat it as such. If it’s morality, on the other hand, based on a skewed, unsupported, and puritanical religious point of view, keep it out of the decision altogether. That goes for all governments, please.

StOP

Tags: America, ban, bright, Government, history, human, Ireland, Irish, LDS, Love, minister, moral, Morality, puritan, Religion, Senator, sex, Sunday, vote
Posted in Government, Morality, Religion, Sexuality | 2 Comments »

Waiter! There’s Dogma in My Primordial Soup!

Monday, November 17th, 2008

“I Give Evolution Two Opposable Thumbs Up” reads the bright blue rear window decal on my car. I have been given much positive feedback on it from strangers. Their feedback gives me a sense of hope that science is valued in Texas in spite of recent discussions by the Texas School Board regarding the watering-down of the science curricula regarding biological evolution¹ .

Why do I need hope? I need hope because our nation, once a place to grow one budding scientist after another is failing. We don’t make scientists, we import them. If it were not for overseas engineers and scientists, the US would be trailing behind other nations in the fields of technology and science² . What kind of future will the children of the U.S. have if the nation is poorly educated in science? Without proper education in the sciences, how can we properly overcome economic, energy, and environmental crises? The United States of America has a short but rich history of innovation and advancement.

What happened? We can point fingers at the quality of our educational system or at the parents who are not involved in their child’s schoolwork. Well, we can point fingers anywhere, really.

However, today I would like to point my finger at the unpatriotic U.S. citizens who oppose a proper education in the sciences. These folks want to teach science in a manner that will not conflict with a book that is a few thousand years old because of their faith. Religious faith should not be mixed with science. Fear and competition led us to achieve scientific greatness when we conquered outer space. It is now ignorance and religious dogma that has led us to our decline in scientific advancement.

We provide an ugly disservice to our nation’s heritage of innovation- one that has made us a great nation, when we place the obstacle of religious dogma in the way of scientific progress.

Tags: America, bio, bright, children, citizen, dogma, Evolution, faith, history, LDS, Logic, Religion, school, school board, Science, United States
Posted in Logic, Religion, Science, Video | 2 Comments »

Life and Death

Sunday, November 9th, 2008

The believers among us are most apt to argue about when life begins. Does life begin at birth, at conception or somewhere in-between? The question of when death occurs is not asked often since a fortuitous death by accident or natural death by illness occurs out of the control of the recently deceased.

However, we have had cases where death has occurred somewhere in the middle, leaving a dilemma for bystanders who see medical professionals and grief-stricken relatives arguing about the state of the patient and the likely outcome of a course of treatment. The most well-known case of recent times was that of Terri Schiavo, who existed in a persistent vegetative state without any reasonable chance of recovery and whose sole existence was provided through parenteral nutrition.

Today, we have in the news yet another case of the game of When Does Death Occur.¹ A young boy named Motl Brody is confined to a hospital following unsuccessful treament of cancer — unfortunately, Motl’s brain stem has “no electrical function”. Motl is dead. While this case would simply end by the patient being removed from life support, Motl’s parents are Hasidic Jews who follow their religious definition of death: the cessation of lung and heart functions.² The irony is that the life support system that supports Motl is entirely man-made and without it Motl’s body would immediately cease to function. The religious definition of death has collided with technology.

How long can medical technology keep Motl’s body alive to satisfy the Judaic definition of non-death? Though no one knows for sure, Motl could live another 10 or 20 years before the actual tissues of his heart or lungs disintegrate (Motl is currently 12 years old). Yes, he is being pumped full of drugs that do the things that his endocrine system cannot since there is zero neurological function. Do we allow religious beliefs, however antiquated or insufficient to deal with modern life, continue to rule the rest of us?

With all due respect to grief-stricken families who wish to allow their loved ones to be maintained, in perpetuity, by a machine that replaces all bodily functions while the standard human functions are irretrievably gone, we should demand that logic and reason withstand the emotional pleas or the silly, outdated religious definitions of when life begins or when death occurs. We are a nation of secular laws that continually suffers from the intrusions of those who believe that an ancient book which speaks of an imaginary sky-daddy somehow should take precedence over the intellect of the human mind.

It will now be up the court system to decide if Motl Brody has passed away. If the court wishes to decide that Motl has not passed away, whether by acquiescing to a religious definition of death (a heinous outcome) or by concluding by some other means that Motl is still alive, the court system should also find that since there is no reasonable hope of rehabilitating Motl to a state which can be considered minimally interactive for a human, the family can surely keep the loved one alive if the family is willing to pay for the entire cost.

Though it is unlikely that the court system will find in favor of The Brodys to keep young Motl connected to life support, even if the court system agrees with the religious beliefs of The Brodys there should be no further demands placed upon those who do not share the same religious beliefs.

UPDATE

Motl Brody has died. He was still on life support at the time of his death, so the legal issue of death is no longer present.³

Download the Podcast – Narrated by Huntingdon

MSNBC.com: NY Family opposes end to care for brain-dead boy. November 8, 2008. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27603719/ [<]
See Transplantation Ethics, Chapter 7, The Conscience Clause: How Much Individual Choice Can Society Tolerate in Defining Death?, by Robert M. Veatch. http://books.google.com/books?id=aNcbKssW30IC&printsec=frontcover#PPA114,M1 [<]
WashingtonPost.com: Boy whose religious parents battled hospital dies. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/16/AR2008111601226_pf.html [<]

Tags: ancient, belief, birth, Brody, death, Eden, ethics, family, human, Judaism, Law, legal, Logic, Love, medical, medicine, Motl, Motl Brody, MSNBC, NBC, Religion, Schiavo, Science, secular, Washington
Posted in Atheism, Logic, Morality, Religion, Science | No Comments »