Thursday, July 20, 2006
Tying A Knot...
Okay, something that kinda disturbed me cos I hadn't thought anyone would really consider it an issue... I was reading this article in the Washington Post, and a line confused me, where they mention that some anaetha... Anethesiologists refused to participate in sterilization procedures. Thinking, "so what, they don't wash their hands? That's kinda gross."then I look up the word, and see that other than cleanliness, the term sterilization also refers to vasectomies and tube tying. Sure I can understand Catholics not wanting to have the operation done on themselves, but what gives them the right to refuse me treatment? (20 odd years down the road when there's a few too many sprouts running about already)
It's one of those concerns again, that Christianity, along with Islam, is a proselytizing religion, and there's something deep within the mindset that makes forcing your morals on someone else somehow legitimate.
So a Catholic Anethesiologist, the only one in a 200mi radius, serving an entire community of non-catholics, has the power to refuse these operations to that community? there's something wrong with that.
posted by Keegan at 2:11 pm
----------------
2 Comments:
Picture this.
You're a doctor and you strongly believe abortion is murder. You're not of any religious persuasion, yet on moral grounds you refuse to perform the operation. I'd say that's a fair call.
Now look at the Catholic doctor who holds those same values on the belief that a higher power orders it. Does that suddenly make his refusal to perform the surgery illegitimate?
One bioethicist in that article said "You are not supposed to use your professional status as a vehicle for cultural conquest."
What if you are a Jewish chef, refusing to cook pig at a function? Or a Hindu storeowner who refuses his customers their supposed "right" to buy a leather jacket? Must they deny their god and succumb to the demands of a hungry executive, or whoever the man may be?
Or what if your daughter's pet dog is dying a slow, excruciating death. Being a strong-willed young girl, she knows it would be best for the animal to die. But you are an agnostic animal liberationist and you feel nature should take its course.
Who should you answer to? Your daughter? Your patient? Yourself? God?
You do what you know is best.
(Part 2)
I think the article was trying to make a different point. Not that established religion is out to convert us; rather that assuming position as a professional should mean for those 40 hours each week we become what the job demands of us.
But that itself is not clear cut. Being a doctor or gynaecologist means you are able and maybe expected to perform many of the same things. But there may be a Mens' Health specialist who was initially trained in womens' health. He is capable of performing, say, a pregnancy ultrasound, but he practices in another field now. If he is approached, should he be obliged to attend to the woman, despite practising Mens' Health now? Does the ability demand an obligation? Or his social status as a doctor? Maybe the local gynaecologist is out of town and he is the only qualified man around.
Where do professionalism and individuality overlap? Should you be fully professional from 9 til 5, minus an hour for lunch in the middle? Or is it fine to be yourself on the job, offering services that may be against-the-book, but in your own or your patient's best interests?
Secondly, I'm sure you'll understand that morals are not entirely dictated by religion. Religions may attempt to spread their view, but then the individual takes them on as his own, one by one. In a diverse society we speak of morals as being relative to each person. Well we try, despite the natural pull toward some common ethics. And I gather this is what the people want as part of their own freedom.
But when our morals clash with somebody else's, should we relinquish them? Or bow to the dominant moral code of the era? I think it not wise to understand our own morals as an unattainable ideal, rather than a code to uphold what we believe is right and good.
At the least, if we give up our morals, even under orders, we are giving up our freedom; we deny our freedom to decide on something, in an attempt not to deny another of that which they have already chosen.
Post a Comment
<< Home