Daily Dose of Fury

[willowisp]

Any woman who uses birth control (especially those who, like me, need to do so for medical conditions), or anyone who believes his female friends/relatives/SOs have the right to do so, should read this article. Maybe I should demand that they underwrite the hysterectomy I will need if I end up unable to get pills around here.

Comments

Re: Did I miss the topic?

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

Sincere apologies --I skipped ahead a few levels in my discussion, forgetting that not everyone is as familiar with my own views as willowisp is. To backtrack a bit: the issue you raise --the border between personal ethics and professional duties-- is a very good and important one, one my own experiences cause me to agree are critically important. I was a medical student member of the Michigan State Medical Society's House of Delegates during the contentious and explosive debates regarding attempting to craft a stand on Euthanasia and a response to Michigan's ballot initiative to that effect. I've been humbled to have had a tiny part to play in many other similar ethical questions in my involvement with other medical activist issues. And in a few months, upon the completion of my PhD and my return to medical school, I intend to exercise my right of conscience, granted by federal and state law, regarding refusing to participate in abortions as part of my Ob/Gyn training as a third year medical student. Your questions are very important ones, something my own experiences and service cause me to agree with you on.

As I saw it, the specific issue here does tie directly into the abortion question. The reason why physicans and pharmacists are refusing to perscribe birth control pills is because they can terminate life --in essence cause abortions, and they oppose this. I can understand this viewpoint, as at the root of a fairly complex constellation of personal positions around this issue, I fundamentally believe abortion is the termination of life, and is wrong. (To swiftly thumbnail and for brevity's sake overgeneralize highlights of my opinions on abortion: I also think laws attempting to ban abortion are counter-productive, that saving the life of the mother is a legitimate justification for abortion, and that it is our responsibility as those opposed to abortion to make, in our personal lives and in our goverment policy choices, decisions that encourage options other than abortion.)

However, unlike the specific act of surgical termination of pregnancy, birth control pills --perhaps more accurately described as hormonal supplements-- do have specific, widely-accepted medical uses besides preventing or terminating pregnancy, which is what willowisp was referring to, I think. Furthermore, the decision by some pharmacists and some physicans to elect to not provide those pills in many underserved medical areas effectively eliminates access to those medications. In essence, physicians and pharmacists, by choosing to refuse to provide birth control pills because they can be used for abortions, are also making difficult to get those exact same pills for use in non-abortion purposes. And that is a very difficult and complex problem. An analogous situation would be physicans and pharmacists refusing to provide pain-killers because they could be used for euthanasia, and in doing so making access to painkillers extremely difficult.

This is an intensely complex problem, one activists in many of the circles I've had the privelege of serving in have wrestled with, and one without good answers. As a committed Christian and a physican in training, the challenges you point out are very real to me. I have been a part of very heated debates arising from the fact that what constitutes right and wrong --what constitutes ethical behavior-- is an extremely varied and spread question in our diverse culture. I do believe that there are absolutes in right and wrong. The challenge of merging that with my duties as defined by law is a difficult problem, as you point out. As is trying to build public policy that reflects those problems. In this case, the challenge of practitioners who believe the risks and moral peril of perscribing oral contraceptives outweighs the benefits of their non-contraceptive use, vs. the patients who believe otherwise and because of lack of medical access can't get them. Who should win? Damned hard question.