Was the Supreme Court right to rule that the Affordable Care Act violated the religio
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No - The ruling allows bosses to impose their religious beliefs on their employees. Besides, the Constitution grants religious freedom to individuals, not corporations.
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Yes - The religious beliefs of company owners take precedence over their employees' right to have access to birth control.
Should religious family-owned companies be required to cover contraceptives under their insurance plans? The high court says no.
I'm curious how you nurses feel about this? Please take a second to vote in our quick poll.
This is a highly political topic, I'd rather not turn this into a hot argumentative subject, so please keep your comments civil :) But please feel free to comment. Thanks
In a 5-4 decision Monday, the Supreme Court allowed a key exemption to the health law's contraception coverage requirements when it ruled that closely held for-profit businesses could assert a religious objection to the Obama administration's regulations. What does it mean? Here are some questions and answers about the case.What did the court's ruling do?
The court's majority said that the for-profit companies that filed suit-Hobby Lobby Stores, a nationwide chain of 500 arts and crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, a maker of custom cabinets-didn't have to offer female employeesall Food and Drug Administration-approved contraceptivesas part of a package of preventive services that must be covered without copays or deductibles under the law. The companies had argued that several types of contraceptivesviolate their owners' religious beliefs. The ruling also covers a Hobby Lobby subsidiary, the Mardel Christian bookstores.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they may act accordingly upon it, especially if their action does not interfere with the freedoms of another citizen of this country.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they may act accordingly upon it, if their action does not interfere with the LIFE and DEATH of another in this country.
You're talking about taking a LIFE. Do you feel you are entitled to do so?
Can abortion clinics be trusted to give women full disclosure of information?
Here are a few quotes from abortion workers themselves:
"We were hiding from the women some of the pieces of truth about abortion that were threatening....It is a kind of killing." (Former clinic administrator Charlotte Taft quoted in "Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic", Wendy Simonds, Rutgers University Press, 1996)
"Vital signs should be observed regularly, and a Doppler [for listening to the fetal heartbeat] inaudible to the patient should be used at intervals to determine the presence or absence of fetal heart tones... This [informed consent] is a controversial area, but most professionals in the field feel that it is not advisable for patients to view the products of conception, to be told the sex of the fetus, or to be informed of a multiple pregnancy". (Ref: Abortionist Warren Hern, "Abortion Practice", Lippincott: 1984)
"’How big is the baby now?' These words suggest a quiet need for definition of the boundaries being drawn. It isn't so odd, after all, that she feels relief when I describe the growing buds bulbous shape, its miniature nature. Again, I gauge, and sometimes lie a little, weaseling around its infantile features until its clinging power slackens." (Abortion Worker Sallie Tisdale, "We Do Abortions Here", Harper’s Magazine, October 1987)
"I have never yet counseled anybody to have the baby. I'm also doing women's counseling on campus at Albany State, and there I am expected to present alternatives. Whereas at the abortion clinic you aren't really expected to." (Ref: Anonymous Abortion Counselor, "Rachel Weeping and Other Essays About Abortion", J. Tunstead Burtchaell, editor, 1982)
"Sonography in connection with induced abortion may have psychological hazards. Seeing a blown-up, moving image of the embryo she is carrying can be distressing to a woman who is about to undergo an abortion, Dr. Sally Faith Dorfman noted. She stressed that the screen should be turned away from the patient." ("Obstetrics and Gynecology News" editorial February 15-28, 1986)
"In my facilities, I always gave option counseling. Of course you make the abortion the most appealing. I told them about adoption and about foster care and about [when there was welfare] assistance. The typical way it would go is, "Well, you know you can place your baby out for adoption." But then, in the second breath you would say, "That's an option available to you, but you also have to realize that there's going to be a baby of yours out here somewhere in the world you will never see again. At least with abortion you know what's happening. You can go on with your life...The longer I was in it, the less I cared, so I really didn't really care what my conscience said. My conscience was totally numb anyway. But what it did do was public relations-wise. You were able, when a reporter or TV crew came, to pull out a packet of information for the patients to read and they received it. So what can anybody say? Publicly it looked good -- in reality it was another tool that was used to force a woman into abortion. It's typical -- I would give them an option and then shoot it down. The only option you didn't shoot down, obviously, was abortion." (Former abortion clinic owner Eric Harrah quoted by Dr. Jack Willke and Brad Mattes
"They [the women] are never allowed to look at the ultrasound because we knew that if they so much as heard the heartbeat, they wouldn't want to have an abortion." (Dr. Randall, "Pro-Choice 1990: Skeletons in the Closet", by David Kuperlain and Mark Masters in Oct "New Dimensions" magazine)
"Every woman has these same two questions: First, "Is it a baby?" "No" the counselor assures her. "It is a product of conception (or a blood clot, or a piece of tissue)... How many women would have an abortion, if they told them the truth?" (Carol Everett, former owner of two clinics and director of four clinics, "A Walk Through an Abortion Clinic", ALL About Issues magazine, Aug-Sept 1991)
"From May to November 1988, I worked for an abortionist. He specializes in third trimester killings. I witnessed evidence of the brutal, cold blooded murder of over 600 viable, healthy babies at seven, eight and nine months gestation. A very, very few of these babies, less than 2%, were handicapped...I thought I was pro-choice and I was glad to be working in an abortion clinic. I thought I was helping provide a noble service to women in crisis... I was instructed to falsify the age of the babies in medical records. I was required to lie to the mothers over the phone, as they scheduled their appointments, and to tell them that they were not 'too far along.’ Then I had to note, in the records that Dr. Tiller's needle had successfully pierced the walls of the baby's heart, injecting the poison what brought death... Mine was the agony of a participant, however reluctant, in the act of prenatal infanticide." (Luhra Tivis quoted in "Where is the Real Violence?", Celebrate Life, Sept/Oct 1994)
"If a woman we were counseling expressed doubts about having an abortion, we would say whatever was necessary to persuade her to abort immediately." (Judy W., former office manager of the second largest abortion clinic in El Paso, Texas)
"We tried to avoid the women seeing them [the aborted babies]. They always wanted to know the sex, but we lied and said it was too early to tell. It's better for the women to think of the fetus as an ‘it’. (Abortion clinic worker Norma Eidelman quoted in "Rachel Weeping" p 34)
"In fact many women will come to me considering abortion, and I have been personally told that I am to turn the monitor away from her view so that seeing her baby jump around on the screen does not influence her choice." (Shari Richards, quoted from the John Ankerburg Show, 3/7/90)
"It is extremely difficult to watch doctors lie, clinic workers cover up, and hear terrifying stories of women dragged out of clinics to die in cars on the way to the hospital without beginning to question the party line. I began to wonder if we were really caring for these women, or if we were just working for another corporation whose only interest was the bottom line." (Judith Fetrow, Former Planned Parenthood worker)
There are a lot of things "comprehensive insurance" doesn't pay for. Things like oral chemotherapy, certain drugs to treat hep c and cystic fibrisos , tube feeding and surgeries such as HIPECs. I find it interesting that no one is concerned about these things, just birth control. If my insurance doesn't cover a particular form of birth control, my options are to purchase it myself or use a different form. No one is telling me what to do, they just don't want to pay for it.
If women want to be truly liberated, stand on your own 2 feet.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
Hobby Lobby provides birth control as part of their benefits package. What they objected to was being mandated to pay for the morning after pill which is not birth control but an abortificant. There is a difference.
It is NOT an abortifacient. It prevents ovulation and implantation. Just like every other oral contraceptive.
What is scary to me is that the people who are so pro-life they can't see the forrest through the trees are the same ones who now can get as close as they want to planned parenthood and other clinics.
Using the religious standpoint, any "sins" that I commit are my own. The rights you so strongly hold to goes against the stone throwing, judgement that apparently is against your religion.
Pro-choice is not pro abortion. It is a highly personal decision that is made privately. But I can not stress this enough--an IUD nor the morning after pill are chemical abortion drugs. As nurses, we know this.
As nurses, our judgements need to stay out of the bedside. As "family held" corporations, perhaps not offering health insurance as a sheep in wolf's clothing would be the right thing to do.
This is not about women crying as victims. It is about if I pay dearly for the most complete coverage, then well, my expectation is to be covered to the level as everyone else.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they may act accordingly upon it, especially if their action does not interfere with the freedoms of another citizen of this country.
Why should an unwilling woman be forced to carry an unborn child for 9 months?
The question is improperly phrased and needs to be rephrased: "Does anyone have an unconditional right to a certain lifestyle?" In EVERY civilization known to mankind, the answer has always been "No". Our 'rights' have ALWAYS been governed by the effect on others - especially if harmful to others. This is why we have laws on driving, smoking, drinking alcohol, taking drugs, and the list goes on... Is it really an inconvenience to live and act in such a way as to preserve the safety of those around us? Are we really being "forced" to drive within the speed limits? Are we really being "forced" to avoid drinking while driving or "forced" to smoke in designated areas so others won't be harmed? Or is using the word "forced" a matter of manipulative and political semantics?
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
As a woman's health nurse who counsels women on birth control and pregnancy options every single day, I've got to say that I've never been so angry and upset by a thread at AN than I am at some of the responses in this thread. I just need to leave this thread before my head explodes.
It is a highly personal decision that is made privately...As nurses, our judgements need to stay out of the bedside.
Isn't having an abortion a private matter?
The decision to have an abortion is not a private matter - it involves more than the woman but also her child - that is, two entities. Similar reasoning is seen when civil authorities get involved in the case of an adult who is seen physically abusing their child. The authorities are not merely 'interfering in a private matter' but are coming to the aid of the helpless child.
It is a common ploy by those who victimize others to make the claim that others have no say in their "private matter". Slave owners, even dictators of foreign countries, routinely tell those who seek justice for the victims to stop interfering in their "private matter". However, this is nothing more than a dishonest claim by criminals to have sole rights over their victims. Those of us who have knowledge of an unjust situation and can help to bring relief to the helpless, are responsible to do so. In the case of abortion, allowing others to dismember and kill their unborn children because it is a "private matter" is nothing short of turning a blind eye to a massive injustice.
"Television interviews in particular should focus on the public issue involved (right to confidential and professional medical care, freedom of choice and so forth) and not on the specific details of the procedure." (Warren Hern M.D., "Abortion Practice", 1984, p.323)
There are a lot of things "comprehensive insurance" doesn't pay for. Things like oral chemotherapy, certain drugs to treat hep c and cystic fibrisos , tube feeding and surgeries such as HIPECs.
I really like this, I wish some of this energy could be devoted to something like this.
As nurses, our judgements need to stay out of the bedside.
You make judgements about others every single day.
Isn't it 'judgmental' to call abortion murder?
Is it judgmental to call rape a heinous crime? We must all agree rape IS a heinous crime - and it is a correct judgment to call it so. All of us already make moral judgments on a regular basis, and should. What would happen if a rapist is allowed to live by his own personal standard of morality - in conflict with the moral standard of his victims? So also, in an abortion, the personal and subjective 'moral' standard of an adult is imposed upon the helpless unborn child - resulting in the death of that child. Where is the justice?
cncyana
47 Posts
Everyone is entitled to their opinion and they may act accordingly upon it, if their action does not interfere with the LIFE and DEATH of another in this country.
You're talking about taking a LIFE. Do you feel you are entitled to do so?