Healthcare as immoral

This is a disturbing trend:

More than a dozen states are considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs, a surge of legislation that reflects the intensifying tension between asserting individual religious values and defending patients' rights.

I'm interested to see where this is going. In some respects, it could be good, if the religious right were to be satisfied in not being forced themselves to give treatments their members find objectionable. Kinda along the lines of, "Don't like abortion? Don't have one." But the thing is, lots of people who don't share those beliefs live in areas where almost everyone else does, which would translate into a denial of necessary, legal treatments simply because of cultural geography. That would suck. I think it's where they're really trying to take it - they want to be able to prevent medical practices of which they do not approve within their local communities, through a combination of either being all the doctors and pharmacists, or using intimidation on non-crazy health professionals who would no longer be armed by the justification that they must provide legal procedures. I think the result will be lots of unnecessary pain and anguish in these communities.

And if that weren't enough, the Post gives us one more bit to worry about:

Others worry that health care workers could refuse to provide sex education because they believe in abstinence instead, or deny care to gays and lesbians.

"I already get calls all the time from people who have been turned away by their doctors," said Jennifer C. Pizer of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, who is representing a California lesbian whose doctor refused her artificial insemination. "This is a very grave concern."