Free Coburn! II
Our pro-abort friends at RH Reality Check were kind enough to upload this interview I saw on Fox with US Senator Tom Coburn on March 3 and hoped would end up on YouTube.
In the interview Coburn discussed not only the harm that would befall women if the US restored taxpayer funding to the United Nations Population Fund but also his response if, as a doctor, he were compelled to abort.
The latter is lately in the news since President Obama plans to lift enforcement of healthcare providers’ conscience protections.
Coburn: I’ll never do it. Never do it.
Megyn Kelly: You’d rather go to a jail cell.
Coburn: You bet. Anytime.
I love Tom Coburn!
Also see previous entry, Free Coburn!
Mar.05, 2009 4:45 pm |
Industry watch |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Good Bless you, Senator Dr. Coburn!
This is why I am no longer working towards a nursing degree. I’m just going to put all that science towards a general ed major/bio minor and teach at a private school should I ever need to work.
Of course, if Obama completely nationalizes education I might be back in a hole.
Well said, Sen. Coburn! Betcha O is uploading his teleprompter with a recycled version of his “they’re already protected by law” rhetoric. His supporters bought it with BAIPA. I’m sure they’ll swallow it with this too.
Breach of Trust is a wonderful book by Tom Coburn. Term limits for all except Tom Coburn. He is awesome and understands what a citizen legislature is supposed to look like. While Coburn would go to jail rather than violate his conscience others sell it for a bowl of porridge (power).
I’m sure you’d prefer a Catholic conscience:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7926694.stm
No one’s going to be put in a jail cell, because there is no law requiring anyone to perform abortions. There was no law forcing anyone to perform abortions before the conscience rule, and there will be no law after the conscience rule is gone. Coburn is just being silly, and you silly people are eating it up.
I guess now that you’re out of power, worrying about nonexistent bills and laws is the only way you can feel useful. Oh well.
Reality, if healthcare is nationalized, doctors who received federal money could be forced to perform abortions or retire their license If they wanted to continue to practice privately, they could be jailed for practicing without a license.
Effectively, a doctor would be forced to abort or quit.
No one’s going to be put in a jail cell, because there is no law requiring anyone to perform abortions. There was no law forcing anyone to perform abortions before the conscience rule, and there will be no law after the conscience rule is gone. Coburn is just being silly, and you silly people are eating it up.
I guess now that you’re out of power, worrying about nonexistent bills and laws is the only way you can feel useful. Oh well.
Posted by: reality at March 5, 2009 6:21 PM
So why is Nobama lifting this protection?
Also, should FOCA pass and we do not have this protection, pro-life doctors will be in exactly the situation I described.
Coburn: I’ll never do it. Never do it.
Megyn Kelly: You’d rather go to a jail cell.
Coburn: You bet. Anytime.
Awesome. I love him too.
As Reality points out, the claim that doctors will be “forced” to participate in abortions is a knowing lie.
Coburn is a knowing and deliberate liar, which in my opinion disqualifies him for any public office, obviously including being a US Senator.
The RH Reality article, which is not linked, illustrates the falsity of Coburn’s statements.
A physician like Coburn, who knowingly lies to the public about a matter of public health to carry out his personal political agenda should also lose their license to practice medicine.
Of course Faux Noise is pushing this lie, since Faux is in the lie business.
These are serious times, and lies do not contribute to understanding or solutions.
RH is characterized as “pro abort” which is interesting, since they, like all responsible people, encourage contraception and sex education to reduce unwanted pregnancy and abortions.
The only people I know who actively pursue policies and laws designed to increase unwanted pregnancies and abortion are the “pro lifers” who want to stop all contraception and sex eduction,policies proven to increase abortions.
I think the “pro lifers” pursue policies designed to increase the abortion rate, because if the number of abortions were to radically decrease, the “pro lifers” would lose the attention, money and political power they crave.
Bystander, please post any evidence you have that healthcare providers will not be forced to perform abortions or face professional consequences.
Also, do you or do you not support a pharmacist’s right to refuse to despense the abortion pill, ec, or contracpetion.
Do you or do you not support a physician refusing to perform abortions, or perscribe the abortion pill, ec, or contraception.
Lauren, if you were to consult a source other than Faux Noise and Wing Nut Daily, you might learn the truth. RH Reality Check lays out the falsity of the Coburn claim in detail.
“if healthcare is nationalized, doctors who received federal money could be forced to perform abortions or retire their license”
I don’t think so. Even Pulmonologists and Psychiatrists? Or just Ob/gyns? A medical license is a general license, and an MD with a license can practice any kind of medicine with it.
I don’t trust LEFT WING fascists who believe abortion is a RIGHT.
And the abortion in Brazil is just horrible! The girl was being abused by her STEPFATHER. Her Mother had no problem with consenting to her abortion. Two lives were destroyed, its so sad.
No doctor has ever or will ever be forced to perform an abortion, so that assertion is absurd.
Any pharmacist who refuses to fill any properly issued prescription should lose his or her licence, since the license is conditioned on serving the public.
Doctors who are so obsessed with their religion that they cannot perform normal functions in the health care field need to become priests or nuns, and leave the medical field to others.
Bystander, I read the article.
I’ll repost the pertinent info here, because unlike the pro-choicers on this board, I actually site sources.
“Coburn claims that physicians in programs accepting federal money will be forced to “give birth control pills to an 11-year-old girl” and to provide abortions against their will. In fact, laws already in place clearly indicate that no health care provider may be forced to provide abortions if they object. As for giving an 11-year-old girl birth control pills, well, the Senator and I disagree on what rights should be extended to the patient’s conscience and her assessment of her own health needs. ”
First, let’s just take note that RH doesn’t actually deny that the physician will be forced to provide birth control despite moral objections. This is a true statement, but they do their best to obscure that.
As for the prior laws: Prior laws covered only objections on religious grounds. An atheist doctor who is aginst abortion would not be protected without the law. Nor would other health care personal.
Here’s what HHS has to say re: the necessatiy of the law:
“Title VII was enacted nine years before the first of the health care conscience protection laws was passed; it includes specific language with respect to reasonable accommodation and undue hardship with respect to religion. . . . Notwithstanding the existence of Title VII, Congress passed a series of laws to explicitly protect provider conscience without using Title VII’s formulation. Moreover, where Title VII is restricted to the employment context, the provider conscience provisions are not so limited. As a result, we believe it is a reasonable interpretation of the statutes that Congress sought to ensure provider conscience protections that are distinct from, and extend beyond, those under Title VII. The Department’s enforcement of the provider conscience laws will be informed, for example, by comparison to Title VII religious discrimination jurisprudence. (73 FR 78084)”
Finally, as we begin to overturn these rules and regulations, what is to stop them from continuing to errode? Sure, this law might just force hormonal abortificients, and atheist doctors, but the next might force much more. We object to any law that strips conscience protections from healthcare professionals.
Coburn was correct in saying that previous conscience rules do not go far enough to protect healthcare workers, and that the law was needed to fully protect all workers from prosecution or employement discriminations.
Again, I ask to you support conscience rules in general? Most pro-choicers do not, and thus their objections to to our concerns being baseless ring quite hollow.
“No doctor has ever or will ever be forced to perform an abortion, so that assertion is absurd.
Any pharmacist who refuses to fill any properly issued prescription should lose his or her licence, since the license is conditioned on serving the public.
Doctors who are so obsessed with their religion that they cannot perform normal functions in the health care field need to become priests or nuns, and leave the medical field to others.
”
So you do not support healthcare conscience laws and you believe they should be overturned. It seems like Coburn has a right to be concerned.
Also, just a note here, it’s interesting you would force a pharmacist to dispense lethal drugs, but claim a doctor would never be forced to kill. Not exactly consistent.
my doctor doesn’t prescribe BC for any medical reason OR as a contraceptive. He explained how the BC pill “masks” symptoms.
Abortion is NOT Health Care.
Abortion is NOT Health Care.
Posted by: LizFromNebraska at March 5, 2009 8:07 PM
It certainly is to a woman who wants a medical professional to terminate a pregnancy.
No, Hal, it’s a hit.
abortion isn’t health care just like euthanasia isn’t health care and denying food and water to a disabled adult isn’t health care.
Abortion is the ULTIMATE CHILD ABUSE!
Health care, smealth care.
If women want doctors to perform abortions and doctors are willing and able, it works out.
Yeah,
If women want hitmans to kill their babies and hitmans are willing and able, it works out…oh wait…
please post any evidence you have that healthcare providers will not be forced to perform abortions or face professional consequences.
Lauren, I don’t think we’re there yet, although it may be coming down the pike. O’s initial move seems to be removal of meaningful enforcement of existing conscience protections.
Listen to what Coburn said. Bush “firmed up the protections …” What Bush did was put a compliance mechanism in place and gave providers an avenue to file complaint if their protections were violated.
Here’s a summary of the rule O intends to rescind. It has a link you can take to read the rule in its entirety.
http://hhs.gov/news/press/2008pres/12/20081218a.html
I think Coburn is spot on. As I’ve said ad nauseam on other threads, this is simply phase 1 in driving out providers who won’t practice medicine according to government dictates. They’ve got to be eliminated in order for socialized medicine to take hold. When a government protocol indicates that a patient should be administered drug A, and the doc can see for himself that drug B, though more costly, is better for this patient, the government MUST have docs willing to prescribe drug A anyway. That’s how socialized medicine works.
As for going to jail, that was Megyn’s bait to Coburn. I understood him to say he’d prefer to go than violate his conscience, not that he was at immediate risk of going.
“Any country that accepts abortion, is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what it wants.”
“Doctors who are so obsessed with their religion that they cannot perform normal functions in the health care field need to become priests or nuns, and leave the medical field to others.”
What on earth does religion have to do with this? One doesn’t need to be religious to have a problem with killing people. Otherwise, you’re suggesting that atheists and agnostics cannot be moral human beings — a position many would take issue with.
what does religion have to do with it?
Probably 99.9% of the people who refuse to prescribe or dispense contraceptives are carrying out the edicts of the Catholic Church.
Bystander, and you get that wild statistic from where exactly?
That’s right, Bystander, you’re way off. You’re ignoring all the other non-Catholic crazy religions that preach against birth control.
Hal, one need not be religious to know it is wrong to take action to destroy a unique human life.
Contraceptives do not destroy a unique human life, but many of those who support a woman’s legal right to kill her baby lie and also include in the category of contraceptives other drugs that prevent the fertilized egg from developing according to its design (e.g. if I remember correctly, prevent the embryo’s attachment to the womb).
But I am a Protestant, and though I am not sure of what I believe on the topic–don’t have to as long as I am a bachelor–my parents didn’t believe in contraceptives as far as I know. Certainly they’ve always spoken critically of it. I have three brothers and two sisters, and we’re all spaced about two years apart.
A number of you speak about religion. What’s your definition? someone who takes God at His Word? And what makes something right or wrong?
Jon, a unique human life is formed at conception. Hormonal contraception acts to prevent that life from continuing.
Any sort of hormonal birth control has the potential to act in this way.
God bless this man!
The word contraceptive really refers to prevention of conception (so that conception won’t happen). So “hormonal contraception” shouldn’t be called contraception if it indeed prevents a unique human life (conception occurred) from continuing.
Jon,
Oh right, I forgot that by naming something we control what it actually does. Its the power of humanity!
“You are no longer called onion. You are now called orange!”
Just because it is CALLED a contraceptive, does not mean it NECESSARILY only acts that way.
Common birth control is called a contraceptive because this is part of what it does, and to be fair it is also the intended goal. However, if it fails at prevention, it then proceeds to kill the human life that develops. This is common knowledge of pretty much all hormonal contraceptives.
Id personally like to see the suggested number of deaths from BC, and the suggested number of deaths from miscarriage that would result from the LACK of BC.
I wouldnt be shocked if the numbers were similar, knowing how many normal pregnancies end in miscarriage.
Regardless of the morality of BC, it will at times lead to the killing of a human life.
A number of you speak about religion. What’s your definition? someone who takes God at His Word? And what makes something right or wrong?
Posted by: Jon at March 6, 2009 10:00 AM
Someone who thinks they know God’s word would be considered religious by me. Or, perhaps, anyone who believes in a god or gods.
but, Hal, the word god (at least Elohim in the Bible) means “strong one; the putter forth of power.” To a very limited extent, we are all gods.
I think that by the word god you probably refer to a being who is more rational than a human being, who is only a highly evolved monkey according to some people. Then you are either religious or atheist.
I take religion to be the human being’s response to the omnipotent spirit who is God. We can know this God because He has spoken to us. Some people might wish to deny His existence–necessarily also His Word–but they are still religious. They are merely responding in a wrong way. As C.S. Lewis would say, they are bent.
Oliver, thanks for your explanation.