Protecting Whole, Living Human Beings

I love the summary at Dahlia Lithwick's piece, "The Abortion Wars Get Technical":

Under a new regulation poised to become law any day now, any health-care worker may refuse to perform procedures, offer advice or dispense prescriptions - like the morning after pills pictured here [at the link] - if doing so would offend their 'religious beliefs or moral convictions'.

Here's the body of the text:

What does it tell us about the state of the abortion wars, that battles once waged over the dignity and autonomy of pregnant women have morphed into disputes over the dignity and autonomy of their health-care providers? Two of the most pitched battles over reproductive rights in America today turn on whether health workers can be forced to provide medical services or information to which they ethically object. But as we learn from these fights, our solicitude for the beliefs of medical workers is selective: abortion opponents will soon enjoy broader legal protections than ever. Those willing to provide abortions, on the other hand, will enjoy far fewer. And women seeking reproductive services will be more caught up than ever in the tangle between the two.

Read the whole article, which concludes like this:

Whether we like it or not, the right to birth control, emergency contraception and—under most circumstances—abortion is still constitutionally protected. But these are not services a woman can provide for herself, which leaves her with few rights at all when her doctors are empowered by law to misinform her, withhold advice or deny services altogether. Even beyond the problem of subordinating a woman's rights to her doctor, however, there looms a larger question for health-care workers themselves: if they are indeed seeing their rights and freedoms either hugely expanded or severely restricted based solely on which side they've chosen in the culture wars, they might properly wonder whether any of them are truly free at all.

That's not the best way to spin things, as coequal claims on rights. The unborn can make no such claims. God's will works through pro-life conscientious objectors, bless them.

At issue, in any case, are new proposals at the federal and state level that are empowering providers of abortions to exercise their right of conscience to decline to provide services.

I especially like South Dakota's requirement that service providers read to the patient that she is about to:

... "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being" with whom she has an "existing relationship " ...

Right on, and more power to the South Dakota legislature.

There are lots of rights involved here. The right of freedom of conscience, as well as freedom of choice. Unfortunatley the unborn baby's right to life doesn't normally get a vote, much less a voice.