Physician — not just pharmacist — refusals

CNN had a segment yesterday on doctors denying women reproductive health care — mainly contraception.
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Denying rape victims emergency contraception “sits OK with me!”

KAYE (voice-over): Dr. Scott Ross, a Catholic family physician in Virginia, believes contraception interferes with God’s plan to breathe life into us, so he doesn’t prescribe birth control. (on camera): So, if someone came to you today and said they would like contraception or the morning-after pill, what do you tell them?
ROSS: I’m very frank with them and say, that’s something that I don’t do. It’s not part of my practice.
KAYE (voice-over): Dr. Ross says he has denied contraception to at least a dozen patients.
(on camera): Do you ever feel as though you’re playing the role of judge, too?
ROSS: No.
KAYE: But when you’re denying someone something that they’re requesting, aren’t you making a judgment on whether or not they should have that care?
ROSS: I don’t know that I’m making a judgment on whether or not they should have the care. It’s just the judgment of, I can’t provide that care.
KAYE (voice-over): Melissa didn’t see it that way with her doctor.
(on camera): Did you feel as if he was judging you?
MELISSA: Yes. Yes, I really did. I felt as though he was accusing me of being immoral and trying to impose his values on me.


Isn’t it maddening the way this guy just glosses over his denial of service? This is another piece of the refusal puzzle that usually only gets discussed when Catholic hospitals come up. Though most of the debate tends to focus on pharmacists who won’t fill women’s birth control prescriptions, anti-choice doctors (in private practice and in non-Catholic hospitals) can be another hurdle for women to jump.

(on camera): Is it right, do you think, to deny a woman who has been raped emergency contraception, when time is so limited to actually treat that?
ROSS: You Know, our goal is to provide excellent medical care for all of the patients that we encounter.
KAYE: But does that sit OK with you?
ROSS: That sits OK with me.

Yup, sounds like “excellent medical care” to me. I’m sure he sleeps well at night, completely unperturbed that he’s contributing to the number of unplanned pregnancies, and therefore the number of abortions.

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