Posted on 01/11/2009 3:38:50 PM PST by presidio9
No woman is entitled to an abortion, nor can she expect any such entitlement in a free society. That's why President George W. Bush was wise to issue a late-hour lame duck edict that says no employer that accepts federal funds may order a health care provider to participate in an abortion or other procedures that violate his or her "religious beliefs or moral convictions." Bush's rule, which takes effect Jan. 18, also covers birth control, emergency contraception, in vitro fertilization, fetal stem-cell research, assisted suicide and other procedures one might object to on moral grounds.
Opponents of the president's move, including President-elect Barack Obama, worry that women may find it difficult to obtain abortions in remote areas with few doctors.
Officials of Planned Parenthood, the country's big box retailer of abortion, complain they might be fooled into hiring health care workers who are covertly anti-abortion and seek employment only to obstruct the organization's work.
All such considerations pale in comparison to the threat that's posed to our fundamental religious freedoms, and our freedom of association, when government-funded entities order employees to violate personal moral convictions.
In a free society, we must constantly remind ourselves of the huge distinction between rights and entitlements. We have the right to pursue happiness; we have no entitlement to happiness. We have a right to seek a sex change; we have no entitlement to a sex change operation. We have the right to own a gun; we have no entitlement to a gun. If the Second Amendment were interpreted as an entitlement to guns, rather than a right, government could order the pacifist owner of a tackle and bait shop to sell guns and ammo. After all, the victim of a dangerous stalker may need a gun for self-defense. One can imagine endless righteous causes in which it's tempting to have government simply order one party to serve the wants and needs of another.
A woman has a right to an abortion because of a Supreme Court Ruling. If a woman desiring an abortion can find someone willing to sell the service, and she can afford it, then she gets to practice the right protected by Roe v. Wade - a decision that did nothing other than prevent states from banning most abortion procedures. At its root, the right to an abortion is no different than any other right.
The Bush mandate, however, raises an important question: What about the right of the employer?
It seems reasonable, in a free society, that a hospital administrator has the authority to tell employees they will provide abortions to customers. After all, employee-employer relationships are supposed to be about free association. If the hospital or clinic administrator says "physician, perform the abortion," the doctor has the option to comply or quit. But the Bush mandate pertains only to employers that receive federal money. The lesson in this is simple: Employers that don't want the burden of federal strings must avoid federal funds. Planned Parenthood can skirt the Bush edict by abstaining from that annual $330 million federal subsidy and make due with the $670 million it generates by selling abortions and such.
The right to freely associate - which includes the freedom to make hiring and firing decisions - belongs to private individuals and organizations that aren't on the government's dole. Hospitals and clinics that receive government funds are not fully private organizations and they are not entitled to the same rights of free association that are protected for the private sector.
A federally-funded hospital is a quasi-governmental entity, because every taxpayer funds it. As such, it cannot do that which the government cannot do. The government cannot discriminate on a basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions, as doing so would violate the First Amendment's establishment and free exercise clauses. If the physician cannot be fired for obeying his or her moral code, then the physician cannot be forced to perform abortions.
When the Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade, it defended the right to an abortion. It came nowhere close to crafting an entitlement to an abortion. Rights and entitlements are often confused, but they're different as planets and stars.
Bush was right to protect employees, paid in full or in part by taxpayer funds, from mandates that violate their moral or religious beliefs. A country that says "perform an abortion or else," isn't free at all.
please stop by the article and sign the guestbook.
I agree totally with your posting.
Since Norma McCorvy(sp) came forward to say she LIED about the circumstances of her pregnancy to foster pity, this ruling has become a law based upon a lie. I saw in another posting that the guy who invented the PILL never envisioned the reduction in the birth rate in our country, let alone the world.
Like Mother Teresa said: “Tis a pity that a child must die for you to have a choice.”
If you can order someone to commit what he or she believes to be murder, that individual quite logically might well chose to kill you instead.
In that way he acts in the defence of the innocent while disposing of a murderous thug.
One of the reasons for creating a "conscience clause" is to avoid that almost certain eventuality. Abortion rights advocates who fail to support a conscience clause would seem to be oblivious to their own need for self-protection, and that negates their own chief argument for justifying abortion.
Pro-lifers are going to have a huge battle on our hands to prevent totally unrestricted abortion from becoming taxpayer funded.
Rights don't include murder.
Is there something complicated about that?
Good article. Thanks.
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