This is the only part of the article that I disagree with. No one, not dentists, physicians, lawyers, bricklayers, mechanics, butchers, or people of any other profession or trade should be required by government to accept patients, clients, or customers against their free will. If government can usurp powers over the people that the Constitution does not grant to it then we may as well stop pretending that it is anything more than an interesting museum display.
OTOH, I am adamantly opposed to fluoridation of public water systems. Fluoride has now been proven beyond doubt to be a major factor in what has become a virtual epidemic of osteoporosis in the elderly population of North America where fluoridation of public water systems has been common for many decades. (Osteoporosis is the thinning of bone tissue that causes most of the serious and often fatal fractures that are so prevalent in the elderly segment of the population).
A few years ago the president of the CDA, the Canadian counterpart of the American Dental Association, resigned from the association because he could no longer in good conscience support the association's position on fluoridation. In his resignation speech he cited the statistics and medical research that now shows beyond question that fluoridation of public water supplies is a major cause of osteoporosis.
There are many brainwashed parents who still believe that fluoridated drinking water is beneficial to children's teeth in spite of the growing stack of evidence to the contrary. And if those people want to have fluoride in their children's water there is no shortage of enterprising merchants who will be happy to provide it for them. But if the popular catch phrase, "freedom of choice" means anything at all, government should not be given the power to force a noxious compound on those who don't want it.
I would agree with you (about not forcing dentists to treat people) if they weren’t the ones forcing fluoride into us, against the will of those of us who know better and those who don’t know any better.
For example, one dentist just convinced a whole Montana tribe to fluoridate their drinking water. I’m sure he gave them misleading information.
http://www.goldentrianglenews.com/articles/2008/12/17/glacier_reporter/news/news6.txt
Organized dentistry forced a state-wide fluoridation mandate in California in 1995, very quietly, so no one could object, and when the whole world and almost every reporter was more interested in the OJ story.
Last year both the Louisiana and Nebraska Dental Associations instigated a fluoridation mandate law in those states giving only positive information backed up with a “trust me; I’m a dentist” rhetoric.
So it’s very hard for me to feel sorry for any dentist who contributes to any dental association that forces fluoride into people without informed consent.