Posted on 07/03/2012 6:15:01 AM PDT by marktwain
Tallahassee —
A federal judge has permanently blocked a Florida law barring doctors from asking their patients about gun ownership, ruling the law unconstitutionally violates physicians’ freedom of speech.
U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke issued a permanent injunction Friday that barred the law from going into effect and rejected the state’s argument that the law was aimed at protecting gun owners from discrimination. Cooke had temporarily put the law on hold last year, after three groups of doctors sued Gov. Rick Scott within days after he signed the National Rifle Association-backed bill passed by the GOP-dominated legislature.
“This law chills practitioners’ speech in a way that impairs the provision of medical care and may ultimately harm the patient,” Cooke wrote in her 25-page ruling. “The State, through this law, inserts itself in the doctor-patient relationship, prohibiting and burdening speech necessary to the proper practice of preventive medicine, thereby preventing patients from receiving truthful, non-misleading information…. This it cannot do.”
Scott’s spokesman Lane Wright said the governor was considering his options.
Rep. Jason Brodeur, a Sanford Republican who sponsored the bill, and the Florida Senate’s general counsel, Craig Meyer, said they believed Scott would appeal.
Mobeen Rathore, president of the Florida Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said he hoped the case would be quickly resolved, for patients’ sake, “so we can continue our efforts to get them the best information, specifically preventive information to families for their children on this and all risk issues.”
The NRA and some gun owners complained that doctors were using questions about guns to discourage gun ownership. They cited the example of an Ocala pediatrician who told a couple to find a new doctor because the couple refused to answer questions about whether they owned guns and how they were stored.
But the judge chided the legislature for relying upon anecdotal evidence like that rather than empirical evidence of an alleged problem. And
lawyers for the Florida chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians and the American College of Physicians argued that what they called the “physician gag law” prevented doctors from doing their job.
Doctors routinely ask patients about safety issues related to tobacco, drugs, alcohol, chemicals and swimming pools, Bruce Manheim of the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Ropes & Gray argued. “We think the court’s decision protects the sanctity of speech between a doctor and his or her patients and ultimately advances preventive medicine and protects the safety of children,” Manheim said.
Under the “Firearm Ownership Privacy Act,” doctors and other health care professionals would have faced fines and the loss of their licenses if they asked patients about guns in the home, “unless the practitioner in good faith believes the information is relevant to the patient’s medical care or safety or the safety of others.” The law also would have imposed sanctions if doctors “unnecessarily harass a patient about firearm ownership.”
But the anti-harassment language is too vague, Cooke ruled, and “does not provide fair notice as to what range of conduct it prohibits.”
The ruling drew praise from ACLU executive director Howard Simon. The ACLU filed an amicus brief on behalf of a group of healthcare and child welfare organizations, including the Palm Beach County Medical Society.
“The attempt to gag physicians and prevent them from practicing preventive medicine is an embarrassment for every legislator who voted to throw the First Amendment rights of medical personnel out the window based on a single and flimsy anecdotal report of an alleged problem. Could there be a clearer example of why the Florida legislature is held in such low esteem?” Simon said.
The asking of children if there are any guns at home leads directly to that information being placed on federal data bases, and thence to discrimination against those homes that exercise the constitutional rights to arms.
There is no doubt that there is a political attempt to equate firearms with medical risk, which is not borne out by the facts. It is a violation of boundary conditions for doctors to insert their political predjudices into the patient doctor relationship.
Do the patient have to answer?
“Patients”. Caffeine deficiency.
If a doctor were to ask me if I owned guns, I would exercise MY freedom to NOT speak.
(What business lis it of theirs anyway?)
no
I’ve already decided if my doctor asks me about this I’m going to lie like nobody’s business about it.
Question: Do you own a gun?
Answer: Shove it up your smelly Obmaa.
We haven’t seen anything yet. Just wait until Obama is in his second term, (which is probable considering the weenie Rinos in the GOP), and unleashes more federal judicial appointments to legislate from the bench.
Question: Do you own a gun?
Answer: Shove it up your smelly Obmaa.
Dingbat doctor asked my kids if there were guns in the house. The kids rolled their eyes and said dad’s in LE so duuuuh yeah. They had her pegged as a loony first thing and on their own didn’t answer anymore questions. We reported her and apparently so did others because a short time later she’d moved on.
Doctors should ask if parents have 'overnight guests' - and how often. Child rapes, abuse and murders at the hands of mom's 'live in boyfriend' are common. Liberals won't like the intrusion into THEIR lives - but it's a health issue - and we all need to know... right? Also, doctors need to ask about illegal drug usage - that's a threat to children. Liberals will hate that one.
The only way to get control-freak mean-spirited liberals to stop this is to do it back to them. Then the press will jump in - totally outraged about invasion of privacy ... and we'll win at the same time.
I would teach my children that they are not to say anything about what mom and dad own.
I’ll get another doctor. His politics don’t belong in my healthcare anymore than do Obama’s, and the rest of the Leftisphere’s.
“I would ask him for details about intimacy with his wife ... it’s just as pertinent. “
Or ‘Life Partner’
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The Gay and Lesbian Medical Association (GLMA) is the world’s largest and oldest association of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) health care professionals. GLMA was founded in 1981 as the American Association of Physicians for Human Rights with the mission of ensuring equality in health care for LGBT individuals and health care professionals.
Another nanny ruling from a feminized judiciary including the bald headed ones too or those with shriveled testicle syndrome—a side effect malady associated with demented liberalism disorder.
Apparently not, however...
They cited the example of an Ocala pediatrician who told a couple to find a new doctor because the couple refused to answer questions about whether they owned guns and how they were stored.
So if you don't - depending on the doc - you may be looking...
'Course if your doc's that much of an a'hole, do you want him poking around on your body and making life and death decisions on your behalf?
Time for our tyrranical judges to ditch their black robes in favor of evolved commie pink.
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