Tuesday, June 21, 2011

The party of small government legislates, the speech of doctors and the hearing and vision of patients

In the last election did anyone hear the republicans saying that if elected they would legislate physicians ability to speak to their patients.   If they were talking about restricting and mandating physicians dialogues with their patients, I missed it.  In Florida the republican legislature passed a law forbidding pediatricians from speaking about gun safety in the home to new parents.  Whereas in Texas doctors must read a government written text to patients who wish to have an abortion, force them to listen to sounds and also perform an unnecessary medical procedure.  

Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Oklahoma have passed laws mandating what the doctor must say to a patient.  This is a description of the Texas law from the Center for Reproductive Rights:
"The law prohibits a woman from getting an abortion unless the doctor providing the abortion performs an ultrasound on the woman, takes steps to show and describe the ultrasound images to her, and plays the sound of the fetal heart.  The doctor must personally place the images where the woman can see them, and describe the images in detail, regardless of her wishes. The woman must then wait at least 24-hours before she can obtain an abortion (the waiting period is two-hours for women who live more than 100 miles from an abortion provider).  With the enactment of this law, Texas joins Oklahoma in having the most extreme ultrasound requirements in the country.
 from the Florida Independent:
"Last week, North Carolina’s state Senate passed its “Woman’s Right to Know Act” — a bill that will require women to wait 24 hours before receiving abortion services, require them to view and hear a description of an ultrasound and require providers to give women printed information about risks associated with the procedure. The measure is similar to a Florida bill approved by the Legislature this year."

In defense of the Florida muzzle pediatricians bill the NRA's Tallahassee lobbyist Marion Hammer said that "we take our children to pediatricians for medical care--not moral judgement, not privacy intrusions."

Republicans claim that pediatrician's speaking about gun safety is a moral judgement and a privacy intrusion.  However, when it's abortion, moral judgements and privacy intrusions are not only allowed, its the law?  It's clear that republicans want to turn their "morals" and personal beliefs into law and legally ban anything that they find offensive whether it's good common sense or not. Their small government just applies to business, no regulations on business, anytime, anywhere for anything.  But for individuals, it's a huge big brother government they are advocating, watching women, writing laws about what doctors MUST say to patients and what they MUST NOT say to patients in addition to legislating completely unnecessary medical procedures.  What kind of idiot writes the judgmental, invasive, patronizing and insulting  "Women's Right to Know Act"?  Republican Idiots. 

Can you believe that some D.C. pundits gave the DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Shultz a hard time for saying that the Republicans had declared war on women?  The Republicans not only declared war, they are waging war on women in every state where they can.   

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