Hello, everyone, Welcome to the nonprofits.
Our first story comes from our friend Heven Meta at the Friendly Atheists, where Oklahoma Christian doctors.
Will be allowed to deny healthcare.
ELI has a story, presumably for the purpose of demonstrating that they don't actually understand basically anything. Oklahoma Republicans have introduced House Bill twelve twenty four, sponsored by state Representative
Kevin West. The bill, if approved, would allow any medical professional to refuse to perform any procedure for any patient under any circumstances, if performing that procedure violates that medical professionals This is a quote ethical, moral, or religious beliefs and principles, and this, of course is only Oklahoma's most recent attack on the well being of its citizens, but it does promise to be the most effective, since it provides a direct mechanism for removing somebody else's autonomy and
literally placing them directly in harm's way, all in the name of religious freedoms. If you ask me, public servants serve the whole public, and if you're not willing to perform medical procedures, you shouldn't be a medical professional. This story is by him and Meta from their Friendly Atheist on March fifth, twenty twenty five.
Okay, so I'm going to remain this to Tracy first. I'm good, this is for the whole pianem. I'm going to ask Tracy, why do you think like these gop Lawmarckers have such a hard on.
For dismantling sexual health care for people?
So I can only trace it back to a I want the world to exist only in the way I want it to exist. I want things to exist for my comfort and for my happiness, and not for the happiness and comfort and well being of the society as a whole. It comes from a place of entitlement and wealth and wealth privilege. These people have been so used to getting everything they want out of life, to getting you know, to getting their way for lack of a better term, that now they want to impose their way
on other people. They want to do what they want. They don't want to do anything else. If you take a job, you are to do the things that are outlined in that job. I'm sorry if i'm a If i'm a if my religious beliefs don't want me to be touching a pig, I'm not going to get a job at an ABATOI where one needs to slaughter pigs. If my religious beliefs have certain precepts against mixed fabrics, I'm not gonna go work on a cotton poly blend line.
You have to take a certain amount of accountability for yourself and what you are willing to do, not shove that responsibility on other people.
No, I think that's perfect. Player.
Do you think it's like a lack of empathy or do you think it's just completely like this is just like a religious conviction kind of thing.
I don't think it's either.
I think they're just babies and they want to have things their way, and they want to not only have the job that they want, but they want to do specifically what they want to do at that job.
That's not up to you to decide.
Kelly a lot here, Yeah, I was thinking that's exactly why. You know, this thing doesn't only allow for religious objections, but for ethical and moral ones as well, So that opens up a broad array of things that they could just could not give you care for. You know, you know me, I'm going to take this idea to the absurd. What if the doctor is a racial purist, I mean, then they could argue then that seeing anyone that wasn't blonde haired and blue eyed was against their ethics and morals,
their personal you know, they're personal ones. I I as I mentioned before the show, I'm only five to five. Now, if I was a doctor in Oklahoma, I could argue that my ethical and moral standards did not allow me to work on people over say five nine. You know, sure, I can sew that hernia up for you, but you have to let me take three inches off of each of your shins. And here's some good news for you.
I'm only going to charge you have for the shin surgery. So, I mean, you know, it seems totally fricking ridiculous to me. I don't know, but I think I think you're right, Tracy, that this is not about what this is about making things so that only a certain group of people are going to be taken care of. Let's face it.
So, so Eli, sine question to you, like, why do you think that you know they want to just you know, be able to like pick and choose who gets healthcare, you know, these especially these Christian doctors.
So and it's I think it's not a secret that there's a lot of people that want to see a theocracy in the United States. They may not realize that what they want is a theocracy, but they they don't recognize the the separation of Christianity and state because Christianity isn't a religion, it's a relationship with Christ. And also Christianity is true, so it's not like these other religions. This is the one that needs to be in the government.
So we need to pret Christians and make sure that Christians don't have to do non Christian things and this, and that they believe that they are doing something that
is good for everybody's eternal soul. Because if we prevent people from being wrong, which is what they think being trands is or whatever other I think this is a way to target you know, you know, trans of gender affirming care specifically, I think too, but an abortion and like any any of these other things that that like conservatives love to you know, uh, the hills that conservatives
love to die on when it comes to healthcare. This is just a way to be like, Okay, well, if you're not going to make it illegal, then we're going to make it legal to not have to do it. And it literally is just like I said, it's turning healthcare and well being into a privilege in Oklahoma for and it's and it's appropriage for people who believe the same thing is as as their doctor, or who want
care that their doctor believes in. And it's just not like we see this problem in like in Catholic hospitals already all the time. So it's just not the way to care for the public.
So I saw that, And.
You know, so you mentioned that there's supposed to be an exclusion for emergency care.
Do you want to expand a little bit more on that, So.
Yeah, it does say and I didn't read the bill, but in the article it mentions there is supposed to be this does exclude emergency care. But since that's not rigidly defined in the bill itself or like elsewhere, as far as I'm aware, like there are definitions for like what qualifies as a medical emergency, but I don't think that that necessarily includes what is emergency care unless you just tie it to like anything associated with this, you know, emergency.
But that's when you understand medicine that can involve so many different things that it's really hard to pin down what is considered emergency care and what's not so they they most definitions include some variation of the words like if there's a reasonable expectation of severe injury or death in the absence of care, but reasonable expectation and leaves room for interpretation and therefore problems No, And.
I agree, And I think a lot of problem with this too is that it's like, as Kelly pointed out, this is going to leave a lot of wiggle room, like, you know, like what if you know, someone like I don't want to treat you know, people over a certain race, or if I even if you're like a you know, let's just say a gay person. You know, you're coming in for a symbol medical procedure, you know, they can deny your because like I don't do gay people icky, and they don't want to treat, you know, be around
people that are gay. That's a real possibility because people are prejudiced and terrible and that. And I think, and I'm going to pose this to you guys, like, do you think this violates a hippocratic oh, hippocratic oath? You know, they make a value to you no harm. Does this violate that?
Tracy?
Well, I don't.
I haven't read the hippocratic oath, not overly familiar with it.
But what I will.
Definitely tell you is that it definitely has the potent. It definitely has the potential to get there. Because if I could just piggyback off of what Kelly was saying earlier, what's to stop somebody from just getting a job, or an incumbent doctor, I don't know if that's the right term, but a doctor who currently has a job, what's to stop that doctor from just saying, yeah, I'm not going
to do that. And then the question being why, because of ethical and moral reasons, why won't you remove this splinter from this child?
For ethical and moral reason?
I don't.
That's too personal a question. I have my reasons. It's faith. It's faith.
For a reason of faith, I'm not going to help this child. I'm not going to do whatever surgery. It definitely holds the potential. And I think that we're if I could steal from Eli, I'm just stealing from everybody. If I could steal a phrase I've heard Eli say a time or two, we're potentiating harm that otherwise would not be potentiate.
And that's just a problem.
I don't know. I can't really elaborate anymore on it.
No, it's a lot. This whole article was a lot.
And one other thing that kind of struck me about this was, we know, like on the opposite and there have been court cases where parents had or you know, brought their child in you know, and they their child need a certain medical procedures, like for like, you know, blood transfusions for Jeovah's witnesses. Let's just use as for an example. And things have gone to core where doctors are bringing going to court and saying like, hey, if we don't do this procedure, this child is going to die.
Now we're dealing with a situation where doctors, let's say you're Jehovah's witness doctor, I'm just going to put this out here.
Does that mean you get to.
Deny blood transfusions to children that might need them because it goes against your religious convictions? I'm like, Kelly, does it open that sort of you know door for those certain things to happen?
No, you just brought up a question in my mind that I would love it. And can you be a doctor and be a JW I don't know, I don't even known, but.
An interesting concept crazy world that we love in because every day is Obo saved that fucking.
Day here now right, That just totally stopped my whole brain from thinking about it as a result, you please that question that on.
So let's say you're Joho's when the doctor and and uh, a person needs a blood transf you shouldn't say their life. Your Bible is teaches your particular scripture teaches you that you cannot mix blood. King is that you.
Canne b let that person die?
Yeah? Sure? Why not?
That? See? This is the problem with this law is that well, actually, because it makes an exception for emergency that you would have to give the blood transfusion at least until the person was stabilized. And I think that's what emergency procedures would be defined as, until the person becomes stabilized. That's like, they can't deny you in an emergency room until you are stabilized. Then they can kick you out. So I think that's the main I think
that's the point right there. So probably not they couldn't deny you the blood transfusion if it was an emergency, but they could surgery. They could. Yeah, well I'm about to say they could deny uh, they could deny other procedures though when it was an emergency. And this is the problem. This law is way overly broad. I don't think, you know, they keep putting these bills in like this, and I don't think this one, like many of them, when they get into the courts just don't hold up.
The courts are striking them down, and we can at least be thankful of that that the US Constitution is still on our side with these things. So I'm a little worried about the way the courts have been changing over the last few years, especially the federal courts, and how they the people who have different ideologies than mine have been being appointed to positions on the on the benches.
So I'm a little worried about that. But I think even still, I mean, we've got Scotus that made some rulings that were against some of the ideals of our current administration already, so I think we're the courts will probably be on our side with most of this stuff. Fortunately.
So Ela, you mentioned that you've had some experience in the medical field. Was your kind of feeling about this, you know, from the stuff you've seen and what you think is coming down the pipeline.
So I and just for like clarity, I spent a brief amount of time as a as an EMT or an ambulance just to not like I don't want to like idal over sell, but I don't have that that
certification anymore, just to be totally clear. But the I actually I'm not sure that I agree with Kelly's conclusion because I think that when when you get to the level of being a doctor, right, there's always there's always protocols in hospitals, in emergency rooms, there's like there's a medical director that says, like, okay, in these circumstances, and they're they're pretty exhaustive, and it goes like, these are the emergencies that we are equipped to handle, and this
is what we're going to do in those circumstances. These are the drugs we're going to give, These are this is the order in which we're going to like we're going to do this IVY location first, and if we can't get that one, we're going to try this one. And like that specifically is how this goes. When you get to the level of being a doctor, you are expected to like you have to justify the decisions that
you're making. But if you don't follow that protocol, but you can justify not following that protocol, like that's not a bad thing, right, So in the event of like we have to give a blood transfusion or this person you know will uh will die, if you can justify saying like, well, there's a chance that if we give this you know, antibiotic regimen this aggressively, then that could counteract the infection and then we wouldn't need the blood transfusion and we could just do the anibi a regimen.
And or if there's some way that you can justify, like there's the medical potential for making for benefiting the patient otherwise, and if you can you can justify like a greater benefit than the benefit of doing the transfusion, they can then make another choice and just justify that to their medical director as long as and that is kind of up to interpretation, like if that's justifiable or not.
So I think that I think there are enough good doctors that will still provide the care to their patients that is both appropriate based on their professional medical opinion
and in line with the patient's wishes. I think there are good doctors that will do that but I think that there are also people that have had experiences where they have wanted, you know, they didn't agree with their doctor on what their care plan should be, and they were sort of like just bulldozed by the doctor because they have the education, the experience, and and of the certification to say like, no, I know better, I know what I'm talking about and this wouldn't be right for you.
And this, I think just opens the door for more situations like that.
Well, you may have a good point about that, because we know that, you know, doctors arek is considered a position of authority and though where people will automatically default to their doctor's opinion rather than even if it goes against their own health, like you know, they have a problem.
But if a doctor, like, you know, you're feeling.
Chronic symptoms, doctor says, you know, oh it's this or that, and they kind of just like, okay, well the doctor doesn't think it's that serious, and then it progresses they go back doctor says like.
Oh, you know, well maybe you should get a second opinion.
But I think it's this there there could be misagnoses, there's misconceptions with we've seen it's still now people having misconcepsions about women people of color, you know about you know what their bodies can handle and not handle, and so on and so forth. So this adds another to that as well. So my question is, and I'm going to bring this back to Tracy, where does the line between your personal connections and beliefs and and the responsibility
to others begin? And should you be compelled to do something against your own morals even if it seems cruel to others? You know, I'm just asking this. You know, as you know something, you know people's rules.
So I want to hear your opinion on this, Tracy.
Well, this is what I'm going to say in Okay, you're for a doctor, for a physician specifically, Uh, that doesn't factor as near as I can tell. When you're a doctor, when you're a medical professional, you are a public servant. You are there to serve and do your trade as it has been lined out and as you
are called to do so. If you don't want, if you have a moral issue with performing a d and E or any other or prescribing medication to a trans youth or something about that, you can still be a physician and just put yourself in a situation where you won't ever have to do that, such as you'll be a dermatologist or an optometrist or there's several different kinds of doctors if you desperately want to help people in the medical field, but there's certain things you don't want
to do, like I, for instance, would never be a dentist. I can't mess around in people's teeth. I find that disgusting. If you find trans people disgusting, maybe don't. Maybe just go be an optometrist.
I don't know.
You're still gonna encounter trans people, but you're not gonna have to deal with the transness.
You're just gonna give them glasses.
It's a pretty basic it's a pretty basic idea of just if you don't want to do something, don't put yourself in a situation where you're gonna have to do it.
But this bill would allow you to even deny the glasses to a trans person. That's the fucking problem with this thing.
Right, that's the further problem.
Yeah, yeah, right.
I would argue that if you think trans people are gross, you don't understand physiology well enough to be a physician, so you shouldn't be.
I would agree that I'm just.
Out there, like, I'll never understand people have this sense of entitlement. Like in a library, people get mad about what books are in there. All the books go in a library, all of them. That's my understanding of a library, a place where we put all the books. A hospital is where you go to get medical help, all of it.
Yeah, that's where we tend to go. Like, oh no, like you know, I you know, I broke my leg. Oh no, I'm having weird cramps. Oh no, like you know, I got shot in my arm. Let me shut the damn hospital.
So we should fit into this box.
Yeah, to fit into a box.
So so like and I obviously, like all of us you know, that want to have allow people to have their beliefs, like not none of us are saying that people shouldn't have their beliefs. But also the same thing, we also have the opinion that there should no harm happen to others, you know, as human as we want to reduce harm.
I think this is just my opinion, y'all.
I think that this increases harm and that's not what doctors are supposed to do. So another note, I'm going to get everybody thirty seconds to answer this question. So in states where like there's abortion bands and limit access to reproductive care, we are now seeing women die or survive or suffer real severe health problems because of these
laws that are coming through the pipeline. So do what future do you see for the constituents in these states who voted for Representative Kevin West that gave him his position, and even for politicians looking to keep their position, what are the type of things that they should be really considering to keep their positions? And you each get thirty seconds, So go, Tracy, go.
If you want this country to continue in any form that's recognizable as this country, you're gonna need to stop taking away rights from people and go back to implementing.
That's the end. That's it, that's all. That's all I got.
Yeah, I'm gonna say that's all seconds. They don't give a shit about your rights, they don't care about your health, they don't care about your well being. This is Oklahoma. They also have another billa in there to make it legal for teachers to beat disabled children. I'm gonna say that again, to beat disabled children. They don't give a shit about people's well being. That's my thirty seconds.
Now I think that, Yeah, I think that what we're forgetting to consider is all the harm we're preventing to the Christian doctors that don't want to do their job, because if we make them do their jobs, how harmful would that be. I'm kidding, zero percent harmful. I just want to make it care I'm totally kidding about that. I think this is stupid. I think it's ridiculous. And yeah, Oklahoma continues to just not impress me at all with their policies and the way that they seem to think about things.
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Craziness that's going on, go ahead and find another video here or there or whatever.
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