View From a Height

The Pill Bill

The Colorado Legislature has passed a bill requiring all hospitals to tell rape victims about "emergency contraception," basically pills that abort a potential pregnancy. It's on the governor's desk now.

Naturally, the Post treats this like a personal religious crisis for Owens, ("Pill Bill to Test Owens"), as though he were Roger Williams or Brigham Young. Apparently, the notion that there might be non-religious reasons for respecting other peoples' religious practice is something that Post editorial policy can't quite get its arms around. Apparently, the Post can't abide someone's political beliefs coinciding with his religious beliefs.

During Tuesday's debate in the House, [bill sponsor Betty] Boyd said the bill covers institutions, not individuals. Individual medical workers could opt to have someone else tell a patient about emergency contraception, she said.

And no hospital will be forced to provide the pills, she said. Rather, hospitals would be required to refer patients to another source for the pills.

Oh, that's persuasive. As though institutions weren't permitted to hold and exercise a point of view. Let's try applying that logic to the public schools some time, and see how far that gets you with Rep. Boyd.

Orthodox Judaism takes a different view of an embryo from Catholicism. Until implantation, the embryo has no status, and even then, the status is at best murky for 40 days. Denver doesn't happen to have any hospitals under rabbinical supervision, but even Hadassah in Jerusalem would be able to abide by the new bill in good conscience.

This isn't about my own position on the matter. It's about Church-run hospitals having the right practice medicine in a manner consistent with their own beliefs.