They can close shop on Saturday, but that doesn’t make them like a church or synagogue in my view.\u00a0 And if they’re going to hold out their product or their service to the public, then they should not be able to mandate that their religious beliefs to which they subscribe, that the results of that belief should be visited on the people who are entitled to sign up for that service.<\/p>\n

If there’s a market where comprehensive health care is available without restriction, and people understand that, then maybe it’s ok for somebody to say that we’re a Catholic health insurer and our hospital is going to be open six days a week, but our emergency room will be open on the Sabbath.\u00a0 But in general, I think that if you’re providing a public service that is a necessity, especially, that it ought to be provided across the board, and the law ought to require it as a condition of licensing.<\/p>\n

Some states do say to Catholic (unintelligible) hospitals, “You cannot restrict (unintelligible) abortion, you cannot restrict contraception services or tubal ligation,” and that, I think, is the better standard.\u00a0 So I start there.\u00a0 I think the concept that these organizations are health care, providing what’s a necessity, not simply a good like a candy store, overrides the ability to finesse what services they will or won’t provide, given an economic necessity or need, especially in monopoly situations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s almost too much here to unpack, but let’s give it a try.\u00a0 It embodies almost all the current liberal assumptions about having a right to other people’s work product, and the inconsequentiality of others’ religious beliefs, to the extent that they differ from your own.<\/p>\n

The phrase that really popped out at me was this: “…people who are entitled to sign up for that service.”\u00a0 Who talks this way, about people “signing up for a service?”\u00a0 The Left, apparently.\u00a0 Remember when Michael Moore rolled up to congressmen, asking them if they would be willing “sign their kids up to serve in Iraq,” as though it were a particularly violent venue for sleep-away camp.\u00a0 Seventh-graders are “entitled to sign up for” band.\u00a0 Adults purchase products and services with their own money.\u00a0 Seventh-graders buy things, too, generally with their parents’ money, which leads them to feel entitled.<\/p>\n

The statement provides a case study of the inevitable intersection between social issues and economic ones.\u00a0 The Left feels entitled to sign other people up to do things for them, without realizing that at a minimum, there’s an opportunity cost.\u00a0 Grant the dubious proposition that All Hospitals Are Created Equal, that you can require anything calling itself a hospital to provide a menu of services at all times, in all places.\u00a0 They still can’t pay for the staff, facilities, and equipment to be perpetually on-call for every conceivable service or procedure.\u00a0 They will have to make choices.\u00a0 And since they are the ones providing the services, their own priorities and values will and ought to guide those choices.<\/p>\n

That’s really the only fair way to decide.<\/p>\n

If Charles Bronson were still around, he might reprise his scene from The Magnificent Seven<\/em> where he throws the Mexican child over his knee and whacks him a couple of times for ingratitude, reminding him that his parents don’t do everything for him because they have to.\u00a0 (Hey, you want to be treated like a child?)\u00a0 Nobody makes the church or churches run these hospitals in the first place, except themselves from their own religious conviction.\u00a0 If that same religious conviction prevents them from providing other services, Planned Parenthood should just see that as a market opportunity.<\/p>\n