Beliefs and ethics collide, with lives on the line

A show I am really growing to respect lately, The Big Idea with Donnie Deutsche, recently reported on a situation that chills me to the bone and angers me (almost) beyond words.

A mother was on the show, telling quite a heart-tugging tale with a horrible twist. Her young daughter was out late one night, when a stranger asked her for directions. She proceeded to help him out with his request, when she was hit over the head and violently raped.

Her mother took her to the hospital, where a nurse assisted her in getting a rape kit taken care of. She was released and went home. Her mother was talking to one of her friends about the incident, and the friend asked whether or not she was prescribed a Plan B pill, a post-intercourse contraceptive. The mother didn’t even realize such an option existed. She went back the hospital and spoke with the nurse again, inquiring as to the option and why it was not presented to her daughter. The nurse then conferred with the doctor who had overseen the treatment, and informed the mother the doctor neither presented the option, nor would prescribe the medication, because it was against his religious beliefs.

Following your religious beliefs is absolutely fine; it’s your right, as guaranteed by the 1^st Amendment. However, when your right to practice your religion violates the rights of others, or your ethical obligation to your patients, then we have a problem. This doctor placed his religious beliefs above the medical needs of a patient, something that must be considered a violation of his Hippocratic oath; the pledge all doctors take before being allowed to actually practice medicine. This doctor, by nature of his profession itself, chose to swear to uphold the following; “To keep the good of the patient as the highest priority.” This is not a difficult concept. This poor girl was violently raped, and a Plan B medication would have prevented a forced conception, but this doctor felt that it was more important to impose his religious beliefs on this girl, and all the possible harms associated with that choice, than to simply do what he had sworn.

What if you were severely injured in a car accident and taken to the emergency room. You’re lying there in your rolling bed, the smell of sterility all around you, strangers in masks surrounding you, speaking in tongues you can’t even begin to understand. Your life is hanging in the balance. And then your nurse informs you that your doctor will not allow surgery to be performed on you, because it violates his personal religious beliefs. What if? This is the kind of slippery slope that could only occur in a hypothetical, yet here it is. Doctors cannot be allowed to provide or withhold medical care based on their personal feelings, regardless of their inspiration; they hold the lives of too many people in their hands to be guided by such. Whether it be personal politics, religious beliefs, or their own feelings, they have no place in hospitals.