I gather the SDAs have alternatives to transfusions. They give presentations on them about once a year to the surgeons here.

I don’t see what’s so shocking about the possibility of dying because the proper treatment isn’t available. That happens. Anyone living in the more rural parts of my province knows that if they have a heart attack, it will take them much longer to get to a doctor than in the city, and the doctor they see will be far less qualified and experienced in treating heart attacks than the city ER doctors and specialists. Ditto for trauma. If the first responder doesn’t think a transfusion is appropriate, it won’t matter to me as patient whether the reason is because he is incompetant, because he has religious scruples, or because they don’t have any blood nearer than the regional hospital. These things happen. Patients don’t always have accidents near facilities that provide the type of care the patient would have wanted. Trying to micromanage things by keeping the religious people out of health care isn’t going to change that.

My big concern, though, is those places where no alternatives exist. Where a Catholic hospital being available means that no other hospital will enter that market. Where the only pharmacy in an isolated small town won’t dispense birth control to single women (or married ones, for that matter). What does someone in need of religiously controversial treatment do?

There can be emergency situations not amenable to traveling to other care where a mother’s life is endangered by a pregnancy. What does a Catholic health provider do in that case? Watch the mother and baby die in preference to an abortion? I don’t know how this is resolved in Catholic hospitals.

For the pharmacy situation, there are now alternatives that didn’t exist 20 years ago, such as online or mail-order pharmacies. There’s still the difficulty of finding a doctor to prescribe, and in some cases such as the morning after pill, getting the drugs in a timely fashion. But less so than there used to be. So that’s not as urgent a situation, I’d think.

But I’ve got to wonder if a hospital (the only one in the area) run by Seventh-Day Adventists opened up, and didn’t provide blood transfusion, and someone (not religious) came in nearly dead from loss of blood, what would happen? What if that person died? If it were elective or non-emergency surgery, the person would at least have the opportunity to choose to go elsewhere, but in an emergency, if the only proper treatment is prohibited by the religion of the provider, I’d say screw the religion, save the life.

It’s one thing not to provide specialty services like MRIs or heart transplants. It’s another not to provide basic common care that is a frequently encountered situation. Now…whether services like abortions are common or speciality is another issue.

The problem still remains that the Catholic Church must, by their own beliefs, try to help the poor and sick, and they have been prevented from doing so by the state in which they are as much citizens as anyone else is. A state, moreover, that claims to honour freedom of religion. In the short term, the RCs can focus on related activities – a local group of nuns, having lost their role in public education, turned to other forms of helping others, including a day centre with meals and a food bank for the poor. Another group set up a private school with funding for students from poor families. But that sort of accomodation almost colludes in hiding what has actually taken place – the rule of law has been used to try to stop a group of people, identifiable by their religion, from participating in their society. It’s the Bible versions all over again.

OK, explanation for those not familiar with my area. It is perfectly legal in Canada (well, can be, depending on province) to have publically funded religious schools, and the nuns in question found themselves out of education when our provincial government decided it could save money by eliminating denominational schools. And one of the things that prevented public non-denominational schools from being set up in the first place back in the 1800s was the Protestants passing laws that required the KJV of the Bible to be used as a school text – again, not saying outright ‘we don’t want Catholics to participate in our society’ but ensuring they couldn’t, in conscience.

By the way, I’m not RC myself, although I am familiar with and very interested in the church. I think I’m coming across as a Catholic who can’t see both sides of the issue.

In the case of the animal adoption, I would 1) Refuse to comply with the ordinance, loudly, publicly, and politely, 2) Mount a massive publicity campaign to let others in the community know about the ordinance, 3) Start looking for a lawyer who was willing to represent the group pro bono, 4) Arrange to have protesters at every city council meeting, and 5) Continue normal operations in fostering animals.

In other words, civil disobedience in action. I see no reason a church or other group couldn’t do the same, if they ran up against some ukase which went against their sense of what is right.

In this case, the government is trying to restrict services instead of mandating them. If the city didn’t cave & the court case went against the group (which I doubt), the group has the option of moving the fostered animals outside the city limits, & out of the city’s jurisdiction (at least around here that would work.) Since the foster group is not run or funded by the city, I doubt if the courts would let this stand. I’d like to say that no city council would be crazy enough to pass such an ordinance, which is bound to be unpopular, but some of them are crazy enough for anything.

From my point of view, it is not the people with animals who are dependent on the group, it is the animals themselves. If, somehow, the city wins, the group should find homes for all animals being fostered at that time, not take in new fosters, and keep up the pressure on the city council.

To put forward another example – a local group of people opposed the practice of euthanasia in a local animal shelter, so they set up their own group that organizes no-kill fostering and adoption (they haven’t yet raised enough money to set up their own shelter). If the city, alarmed by the large number of stray animals, passed a bylaw requiring all stray animals that were homeless after 10 days to be euthanized after 10 days, what would you expect these people to do? Agree to euthanize animals, since after all, people with unwanted animals have come to depend on their service? Or stick to their principles and shut down their operation, perhaps going underground to violate the law by sheltering homeless animals for more than 10 days?

And no hospital should be required to perform more complicated treatment, whether it’s abortion or knee surgery or dialysis. That should be left up to the individual hospital, which can decide based on whatever criteria they choose–as long as, if they do choose to do it, they do a good job.

I don’t really care why anybody chooses to start a hospital, or an adoption agency, or a homeless shelter. But I very strongly believe that once someone has taken on that responsibility, they can’t either give the patients/adoptees/homeless poor or harmful service, or just abandon them without making provisions for someone else to take over that service. Once someone is depending on you, you have an obligation to them.

Once you have committed to providing service to someone, you are a service provider, even if that is not, to you, the main point.

Do you have Urgent Care medical facilities in Connecticut? That’s where I would go here for a non-life-threatening emergency, like caring for a wound and a tetanus shot. (In fact, that’s where I did go for that a few years ago.) They’re a lot less expensive than emergency rooms–I think I paid $60 for my visit. They’re affiliated with the local hospitals, but usually in office buildings which aren’t on the hospital campus. They don’t have all the technology you’d need for, say, a heart attack or something. But they’re fine if you have the flu, or a minor injury. I don’t know if they’re just around here, or if they’re all over the country.