Arkansas Passes Law Allowing Doctors to refuse LGBT Patients

[The Republic of Fore]

Yes but if you don’t trust your doctor you won’t get accurate care

If a doctor wants to refuse a patient then they shouldn't be a doctor. Arguing the reverse of this is rewarding bigotry not protecting people from it.

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

If a doctor wants to refuse a patient then they shouldn't be a doctor. Arguing the reverse of this is rewarding bigotry not protecting people from it.

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

This argument didn’t work when it came to businesses refusing service to black people when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and it doesn’t work now with LGBTQ+ folks being refused treatment by doctors.

[Punished UMN]

So they're free to go to a different doctor. If they're having a medical emergency, they can always be treated at an emergency room. Really these laws don't actually do anything, all the doctor has to do is make up an excuse. "I don't accept your insurance". As long as that's true, that's a perfectly valid reason to turn someone away. Go ahead and try to prove it was because they were black or gay. Especially in a state like Arkansas, where many people are on medicaid the most common type of insurance doctors won't take.

That should be something we should go against. Doctors should have to accept insurance. There should be protections for doctors who are genuinely concerned about the ethics of patient care, but doctors being allowed to refuse to provide medically necessary treatment or treatment with demonstrably will provide increased quality of life for relatively little risk is going too far in that direction.

[San Lumen]

If a doctor wants to refuse a patient then they shouldn't be a doctor. Arguing the reverse of this is rewarding bigotry not protecting people from it.

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

A doctor doesn't get to pick and chose who they treat. If a LGBT patient shows up they have an obligation to treat them there are no ifs ands or buts.

[Ayytaly]

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

This argument didn’t work when it came to businesses refusing service to black people when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and it doesn’t work now with LGBTQ+ folks being refused treatment by doctors.

The US Government refuses to serve the people.

[The Republic of Fore]

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

This argument didn’t work when it came to businesses refusing service to black people when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and it doesn’t work now with LGBTQ+ folks being refused treatment by doctors.

Only essential services are covered by the civil rights act. A podiatrist looking at your bunion isn't an essential service.

[The Republic of Fore]

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

A doctor doesn't get to pick and chose who they treat. If a LGBT patient shows up they have an obligation to treat them there are no ifs ands or buts.

Actually they do. They can refuse to treat anyone, for any reason unless they're having a medical emergency. That's literally the law in all 50 states. You can make up imaginary protections if you want, but it won't stop someone from just using a different excuse to deny service.

[The Black Forrest]

This argument didn’t work when it came to businesses refusing service to black people when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and it doesn’t work now with LGBTQ+ folks being refused treatment by doctors.

Only essential services are covered by the civil rights act. A podiatrist looking at your bunion isn't an essential service.

Indeed. Still a doctor who refuses services due to the sexuality of a person should be forced to find a new job. Especially when you consider a discomfort caught in the beginning usually avoids something life ending.....

[The Alma Mater]

If a doctor wants to refuse a patient then they shouldn't be a doctor. Arguing the reverse of this is rewarding bigotry not protecting people from it.

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

So if the cashier at the supermarket does not like your face or the fact that you are buying pork and alcohol - she should be able to tell you to get in another line ?

[Heloin]

This argument didn’t work when it came to businesses refusing service to black people when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed and it doesn’t work now with LGBTQ+ folks being refused treatment by doctors.

Only essential services are covered by the civil rights act. A podiatrist looking at your bunion isn't an essential service.

Knowing someone who can’t work anymore because of exactly that no, that’s serious. That you feel you can make fun of other people’s medical conditions because you think people you don’t like shouldn’t receive healthcare is honestly sickening.

[The Black Forrest]

If a doctor wants to refuse a patient then they shouldn't be a doctor. Arguing the reverse of this is rewarding bigotry not protecting people from it.

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

Or the doctor can find a new line of work which doesn’t have the chance of having his fefes offending by icky gay people.

[The Republic of Fore]

Only essential services are covered by the civil rights act. A podiatrist looking at your bunion isn't an essential service.

Indeed. Still a doctor who refuses services due to the sexuality of a person should be forced to find a new job. Especially when you consider a discomfort caught in the beginning usually avoids something life ending.....

And as I've repeatedly said, exactly what will you do when the doctor simply uses a different excuse?

[Ayytaly]

Only essential services are covered by the civil rights act. A podiatrist looking at your bunion isn't an essential service.

Indeed. Still a doctor who refuses services due to the sexuality of a person should be forced to find a new job. Especially when you consider a discomfort caught in the beginning usually avoids something life ending.....

What if it's the other way around?

[The Republic of Fore]

Or they can just go to another doctor. Being a doctor doesn't make someone a slave, nobody has to serve you ever.

So if the cashier at the supermarket does not like your face or the fact that you are buying pork and alcohol - she should be able to tell you to get in another line ?

I'd shop somewhere else. Gee what a concept.

[The Alma Mater]

So if the cashier at the supermarket does not like your face or the fact that you are buying pork and alcohol - she should be able to tell you to get in another line ?

I'd shop somewhere else. Gee what a concept.

And if it is the only suprmarkt in a 50 mile area ?

[Heloin]

Indeed. Still a doctor who refuses services due to the sexuality of a person should be forced to find a new job. Especially when you consider a discomfort caught in the beginning usually avoids something life ending.....

And as I've repeatedly said, exactly what will you do when the doctor simply uses a different excuse?

Well the first one who tries to use it will likely be sued then it’ll go through the courts and be declared unconstitutional. That’s only if it isn’t declared unconstitutional beforehand since I doubt any medical professional wants to tell everyone that they’re such a bigot that they hate being a good doctor.

[Ayytaly]

And as I've repeatedly said, exactly what will you do when the doctor simply uses a different excuse?

Well the first one who tries to use it will likely be sued then it’ll go through the courts and be declared unconstitutional. That’s only if it isn’t declared unconstitutional beforehand since I doubt any medical professional wants to tell everyone that they’re such a bigot that they hate being a good doctor.

Did Rhodesia have similar policies towards black patients?

[The Black Forrest]

Indeed. Still a doctor who refuses services due to the sexuality of a person should be forced to find a new job. Especially when you consider a discomfort caught in the beginning usually avoids something life ending.....

And as I've repeatedly said, exactly what will you do when the doctor simply uses a different excuse?

Ok. If the discomfort turns into something worse? Let the legal system put the doctor into unemployeed...lost home...etc., etc.

[Heloin]

Well the first one who tries to use it will likely be sued then it’ll go through the courts and be declared unconstitutional. That’s only if it isn’t declared unconstitutional beforehand since I doubt any medical professional wants to tell everyone that they’re such a bigot that they hate being a good doctor.

Did Rhodesia have similar policies towards black patients?

That a state run by openly racist bigots did a thing should be reason enough to not do that thing now.

[The Black Forrest]

Indeed. Still a doctor who refuses services due to the sexuality of a person should be forced to find a new job. Especially when you consider a discomfort caught in the beginning usually avoids something life ending.....

What if it's the other way around?

Other way around?

[Ayytaly]

What if it's the other way around?

Other way around?

You know, one gets a doctor of the same sex who then harasses and extorts you if you don't comply with their perverted lust. If one refuses, the "doc" forges and manipulates the results and claims you have Hep C. And since the medical union is a powerful force to be reckoned with, you have little chance to win a sexual harrassment/extortion/medical fraud case as a plaintiff.

[The Alma Mater]

Other way around?

You know, one gets a doctor of the same sex who then harasses and extorts you if you don't comply with their perverted lust. If one refuses, the "doc" forges and manipulates the results and claims you have Hep C. And since the medical union is a powerful force to be reckoned with, you have little chance to win a sexual harrassment/extortion/medical fraud case as a plaintiff.

You spend too much time on pornhub.

[Alinghi Federal-Democratic Republic]

Only in U.S.A. among democracies this shit would be constitutional...

[Kilobugya]

So they're free to go to a different doctor. If they're having a medical emergency, they can always be treated at an emergency room. Really these laws don't actually do anything, all the doctor has to do is make up an excuse. "I don't accept your insurance". As long as that's true, that's a perfectly valid reason to turn someone away. Go ahead and try to prove it was because they were black or gay. Especially in a state like Arkansas, where many people are on medicaid the most common type of insurance doctors won't take.

One wrong doesn't right another wrong. A doctor refusing a patient for being LGBT just doesn't deserve to be a doctor, it's totally antithetical for the core of the ethics of what a doctor should be. But that doesn't mean your system in which doctors can refuse people for having the wrong insurance is fine either. It's more than time for single-payer healthcare, aka medicare for all.

[The Free Joy State]

So, a woman happens to be travelling in Arkansas and -- by some terrible mischance -- run out of her Pill (used to treat her gynaecological problem), and this bill allows a doctor -- who is supposed to be there to treat and not judge -- to say: "It goes against my moral ethics to prescribe birth control. I suggest you pray your endometriosis away."? And the law would approve because his "morals" apparently overrode a patients needs for care?

What a vile little bill.

The solution -- as with a pharmacist who refuses to dispense -- is for a doctor who refuses to practise to not practise.

There are many times a minor health problem, caught early by a competent doctor, can be prevented from becoming something more serious and dangerous. If doctors refuse to see people before they are literally staggering into an emergency department, in a state of severe extremis, that cannot happen (what kind of bill allows for people to be denied in-patient treatment for an infection... seriously!). Diagnoses will be missed, lives lost, and all because some doctors refuse to offer competent care.