You would consider it reasonable for me to argue that the government should ensure that there should be no liberal doctors?
That's a straw man. Nobody has argued that there should be no Christian doctors.
If a doctor does not want to perform an abortion - they should not have to.
Agreed, but only if that physician can find somebody reasonably close willing to do so. A person who is capable of performing an abortion, refuses, and significantly inconveniences somebody requesting one does not belong in the medical profession. Those are not its ethics. If a potential applicant cannot adapt to the professional ethics of medicine, he or she should find other work, and the medical school application board should accept a different applicant instead.
This is an example of what many call Christian privilege - religious preferences trump all other values and needs. I don't agree, and I don't think the law does, either. The values of the medical profession and the needs of patients trump the right of somebody who does not hold those values and doesn't care about those needs from imposing himself and his religious values on the profession. I say the rights of the religious in this matter are to refuse to perform abortions under any circumstances, but from outside of the profession. The profession's value trumps not the right of an individual to hold a belief, but to impose it on others.
Why do you think it is reasonable to dictate, by State enforcement, who can have what profession based on their personal beliefs?
It's not the state determining who gets into medical schools.
Also, the idea that you are a champion of freedom from an intrusive state evaporates if you also say that you would like abortion made illegal again. If so, you are happy to use the power of the state to enforce your values on others, but chafe at the idea of the state limiting your choices.
That's more Christian privilege. Somehow, because it's a religious belief, the citizens should be subjected to it even if outside of that religion, but nobody should ever inhibit any form of Christian preference.
Isn't that what all this fuss about Merry Christmas versus Happy Holidays is about? Christian privilege? Only their holiday matters. Only their holiday should be acknowledged. Even when it is just as easy to be inclusive with Happy Holiday, so many Christians are offended that they cannot exclude competing winter solstice celebrants.
The state government grants the license to practice medicine in each state, and can suspend it.
Such a decision would violate the First Amendment if it were made based on the religious beliefs of the medical practitioner.
But the decision would not be based on religion, and we're not talking about a medical practitioner, but a medical applicant, who is being judged by a panel evaluating medical school applicants. This panel doesn't care what anybody's religion is or whether religion is the source of the candidate's conscientious objection.
Later, if the applicant becomes a physician, it is now agencies like the state medical board and the Drug Enforcement Agency that judge his or her professional actions. These agencies also will not be judging based on the applicant's religion, but his actions. If you violate a tenet of professional ethics, you can be disciplined by these agencies for your actions, including the loss of the privilege of being licensed to practice medicine.
Medicine, like the law, does not accept the values of the religious that make abortion untenable for them.
The point being that you are free to believe whatever you like on the job in medicine (and elsewhere), but if those beliefs run counter to professional values, you are not free to put them in action in the clinic and hospital, and if you cannot comport yourself with the ethics of the field you would otherwise be interested in entering, you belong elsewhere, and the profession has the right to make that determination.
The poster I was responding to was claiming that abortion is a "need".
I was only pointing out that an abortion is not always a need.
And my point was and still is, so what?
And what makes a medical intervention necessary? Is it only that it saves a life? How about if it just makes a patient's life better, like a prosthesis for an amputee, or an abortion for a young pregnant woman - perhaps a high school senior - whose life arc would be significantly impaired by having and raising a baby alone just then? If she feels that having a child now and dropping out of school while still unskilled to take a job as a waitress in order to support her baby is harmful to her, and an abortion is the cure, I'd call the intervention necessary. You might not agree.
And once again, so what if you don't consider the abortion necessary? So what even if we all agree?
Do you consider blood pressure medicine for somebody with a continuous BP of about 200/120 that can prevent a premature heart attack or stroke necessary? All that such treatment can do is redirect a life trajectory to a longer life with fewer or later cardiovascular complications. Notice that the decision to provide this therapy doesn't depend on anybody's definition of necessary, just what is preferable.
If health insurance can refuse to cover an elective surgery because it is not deemed "medically necessary" then a doctor should be able to opt out for the same reason.
Insurance companies don't determine what is medically necessary. Physicians do, and insurers pay claims for procedures physicians approve unless they are excluded by the policy.
With the advent of the HMOs, these matters came into clearer focus. HMOs were making these medical judgments inappropriately, and had to be sued. I briefly worked with HMOs, and remember referring a patient for a brain MRI based on persistent and progressive headaches. The HMO declared the request unnecessary and refused to authorize payment. It also expected contracted physicians to support that decision in the exam room, which would be a big mistake. The physician is the patient's advocate, not the ensurers, and he or she had better inform the patient that he disagrees with the insurer, that in the eyes of the physician the procedure was necessary but was denied by some eighteen-year old named Heather, and that the patient needs to get the MRI anyway even he or she must pay out of pocket. This puts the decision to not get the radiology back in the hands of the patient, and with it, the liability that goes with making that choice.
And that Heather thing literally happened to me. After waiting 45 minutes to get Heather's approval for an X-ray of the cervical spine, some eighteen-year old named Heather denied our request, informing us that men don't have a cervix.
The Thirteenth Amendment ensures that you cannot force a doctor to perform a procedure if they don't want to.
Nobody is forcing anybody to do anything. It's an agreement - abide by our professional values or don't, but do the latter from outside the profession, or if within, accept professional disciplining. Requiring a physician to perform a legal abortion when he or she is qualified and no body else is conveniently available is not involuntary servitude. He or she will not be chained or whipped for refusing. He will simply be asked to pay the price his religious convictions require. Freedom is not always for free.
