Doctors' beliefs hinder patient care

Posted today on MSNBC.com: Doctors' beliefs hinder patient care. And by "patient care", they mean essentially "women's care". Rape victims denied emergency contraception, women with ectopic pregnancies denied abortions, single women and lesbians denied access to fertility clinics and numerous other indignities all because doctors and nurses felt compelled by their religious beliefs to put the health of their women patients behind their religion.

Compared with the highly publicized issue of pharmacists who refuse to dispense birth control and emergency contraception, physician refusals are a little-discussed topic.

Sixteen legislatures have given doctors the right to refuse to perform sterilizations; eight states say doctors don't have to prescribe contraception.

Since the early 1990s, hospitals have been steadily consolidating operations to save money; so many secular community hospitals have been bought up that, today, nearly one in five hospital beds is in a religiously owned institution

Every Catholic hospital is bound by the ethical directives of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which forbid abortion and sterilization (unless they are lifesaving), in vitro fertilization, surrogate motherhood, some prenatal genetic testing, all artificial forms of birth control and the use of condoms for HIV prevention.

Women, you definitely want to read this but don't do it until after you've taken your blood pressure medication.