Life affords us the ability to choose many aspects of our lives. In our country, some of those freedoms are how we pursue our happiness, how we make money, and how we worship. Things that we do not control are sex, sexuality, and illnesses/medical needs. Yet, our great nation has elected to further the idea of religious freedoms has moved into medicine more than it should. Let’s look at what that means.
Normally, people view religious freedom as being able to turn away people from public services with the idea of we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone. Think Mr. Wannabe Cake Boss in Colorado, the Baking Nazis in Oregon, and a host of other people refusing LGBT people their services because of the Bible and God and brimstone or butthole fire and Pat Robins…Yeah, that crazy bs. Yet, it goes deeper than that. Remember when Civil Rights was covered in school? Some might have a better understanding than others, but it goes something like this, “Niggers in the back of the bus,” or “We don’t serve Chinks, Spics, Niggers, or Injuns here,” or “White fountain and Black Fountain.” It’s the concept of separate but equal when in reality, it was just racism and a flawed belief that one group was better than another because of something they couldn’t control, their skin color.
Other instances of religious use in medical or psychological treatment were lobotomies and conversion therapy. Nothing says, “love thy neighbor,” like severing the connection of the frontal lobe or forcing someone to change their sexual preference through aversion therapy, psychological brainwashing/extremist religious counseling, and chemical cocktails delivered to try and relieve their “suffering”. Why bring up lobotomies? Well, they weren’t just used to treat severe psychological problems like it was designed. They were also used to treat anything that clinical psychologists considered deviant behaviors, such as homosexuality. And women also had them forced on them to control them as well. Disobedient wife? Or the clinical term, hysteric, could result in forced orgasms, or worse, a forced lobotomy to cure the patient and put their mind at ease. These were reported to have taken place in America until the 1980s, and some still think they were an effective treatment, but what they neglect to remember is that about of the thousands of lobotomies that were performed, up to 40% were performed on homosexuals. That means that of the about 40,000-50,000 lobotomies performed, about 16,000-20,000 were men and women who were forced into treatment and had their frontal lobe severed. Many were forced into treatment by family and friends or were court ordered into treatment due to morality laws that said that their sexuality was harmful to the community. Their personalities damaged. Their dignity taken away. And their ability to live anything similar to a normal life ripped away in the name of religions that deemed that their sex and sexuality was deviant and sinful (Scot). Which leads to conversion therapy.
This is mostly a religious idea that people can change their thinking about their sex and sexuality. It’s an idea that the feeling someone has for the same sex or that they are transgender can be altered through counseling, prayer, aversion therapy, and often, chemical help. Essentially what it means is that people are shocked, shamed, beaten, and brainwashed into believing that they are bad or damaged. They are told that their behavior is wrong and that their feelings aren’t pure or natural. The idea that homosexuality was a problem left the APA in the 1970s, and the only institutions that still latch onto the idea are those that are related to religion. They are the only people still operating places that practice conversion therapy and their numbers are decreasing as more and more states outlaw conversion therapy. Many are doing this because the main side effect to conversion therapy happens to be suicide. Weird how that works out when they’re forcing people to change an innate part of their personality and shaming them into this change. Most don’t care that they are causing their patients to kill themselves because as many extremists would say and have said that homosexuals are better off dead than a homosexual.
What does that have to do with medicine? Well, ever hear of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment? That somewhat has something to do with all of this under the basis that our country viewed African Americans as a lower life-form and something that could be experimented on because they viewed that they were better than that group of people. Many justify this belief under the guise of religion and that anyone who has darker skin is the descendant of Cain because he and his children were cursed with dark skin after he killed Abel. Educated people of the time saying things like, “’If the colored population becomes aware that accepting free hospital care means a post-mortem, every darky will leave Macon County…’” (Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment). The doctor said that about getting people to participate in the experiment that didn’t find anything scientific about syphilis other than how long it might take for someone to die from terminal syphilis.
When I hear anyone touting religious freedoms, all I can think about is racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and discrimination veiled behind a collar and cross. This is more evident in the medical community. Refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control, hormones, or even STD or STI treatments. Refusing to refer or treat people asking for abortions, for female sterilization (hysterectomies or tying tubes and so on), counseling LGBTQ patients, and more. But where it becomes more dangerous is when counties or entire states allow medical professionals the right to refuse to treat people they do not agree with on religious grounds. It’s not just about someone not getting their hormones for gender reassignment therapy or the morning after pill for an uh oh moment in a woman’s life, but actually dealing with someone potentially dying. This could mean that a first responder refuses to treat someone in a car wreck because they have an equality sticker on their car or they’re wearing a burqa. That when that patient gets to the hospital, they’re refused care when the staff finds out that they’re trans. And no one wants to work on them because they’re dirty, they’re a sinner, they’re going against God, and that patient is now unstable and being transferred to another hospital or receiving sub-par care so that they can be somewhat stabilized and transferred to another hospital. But remember, it’s ok that they’re not getting the best because they’re not following God’s Law and those medical professionals had the right to do what they did because of religious freedom
It’s happening, and it’s sad that people think that this is acceptable. People should not enter a profession if they can’t do the job. People shouldn’t put themselves in a position that conflicts with their religion or do like many people do and leave those beliefs at the door and do the job that they’re supposed to do. It’s really that simple. I mean, there are Hindu and Buddhist people who are strict vegetarians who serve meat products, which means put on those big girl panties, suck it up, and do the job and save lives regardless of religious beliefs. If it’s so bad, then leave the profession and do something else so that someone else who isn’t a bigot can take that place and not kill someone. Medicine isn’t a job that allows for picking and choosing who to treat when it aligns with a specific belief system, that’s called being a preacher or priest, or rabbi, or imam, or some other religious person. Medicine is doing the best for the patient to improve their quality of life or saving their lives. It isn’t about judging them or refusing to help them because they’re a sinner. Or that they do something that the doctor or nurse or other professional disagrees with (honestly, most people wouldn’t be treated if that were the case), because it’s to help people, or for some to earn fat checks to put in the bank. And if people are refusing to treat patients or fill scripts, is that really going to make that bank account fat?
And the last thing to think about for many of the readers who do follow a religion, would Jesus really turn his back on the sick and injured? Would Jesus advocate for actually inflicting harm upon others? Would Jesus allow people to die if he could save them? If anyone answered yes, do the medical field a service and quit and find some other profession. That type of thinking is dangerous.