recent Ontario doctor's application for right to discriminate

[PeeterJoot]

In Ontario, there's been some recent fuss in the media about some Doctor's applying for an explicit right to discriminate, reminiscent of the recent Indiana discrimination legislation.

 

This article outlines some of the typical popular sentiment about this application.

 

My partner takes the position that doctor's should not be allowed to discriminate.  I argued the other case, and suggested that people can just switch doctors and the discriminatory doctor will have financial pressure to change their policies.  My argument seemed weak for a number of reasons:

- There is so much legislation in place in Ontario relating to health care that switching a family doctor is non-trivial.

- There is no free market for specialists, and you don't have the flexibility to switch or choose. A specialist is assigned by the "family" (or walk-in) doctor who gets a (Government paid) fee for providing the referral service.  You are not allowed to see specialists directly, even if it's obvious that it's appropriate to do so.  The wait time for seeing a specialist is usually in the order of many months, so the cost of looking elsewhere if you don't like the service you receive is high.

- There may not be other alternatives in Rural areas, so if you don't like the geographical proximate doctor, you may be stuck with their services.
 

I am curious, given the anti-free market constraints that are undeniably in place in Ontario in the medical industry, what position other libertarian biased people would take in this argument, and how others would argue against the weaknesses in my argument against more legislation.

[SWMA]

I think you should include the very real threat of public backlash that a potentially discriminating doctor would have to fear. People smearing obscenities on your house, keying your car, yelling at you in the street, harrassing your family, campaigns on social media against you, whatever you can make up, people would do it.

Not necessarily *you* because some of that's very close to being immoral, if it not straight up is. But there's loads of people that won't hold back. The whole SJW idiot brigade would be very quickly mobilized. So I can see the mob mentality actually doing something good in this case.

[cab21]

now the doctor could move.

 

one argument is to change the whole system, and not just parts of the system, to a free market system.

[J. D. Stembal]

 

 

Like many other enterprises, medicine serves the public, so health-care workers have no right to deny services to women.

 

...

 

The specialty of Obstetrics/Gynecology in particular carries with it the obligation to help women with unplanned pregnancies.

 

In case you were in doubt about the reproductive rights of men, here's the answer.

[jughead]

I used to get deeply involved in these type of debates. The most obvious position a liberty minded person would take is your position that a doctor should be free to discriminate, but as you have acknowledged,when you consider the system as it is the answer becomes murkier. My usual response now to these types of issues is to point out that the problems are all that result of the lack of freedom inherent in the system in the first place and thus any "tinkering" to ostensibly improve things is ultimately futile and misses the point. Debating public policy issues like these implies that we could theoretically influence the system and in that sense serves to add legitimacy to the system and prevents others from recognizing the fact that we are all prisoners.

[jughead]

Furthermore, doctors in the public health care system have either explicitly or implicitly conceded that violence is appropriate, so to then object to discrimination on the grounds of morality strains credulity. If they accept the concept of socialism in practice then they have no moral or logical basis to object to any of the rules imposed by the authorities.

[SWMA]

Furthermore, doctors in the public health care system have either explicitly or implicitly conceded that violence is appropriate, so to then object to discrimination on the grounds of morality strains credulity. If they accept the concept of socialism in practice then they have no moral or logical basis to object to any of the rules imposed by the authorities.

(emphasis by me)

and - not in the way you state it. Not unconditionally. No doctor in the public health care system anywhere would say "violence is unconditionally appropriate at any and all times". When you deliberatly leave that out, it's dishonest.

[jughead]

All absolutes are bad. One should try to avoid equivocation where possible, but this depends on the circumstances.