Endless Propaganda, Endless Emptiness

ron desantis, soaked in blood

The monsters in Florida just passed a bill that says doctors can refuse medical care to people they don’t like, and the monster of a governor just signed it, and everybody is gonna DIE DIE DIE:

See, from now on, if you’re gay or black or a woman in Florida, the doctor can just pull on his Klan hood and laugh at you while you bleed to death. THAT’S WHAT THE LAWS SAYS, because the news says so. (And Twitter, you’ll be shocked to hear, is in a state of apocalyptic hysteria over the FASCISTS saying that doctors can now MURDER YOU.)

But as I always say, when you see a news story like this, go read the thing itself. Don’t take the interpretation of the law; go find the law.

So: Here’s the full text of the law. A few things are immediately obvious.

First, the news stories say that the new law means that doctors can start refusing to treat individual patients — because they don’t like women, or don’t like black or Latino patients, or don’t like LGBT patients. (“Go die, stupid WOMAN!” — Florida doctors.) But the law isn’t about the blanket denial of care for any patient of any kind, at all, ever. It allows doctors and other medical providers to decline specific procedures, not specific patients. It’s “I won’t perform an abortion,” not, “I don’t treat women.” Again, read the actual text of the law, and read it carefully:

 (b) The exercise of the right of medical conscience is
  136  limited to conscience-based objections to a specific health care
  137  service. This section may not be construed to waive or modify
  138  any duty a health care provider or health care payor may have to
  139  provide or pay for other health care services that do not
  140  violate their right of medical conscience, to waive or modify
  141  any duty to provide any informed consent required by law, or to
  142  allow a health care provider or payor to opt out of providing
  143  health care services to any patient or potential patient because
  144  of that patient’s or potential patient’s race, color, religion,
  145  sex, or national origin. Additionally, a health care payor may
  146  not decline to pay for a health care service it is contractually
  147  obligated to cover during the plan year.

So the subhed in the news story I’ve linked to says the bill is “expected to target” women and minorities; the law itself says that medical providers may not decline to provide care to a patient “because of that patient’s or potential patient’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” Always compare [news media description of thing] to [actual thing]. Never trust the description.

Second, the law requires advance notice, in writing, whenever possible, or a written explanation afterward, and requires that doctors (and hospitals or medical practices) be able to explicitly explain in writing, by reference to specific statements of principle, the decision to decline a particular medical service. It flatly has nothing to do with doctors refusing treatment if — back to the news headline above — “they just felt like it.”

Third:

(6) REQUIREMENT TO PROVIDE EMERGENCY MEDICAL TREATMENT. 203 This section may not be construed to override any requirement to 204 provide emergency medical treatment in accordance with state law 205 or the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, 42 206 U.S.C. s. 1395dd.

So no one is going to stagger into the emergency room, bleeding to death, and be turned away to keep on bleeding to death on the basis of some kind of religious claim. “I don’t care about your knife wounds, lesbian!”

I don’t know what I think about this bill, which I haven’t thought about before today, and I’m entirely open to discussion about it. I do very much know that the “mainstream” reporting on it is lazy propaganda, and should be completely ignored.

Always read the bill or law, yourself, directly.