Part-Time Pundit

A Victory for Free Association at SIU

The Seventh Circuit of Appeals issued an order on August 22nd requiring SIU to restore a Christian group’s organization status after the University revoked it because of the groups requirement that the leaders of the Christian group actually be Christian. The ruling also clarifies that nothing in state or federal law requires religious groups to not require members be part of the religion.

Many universities, including the University of Illinois have similar rules that which are just as unconstitutional yet continue to exist out of fear of students not wanting to rock the boat. These rules which are a part of “antidiscrimination policies” go far beyond and cognizable interest in maintaining order on campus. Having a group of Christians who get together and talk about the Bible is a far cry from race riots.

Universities routinely try to pre-restrict certain kinds of speech based on (usually) religious content. The University of Illinois has the same rules that prevent free association and also adds in that speech that is “evangelical” in nature cannot be funded. Talks are routinely had on why religion is a bad thing, but the religious are unable to respond because those views are not allowed on campus. This is called “viewpoint” discrimination. This is the campus that brings you “Sex Out Loud” each year, but the mere positive mention of religion apparently threatens the University to its core.

Liberty demands that people be allowed to say what they want and organize how they want unless there is a very significant reason to regulate. Only on campuses do these attempts to regulate free associate and free speech exist and finally the courts are starting to put an end to it.

Thanks OTB

August 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Education, Illinois, Law / Legal Issues, Politics, University of Illinois | one comment

Eugenics at Carle Foundation Hospital

(Note: Thanks to Pro-Life Blogs for hosting the PDF)

Eugenics is the sterilizing of the “unfit” so that only the fit can breed. This was all the rage in the 30s until Hitler took it to its logical extension and it fell out of style. Many states allowed courts to order sterilization of criminals or others that those in power deemed not fit to procreate. The laws were eventually overturned.

That brings me to this story. On March 10th, 2005 a woman was admitted to Carle Foundation hospital. She was several months pregnant and was admitted for complications to her pregnancy and for apparent drug abuse. At admission, the staff identified “Communication Barriers” on a form even though the patient speaks fluent English (Page 1 in the linked PDF document below). Page 2 is an authorization form for sterilization “signed” on March 12th. Page 3 and 4 are the nursing charts that show on 3/11 the “pt (patient) would not wake up”, on 3/12 that the nurses could not do a consultation with her because the drugs (which included the ones given by the hospital at this point) have not worn off, and that on 3/13 says the “pt (patient) finally ‘waking up’”. The patient was admitted on the 11th but unable to communicate until the 13th, yet signed a form authorizing sterilization on the 12th. How precisely can a patient unable to communicate and unable to “wake up” sign a consent form to have her tubes tied? The law in Illinois for medical treatment is “informed consent” and based on the nurse’s own statements, this patient was in no position to consent to anything and certainly not do so in an informed matter.

Here are the excerpts of the medical records which have had identifying information redacted except the patient number so Carle can verify these records should they so choose.

After receiving this information I tried to see if this has happened to other women. I received 2 reports that women were pressured into signing these forms and refused but nothing quite on the level of this. This could be one nurse who took matters into her own hands or an institutional policy, I just don’t know that right now and I have been unable to successfully dig deeper. I’m of the opinion that if this has happened once in such a flagrant manner, what’s to say it hasn’t happened before or won’t happen again. Only some public prying will be able to determine it which is the intention of this post.

One may argue that sterilization of women with drug problems is a good thing, to them I say why not wait until she is awake and convince her? Sure, I’m against sterilization but it is legal in this country. Why not deal with the drug problem instead of sterilizing the woman and dropping her back into her bad situation? What happens when the woman breaks free of her drug problem and later wants to have children when she’s clean? What happened here was a hospital staffer trying to slip through this sterilization because they wanted to impose it on her. Luckily, this time they got caught and the authorization was revoked. The courts and legislatures have decided that they have no place controlling who should breed; certainly nurses in hospitals shouldn’t be making those decisions either.

CLARIFICATION:

Apparently I was less than clear… once she “came to” she told asked the nurses about this thing she signed, they told her, and she eventually (with difficulty) got the permission revoked. They just got the form signed so when she delivered, they would be able to “take care of it” with no questions asked.

August 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Illinois, Law / Legal Issues, Pro-Life | 4 comments

Abortion Advocates Fight Against Choice

Abortion advocates are in a fight over the current HHS appropriations bill and whether hospitals, doctors, and medical personnel can be forced to be involved in abortion or risk losing any federal funds they may receive. This comes on the heels of a lawsuit filed by the State of California to overturn such provisions.

Here is another example of the “pro-choice” crowd fighting against the choice of medical providers in what services they want to provide and attempting to nullify their consciences. They argue that they aren’t pro-abortion but then insist that every doctor must be jumping to perform abortions on demand. Any provider who refuses on the basis of conscience to provide any abortion-related services will likely face a revocation of their licenses.

The pro-abortion crowd not only wants to prevent medical providers from having a choice on what services they provide, they also want to exclude the religious from not only public life but even private jobs (with the ACLU trying to eliminate tax exemption for churches). If you’re religious not only do they not want to allow you the choice to follow your conscience, they want to prevent your choice of profession.

So much for choice.

BNN Link

August 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Law / Legal Issues, National, Politics, Pro-Life, Religion | 5 comments

The .XXX Top-Level Domain

There has been a bit of talk about the .XXX top-level domain (TLD) and whether it should be approved. When I got around to writing something, I thought it was stale news, but apparently discussion is making the rounds.

In short, the TLD is meant for, you guessed it, porn. The Bush Administration doesn’t like it because it will create a virtual “red-light” district on the web. There are some concerns that it will legitimize pornography.

I think it’s a good idea, honestly. One, pornography is already legitimized if you are using the strict meaning of that word. There is nothing illegal about it (save some sparse regulations) and, let’s be honest, it’s ingrained into the culture. It doesn’t make it a good thing, but the Supreme Court has made it the law of the land that it gets to stay. Even if US laws were able to stop it, it would still come in from overseas and I don’t think we want a China-like Internet setup with the government censoring what we can see on the web. Pornography is bad for the soul and for that matter even bad for society, but it is up to people who believe that to make the case on an individual basis at this point.

Two, this makes it that much easier to block some porn. Anything that ends in “.xxx” gets denied. Very simple, doesn’t require any new filtering technology or anyone to scour the web to put sites in the filter. If anything, it makes it that much more obvious when someone is looking at porn (a.k.a. your kids) and dealing with it. It would be great if all porn (or at least most) could be kicked to the .xxx TLD, it would make filtering it for those who don’t want it that much easier.

When I was in Milan a few years ago, I was struck by the constant array of “sex shops” in otherwise respectable neighborhoods and essentially pornographic ads on TV (usual telephone commercials, I don’t know why). A red-light district at least lets you know where to avoid if you don’t want to be exposed to it. The same is true for a TLD.

August 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Pro-Life, Religion | 3 comments

Tell Me This Doesn’t Look Like It’s From a Movie

August 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | Humor, Random | one comment

Column Up: Barack Obama - Falling Star

My First column at the DI is up.

August 26th, 2005 Posted by John Bambenek | DailyIllini, National, Politics | 2 comments