Monday, March 13, 2006

Lieberman Is A Compassionate Conservative



Never mind that he is nominally a Democrat (or DINO as they are called). Firedoglake reports Joe's views on whether Catholic hospitals can refuse to give rape victims emergency contraceptives:

In Connecticut, rape counseling activists say a recent study concludes that about 20% of state hospitals routinely refuses to offer emergency contraceptives to rape victims who are determined to be ovulating at the time they're attacked. A proposed bill would require them to do so.

And what sayith Holy Joe about this? According to The New Haven Register:

This fight isn't exclusively being drawn along party lines.

U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, who often takes a conservative line on social issues, is facing a liberal Democratic primary challenge from wealthy Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont. But that hasn't stopped Lieberman from supporting the approach of the Catholic hospitals when it comes to contraceptives for rape victims.

Lieberman said he believes hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for "principled reasons" shouldn't be forced to do so. "In Connecticut, it shouldn't take more than a short ride to get to another hospital," he said.

I love the term "principled reasons". All my reasons are principled, and I suspect that most people find their reasons principled. It would be principled to refuse to treat gays, say, if you, in principle, disapprove of the gay lifestyle (whatever that might be). It's just a hop, skip and a jump to another hospital in Connecticut. Never mind if you are suffering from the after-effects of a hate crime.

And it's a hop, skip and a jump to a rape victim, too. Once she gets over those crying jags and that cowering away from any man around and once she can remember her name and her address again and once they staunch the blood that is still flowing from her vagina. Then she can just go to another hospital for the next item that is on her to-do list: some emergency contraception. That, my dears, is compassionate conservatism. Compassionate to the hospital, conservative to its resource use.

If a hospital finds itself unable, in principle, to provide the services that a rape victim needs to have, that hospital, in principle, and in actual fact should not be in the emergency medicine business. It really is that simple.