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My personal musings about anything that gets on my radar screen--heavily dominated by politics.

2005-01-13

These Are A Bit Intrusive, Don't You Think?

From today's summary in the Denver Post of new legislation introduced in the Colorado legislature:

-Make it a crime for someone who knows he or she has the AIDS virus to have sex with anyone, including a spouse. Senate Bill 17 by Sen. Sue Windels, D-Arvada.

- Require hospitals to inform victims of sexual assault about the availability of emergency contraception. House Bill 1042 by Rep. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood.

Of the first one, I thought it was the Democrats who claimed not to have any interest in controlling what people do in their own bedrooms. This is certainly an affront to the reasoned decision-making process of married people; and isn't this somehow a violation of the Supremes' decision in Lawrence that government has no role in regulating the particulars of two persons' private behavior? Besides which, isn't this a wildly discriminatory statute that will disproportionately effect homosexuals?

You know if it had been a Republican who proposed this, those would be some of the hysterical arguments showing up in the press.

Of the second one, I wonder how the Catholic authorities at St. Joseph's Hospital feel about this one. Just to get this straight--you want to REQUIRE a Catholic Hospital to advise victims of sexual assault on how to obtain a type of medical care which is expressly forbidden in Catholic doctrine? Why isn't this seen as . . . Oh, never mind.

Mind you, I don't necessarily disagree with the sentiment of the bill, nor to I agree with all of the Church teaching with regards to contraception or aborion in cases of rape or incest. The problem comes in when you get the government trying to impose on the right of Free Exercise for the health professionals at one type of hospital.
Posted by: Michael / 1/13/2005 01:28:00 AM

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