I’m Pro-Life, but I’m Against Federal Protection for Anti-Abortion Medical Workers

I met Michael Leavitt when he was Governor of Utah. Seems like a nice guy. I’m also Pro-Life. I think there are some extenuating circumstances that might justify an abortion, like a woman/girl being raped, incest, or if the life of the mother is at risk. But when a woman consents to have sex, gets pregnant, and then gets an abortion because being pregnant is inconvenient, I see that as murder, or at least something close to it. I don’t see the difference between killing a baby that is 3 months old in the womb and a baby that’s 3 months old out of the womb. Despite being Pro-Life, I’m against this proposed new legislation that would protect workers from discrimination in the workplace if they object to being involved in work related to abortions.

Let’s remove the issue from the argument and ask this question–let’s imagine that you’re an employer, and you hire someone to do a job with a certain job description. But after a while you start giving this employee new tasks to carry out, and after a while the employee objects and says “I don’t want to do those things.” In my opinion, you have every right to fire that employee, no matter what it is that you’re asking them to do that they don’t want to do, no matter how unreasonable your request may be. “I want you to chase down old women on the street, kill them, eat them, and then go to their houses, break in, and eat any puppies or cats you might find there. You say you won’t do it? Fine, you’re fired!” I’m fine with that.

I believe employers should have the right to fire employees for whatever reason they want, whenever they want, with no warning and with no obligation other than to pay the employee for the work they’ve done. I also believe employees should be able to quit whenever they want, with no warning, and with no obligation other than to complete the work they’ve been paid for. I don’t think the government should be anywhere in the mix.

And yes, that extends to anti-discrimination laws. In the first place, I’m not so sure that anti-discrimination laws really help anyone. I’m willing to consider that they might if I see some evidence, but even so, I’m against them on principle. But I think employers should be able to discriminate based on race, weight, gender, general appearance, age, haircut, shoes, or freckle pattern. Is that because I’m a racist or because I hate fat people? No, I’m the guy who, if I were running a business in the South, would be hiring only black people and paying them higher than normal wages just to tick off the racists. I’d be all too pleased to hire disadvantaged minorities, but I’d like to do it out of the goodness of my heart rather than having the government force me to do it.

Now, if somebody works at a place that performs abortions and doesn’t want to be directly involved, what would a reasonable employer do? They’d try to find something for that employee to do that the employee wanted to do, right? Win-win. Only an unreasonable employer would immediately fire the employee, and only an unreasonable employee would be unsatisfied with an employer’s sincere efforts in this regard. But if the employee is unreasonable, the employer should have the right to fire them without fearing a lawsuit.

These types of anti-discrimination laws end up being a two-edged sword. Today, it “benefits” those who are Pro-Life, tomorrow the same type of law will be used against the Pro-Life crowd. These laws don’t get rid of the problem, they just cause hassle. If an employer wants to fire an employee, do you really think they won’t find a way to do it in such a way that it seems unrelated to the abortion matter? All this law will do is create a mess, make businesses less efficient, and in the end it’s dubious as to whether any employee will be served by it. In fact, it’s more likely that employees will end up being hurt by it.

So while I’m Pro-Life you can count me as being against this supposedly Pro-Life legislation.