(Don’t) lie to me

“I must not tell lies.”

It seems appropriate to break out a Harry Potter reference. Also one of my least favorite parts in “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” is when Professor Umbrigde forces Harry to write those words in his own blood.

Especially when he isn’t telling lies to begin with.

It’s a situation eerily similar to what I imagine doctors across Indiana must soon have to deal with, except without the child abuse.

With the passage of HEA 1210, medical professionals are required to tell women seeking abortions that fetuses can feel pain at 20 weeks or before.

However, that’s not all doctors are required to do. They must also tell their patients “that human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm.”

Is this true? Some doctors say no, yet they are being told by the state they must relate this information even if they believe it is false.

When does life start? That should be up to the medical profession to determine, not the state. If doctors are willing to perform abortions, which are legal, then the state has no right to interfere.

What passes between a doctor and a patient is private and confidential. For the state to determine what doctors must and must not say is a violation of privacy.

Apparently Big Brother is watching you.

Luckily, the Feds are stopping Gov. Mitch Daniels and his ilk in their tracks, at least in part. According to the United States government, the law that bars Medicaid from paying for Planned Parenthood services is illegal.

As the government has previously noted, it is illegal for Medicaid patients within federal law to be denied their choice of health care provider. If HEA 1210 isn’t changed, Indiana could lose all of its Medicaid funding.

Hopefully the risk of losing so much makes the state legislature change its mind and continue to allow Medicaid to pay for non-abortion Planned Parenthood services.

But the new developments don’t help the fact that doctors are being ordered to lie to their patients.

“Planned Parenthood and the ACLU argue that forcing doctors to give information that they believe is false and misleading violates the First Amendment protection of
free speech.”

The lawmakers can’t play God. It is not up to them to determine when life begins. It is not up to them to force their beliefs on others.

If the tables were turned, if they were the ones who were having someone else’s religious beliefs forced upon them, they would be furious too.

As the old saying goes, “What is right is not always popular, and what is popular is not always right.”
The laws of this country were created to defend the minority: Those who believe in what is not always popular.

Hopefully those laws will protect doctors so they do not have to lie.

As Dumbledore once said, “It is my belief... that the truth is generally preferable to lies.”

­— hanns@indiana.edu