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From: chabot@amber.DEC (Chevrolet Chabot)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Vagueness, ERA, and the Constitution
Message-ID: <3792@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Oct-84 10:37:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.3792
Posted: Mon Oct  1 10:37:04 1984
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About bigotry:

Tom Craver's 
> For example, I would not want to force an anti-black bigot to go to a black
> doctor, but I would want to force him to refrain from assaulting that doctor.

As a side point, this unfortunately reminds me of the question: would you want
to force an anti-black bigot doctor from treating a black patient?

An interesting question!  The physician who introduced blood transfusions died
because the hospital nearest the scene of his unnecessarily fatal accident
refused to admit him, because he was black.  He bled to death.

Assault is an action, and yes, preventing bigots from performing actions
endangering the lives of the objects of their hatred does sound like something
worthy of "forcing".  But if medical treatment is an action, then not-treatment
is not an action, and if we were to force bigots to treat the undesirable
patients...gee, well mightn't it be in the patient's best interests to find
an unbigoted doctor whose unprejudiced nature would allow better medical care?
(Hard to do when you're expiring.)

Of course, this is a moral matter: people are entitled to medical care (?) and
doctors should not be prejudiced. (!!)  At least, they're entitled to medical
care if they can pay: in my home town of Lancaster CA there is a large hospital
which will not admit emergency patients who do not show evidence of having
medical insurance, but will tell them to high-tail it to the V A hospital (a
mere 75 miles away) [we've known this for years, but they also tried it on my
sister]; sometimes if you wave dollars at them and insist you've got a steady
job you might be able to convince them to treat your broken loved-one.
(Hard to do when you're the one expiring.)

The two cases, black and poor, are not unrelated: they're both examples of
bigotry, which is a double bind if you're black since they'll assume you're
poor (or at least shiftless) in many, many neighborhoods.  And the poor are
assumed to be without dignity: without the dignity to appreciate good medical
care, and without the dignity to even want to pay their incurred debts.
But you're right, things are better in some neighborhoods.

Vagueness won't force bigots to do much at all.  On the other hand, vagueness
allows us generality to grow into--someday.  We can hope the bigots will be
gradually loosed by the gentleness of the vagueness from their tight iron
band(s) around their skulls, and can then think and see the freedom around
them.  It's hard to convince old dogs to like the new tricks you've forced them
to learn.

L S Chabot

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