Health care not so caring

Twice recently I was shocked … by healthcare "incidents" related to my reproductive health. Health "care" is a bit of a misnomer — health-lack-of-care would be a better term. I write in the hope that we can all do something to move our sick healthcare system along in a better direction. I specifically hope that insurance companies will support preventive medicine and also "open up" to more reproductive/birth control options.

[First], I [could] not have a tubal ligation (tubes "tied") during an ovarian-cyst removal at St. Joseph's Hospital. My OB/GYN doctor informed me that when St. Joe's and Mission Hospital merged years ago, the powers-that-be included a clause … that no "sterilization" procedures would be allowed on the St. Joe's campus. … My doctor said, "We can reschedule your procedure to the Mission side of the street…"

I was dumbfounded. The next available appointment on the Mission campus was too far down the road for me to reschedule.

My next shocking experience had to do with insurance "coverage," or lack thereof, for birth control. After an annual exam at MAHEC, my doctor wrote a prescription for a diaphragm. I suspected my insurance would cover the $50, one-time cost. Nope. My insurance … will only cover the cost of "the pill" or an IUD.

What?!

You mean to tell me my insurance company will pay the expense of pills that must be taken daily (and have a slew of potential side effects [such as] blood clots and stroke), or that they will pay for an invasive birth control device, but will not pay for a little ol' diaphragm that will last for approximately eight years and has little to no side effects? I could hardly believe my ears.

The only things I could think to do is share my opinion and frustration with my healthcare providers, hospital staff, insurance representatives ("I'd like to talk to your supervisor please…") and the folks who read the Mountain Xpress to encourage them all to try and get involved to move our healthcare system forward. I am also opting to make financial contributions to Planned Parenthood — [they work] towards better reproductive health.

— Bridget Brennan
Asheville

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177 thoughts on “Health care not so caring

  1. J

    I don’t mean to belittle Bridgett’s experience, but I think we should all stop and reflect to a degree. While these are certainly serious concerns, we should also mark these concerns with a measure of success. In a way, we are fortunate that one of our ills in society is figuring out how to pay for birth control. Lucky are we that the letters do not speak of famine and plague. Let Bridgett’s concerns be a testament to how far we have come together.

    Corny enough for you?

  2. Curious

    Ms. Brennan wants her medical insurance to pay for a diaphragm. Does medical insurance pay for condoms?

  3. travelah

    I am not sure how a diaphragm qualifies as preventive health care unless pregnancy is considered a disease or unnatural medical condition. That is not to state I am against it but perhaps you are using the wrong terminology. Now, if you are single and relying on a diaphragm it could be suggested that it could have the opposite effect and be a contributor to infectious disease.

  4. “St. Joe’s and Mission Hospital merged years ago, the powers-that-be included a clause … that no “sterilization” procedures would be allowed on the St. Joe’s campus.”

    That anti-female health “clause” is because St. Joseph’s was a Catholic hospital. The controversial agreement is little known….but you got hit over the head with it. As do a lot of other women.

  5. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Well, this is just one more shameful example of women suffering under the long tentacles of a God of Abraham religion—one of a large collection of male-constructed religions foisted upon humankind that I call “the Sky Bubba religions.”

    http://bible.cc/genesis/3-16.htm (Read it and weep, or get angry.)

    Some day out there, perhaps, women will wise up enough—and in large enough numbers—to overthrow this kind of self-serving male domination.

    Bondage has many faces, and childbirth and sexuality and creation—a woman’s right by nature—being controlled by a man’s religion is a form of bondage.

  6. Betty Cloer Wallace

    @ Curious: Ms. Brennan wants her medical insurance to pay for a diaphragm. Does medical insurance pay for condoms?

    No, but most medical insurance companies pay for Viagra. When men start having babies, medical insurance will start paying for condoms.

  7. Curious as to Travelah & Dhalgren’s comments about how men should abstain and refrain from Viagra, since it’s not preventative…all in order to back up their ridiculous points.

    The point of this is that St. Joesph and Ms.Brennan’s “male” physician participated, & perpetuated a form of repression that is all too familiar.

    Question to the physician…why didn’t he use a hospital that does allow for a medical procedure that is well accepted in this country.

  8. Betty Cloer Wallace

    One of my favorites from the “Realm of Sky Bubba” is this convoluted commentary from John Wesley, a mid-18th Century evangelical Arminian Methodist who traveled to Savannah, GA, to try to convert the Native Americans, albeit unsuccessfully, to his version of the Bible of the God of Abraham:

    Genesis 3:16 “We have here the sentence past (sic) upon the woman; she is condemned to a state of sorrow and a state of subjection: proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride. She is here put into a state of sorrow; one particular of which only is instanced in, that in bringing forth children, but it includes all those impressions of grief and fear which the mind of that tender sex is most apt to receive, and all the common calamities which they are liable to. It is God that multiplies our sorrows, I will do it: God, as a righteous Judge, doth it, which ought to silence us under all our sorrows; as many as they are we have deserved them all, and more: nay, God as a tender Father doth it for our necessary correction, that we may be humbled for sin, and weaned from it. She is here put into a state of subjection: the whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is for sin made inferior.”

    Wesley did influence many Savannah colonists, and his tentacles are long, reaching into our lives even today, e.g. the policies of one portion of our local hospital regarding reproduction and the lack of women’s health care rights thereof.

    Isn’t it amazing that some physicians, even today, would work in a place with those discriminatory and oppressive policies–Sky Bubba policies that do not honor their own Hippocratic Oath to do no wrong?

    And Bridget Brennan (above) was surely wronged.

  9. travelah

    I did not claim Viagra was part of any preventive medical program. As for a diaphragm, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois provides benefit coverage for it but it is not considered part of their preventive care program. As for St. Joseph, they are affiliated with the Roman Catholic church which opposes artificial birth control. If you cannot tolerate the private organization’s religious practices, go somewhere else. Their policies are not determined by historical Wesleyan theology nor do Wesleyans in general oppose birth control.
    Betty, it is only convoluted in your mind because you have made yourself an open enemy of God, not that it matters in the greater scheme of things. You have a lot of company around here.

  10. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Some day out there, perhaps, women will wise up enough—and in large enough numbers—to overthrow this kind of self-serving male domination.

    Bondage has many faces, and childbirth and sexuality and creation are a woman’s right by nature. Being controlled by a man’s religion–any of the “Sky Bubba” God of Abraham religions–is an unconscionable form of bondage; and it warps the minds of men as well as women.

  11. “Some day out there, perhaps, women will wise up enough”

    They will eventually come to realize that’s they’re better off in a one room efficiency with a hot plate and living in peace, than under the bondage of some medieval holier-than-thou despot, like Travelah/mullet.

  12. thunderbear

    What a whiner! If you don’t like St. Joe’s, go to a different hospital. No, ma’am, not everyone ‘has to’ follow your personal moral code regarding birth control…and thank God they don’t have to. But that could change with President Itsnotmyfault currently residing in the WH. You say you were ‘dumbfounded’ and ‘shocked’? Try ‘intolerant’ and ‘narrow-minded’

  13. dhalgren

    First of all, I sympathize with Ms. Brennan. I am also in full agreement with Ms. Wallace.
    And DD, get off your high horse girlie..The remark: “abstinence is free! (something your parents should have considered)
    ” Was directed at lokel. As far as the Viagra issue is concerned, as long as there are stimulating men around like “the mallet”(as he’s known is some circles), I’ll not need any.

  14. Ken Hanke

    Betty, it is only convoluted in your mind because you have made yourself an open enemy of God,

    “Open enemy of God,” eh? Betty, now really you ought to have that turned into a sampler and hung on your wall.

  15. I surmise from Travelah’s writing that women who speak up are the devil’s spawn. His idea of a women’s place is as a brood mare in some religious cult’s compound in a remote desert.

  16. travelah

    Betty, using the phrase “Sky Bubba” reflects your rather low common denominator with the other somewhat ill educated and intolerant bigots that tend to lend you their support. That might serve your selfish needs today but when your wasted frame spills its last gasps it will all be vanity … Now, use that as a sampler for your reminder (not that I lose any sleep over your moral condition)

    halgren, I am not known at all in your circles or any you might be familiar with. As for Viagra, it has become the recreational drug of middle age and had you any clue of its extent you might find your circle of influence rather small and that may or may not be an embellishment upon your wistful stature.

    D.Dial, You should not take stock in the value of your musings. They are rather clueless and ignorant and I am sure that offends you needlessly. I suspect there isn’t a single woman working for me who isn’t paid better, has better benefits, working conditions and flexibility for personal matters than those working for any of the Asheville ‘tard culture employers you might know. In fact, the most intolerant and bigoted group of people you will find are those represented by the ‘tard culture of Asheville.

    Now, none of that had anything to do with the original letter other than to address a third rate unknown author’s rant about how much she hates God and those who don’t as well as the shells shucked from the peanut gallery. However, if Ms Brennan crossed the road as advised there really is no issue here and if she doesn’t want to pay for what her insurance company will not, go without it.

  17. Betty Cloer Wallace

    And so it can to pass that Travelah the Mallett declared to Betty, right there in MtnX, that “you have made yourself an open enemy of God, not that it matters in the greater scheme of things.”

    Actually, Mr. Mallett, I am not surprised to hear you declare that your God of Abraham considers me “an enemy.” It sounds as if He personally told you so and that you are His earthy interpreter, so thanks for passing it on. Since all women are belittled by your vengeful God, and by His followers, no big secret there, but I suppose I should feel honored to be so personally singled out.

    I do not subscribe to any of the three major Abrahamic “desert” religions: Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. I find useful and good things in the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur’an, but none of these are my guidebooks because they are all too filled with unconscionable subjection and brutalization of women, as is the practice today, to varying degrees, by adherents of all three of those religions.

    My beliefs are centered in non-Abrahamic (pre-Judaism, pre-Christian, pre-Islamic) polytheistic paganism based on nature as a creative entity (“mother earth”), i.e. reverence for nature and natural life cycles—creation, life, death, rebirth.

    Before Abraham declared that his God and religions were masculine, creation and the natural cycles of the earth (“earth mother”) were feminine and spiritual. “God” was non-gendered and non-personified. God was life, the life-force, not a male-sexed person appearing on earth in various human male forms.

    With Abraham, the feminine nature-centered religions were co-opted and claimed by men—for men, of men, to be ruled over by men, to be fought over by men, and to be passed on to their sons. Abraham’s male-dominated world of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim men denigrated women and pushed them into the subjugated roles of madonna, whore, and slave—all inferior, all adjunct to the male norm.

    Subsequently, the three major Abrahamic religions splintered out into the world and reinforced that dominant male image with numerous male prophets and male messengers and male disciples and male popes and other representative males in dominant roles—many even claiming to be God Himself come to earth in human male form.

    The older spiritual feminine creation-birth-life-death-rebirth religions based on the natural life-giving earth mother came to be increasingly condemned by Abrahamic men as non-human, evil, and otherwise negative, e.g. pagan witches on broomsticks—female religions to be suppressed, oppressed, eliminated, or transformed into male-based religions. Even any reference to those pre-Abrahamic earth mother religions were given an adjunct-to-the-male-norm name, “Goddess” religions, by those who wanted to denigrate them.

    So there you have it, Travelah the Mallett, in a nutshell.

    P. S. I have personally communed with my God, and She said not to worry. The earth will still be here long after the Jews, Christians, and Muslims rush toward annihilation and destroy each other.

  18. travelah

    Betty, what pet name do you have for your “she god” given “Bubba” is generally a male reference? Of course that is trivial but you can bet the God haters out there are not going to mock your she god fantasy for the simple reason your she god is no threatening to their immoral condition …

    Have the last word. You derailed the thread rather well.

  19. Betty Cloer Wallace

    “Earth Mother”

    And so, well, back to the thread and Bridget Brennan’s letter above.

    Isn’t it amazing that some physicians, even today, would work in a place (St. Joseph’s) with those discriminatory and oppressive policies—Sky Bubba policies that do not honor their own Hippocratic Oath to “first do no wrong”?

  20. Hierarchical based health care….not so caring.
    And that ingrained system is what this is REALLY about.

    Your Doctor could have easily scheduled your procedures at Mission, or some other facility. My guess is, if he has hospital priviledges at St. Joesph, he also has them at Mission. So WTF????????????

    The blatant mysogony displayed here is the tip of the iceberg.And sooooo typical of the “right to lifers” who castigate women for terminating an unwanted pregnancey, yet would deny her the ability to practice any form of contraception.

    DHalgren….I apologize for mistaking your comments to be targeted toward the author.

    To the autory, get yourself a female Doctor. I’ve been using the female interns at MAHEC for 20 years and have yet to have the type of repressive treatment, you’ve received. Treatment from a female physician is like night and day.

    To DJHalgren, I apologize to you…I did mistake your “abstinence ” comment. To you I say:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0

  21. Hierarchical based health care….not so caring.
    And that ingrained system is what this is REALLY about.

    Your Doctor could have easily scheduled your procedures at Mission, or some other facility. My guess is, if he has hospital privileges at St. Joesph, he also has them at Mission. So WTF????????????

    The blatant mysogony displayed here is the tip of the iceberg.And sooooo typical of the “right to lifers” who castigate women for terminating an unwanted pregnancy, yet would deny her the ability to practice any form of contraception.

    To the author, get yourself a female Doctor. I’ve been using the female interns at MAHEC for 20 years and have yet to have the type of repressive treatment, you’ve received. Treatment from a female physician is like night and day.

    DHalgren….I apologize for mistaking your comments to be targeted toward the author. To you I say:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3FnpaWQJO0

  22. travelah

    The blatant mysogony displayed here is the tip of the iceberg.And sooooo typical of the “right to lifers” who castigate women for terminating an unwanted pregnancy, yet would deny her the ability to practice any form of contraception.

    Mysogyny is not typical of those who oppose the killing of babies in the womb and the significant majority of “right to life” advocates do not oppose birth control. Keith Olberman would be an example of a misogynist.

  23. travelah

    Isn’t it amazing that some physicians, even today, would work in a place (St. Joseph’s) with those discriminatory and oppressive policies—Sky Bubba policies that do not honor their own Hippocratic Oath to “first do no wrong”?

    I fail to see how opposing artificial birth control violates any proviion of the modern “Hippocratic Oath”. Thse same physicians might state that to do otherwise would do harm to an unborn child. Whether you or I agree with them or not is irrelevant.

  24. Ken Hanke

    not that I lose any sleep over your moral condition

    You are near to being the last person I think is in any position to judge anyone’s moral condition, but I’m so mired in sinful humanistic thought that I’m sure I know nothing.

  25. travelah

    Hanke, I agree with you .

    Dial, Donohue and I are very much opposed theologically and I see little in common with him except perhaps his anti-abortoion stance. What is telling to me is your inability to make the distinctions.

  26. Likewise ……your inability to distinguish between bellicosity and holier than thou personas, vs. real theological thought was what my thought train was.

  27. Ken Hanke

    What is telling to me is your inability to make the distinctions

    I can make the distinctions, but I can also read between the lines as concerns the level of your judgmental stance. (Oh, yes, I know, they aren’t your judgments, they’re God’s.)

  28. dhalgren

    “halgren, I am not known at all in your circles or any you might be familiar with”

    Soooo, you’re telling me that you are not the man known as “the mallet” that I met at a certain backroom bar? Typical!

  29. Piffy!

    What odd moderation standards.

    why is travelah given a free pass to make comments others are not allowed to make?

  30. travelah

    Dial, are you suggesting you have even a modicum of understanding to discuss “real theological thought”?

  31. “Dial, are you suggesting you have even a modicum of understanding to discuss “real theological thought”?

    I’ve never made claim of being a scholar of theology, I’m just an ordinary “humana” person.

    Actually, YOU continually make the suggestion that you are a theological scholar. I have yet to see proof of this self appointed achievement. I prefer real theological scholars in the mode of Paul Tillich, not phony pharisees.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Tillich

  32. Gypseee

    If paying $50. for a diaphram is your biggest gripe these days, consider yourself lucky. To avoid future shocks, health insurers don’t usually pay for devices. Nor do they pay for elective surgery usually. It’s an imperfect system, but we will no doubt look back fondly at it once the “new” system kicks in.

  33. Barry Summers

    Dial, are you suggesting you have even a modicum of understanding to discuss “real theological thought”?

    Isn’t that adorable? Nice try, darlin’, but leave the heavy thinking to those whom God intended.

    On a totally unrelated note, the Vatican has now officially declared that ordaining women into the priesthood is as serious a crime as raping a child:

    http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/vatican-puts-ordaining-women-priests-on-par-with-child-sex-abuse/19556837

  34. Margaret Williams

    Caleb-loves-golfpsychology: Travelah is unmoderated — his comments go up directly, without filter, as do several of the folks who’ve been tit-for-tatting in response to this article. Any comment that resorts to personal attacks, goes off-topic, spams the site, goes off topic, etc, can be removed.

    This thread is veering into that territory. Stay on topic and keep it civil, please.

  35. Back to the subject at hand. The under 50 crowd may very well be unaware of the struggle for women to have access to contraception.

    The biggest impact on freedom of choice, was the birth control pill back in the mid-60’s. Before that event contraception depended on diaphrams (unreliable), condoms (unreliable), tubal ligation (a very hard choice in that the child or children you have may die and leave you childless due to this procedure), and according to my Grand’ma “the jerk” (unreliable). Consequently many women had a lot more children than they wanted or could nurture. And they were very angry about that fact.

    The “pill” was the first really reliable choice for women. Even though many could not tolerate the strengths it was first available in. Things did improve in dosage over the years.

    BUT it has been an ongoing struggle with many brave people attempting to change the course of women’s lives. Margaret Sanger being at the head. Sanger became totally appalled at the conditions in which many poor women were living due to constraints of too many children and no choice in the matter. While she certainly made some serious mistakes ……she was the impetus for the research into a reliable contraceptive.

    I question the motives of Brenda’s Doctor…is he old school…envisioning or hoping to return to the old “barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen,” scenario?????

    http://www1.voanews.com/learningenglish/home/a-23-2007-12-01-voa1-83132362.html

    http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS239&=&q=fight+against+birth+control&aq=f&aqi;=&aql;=&oq;=&gs_rfai=ChFcMc6tJTP6eDJHuzASZtMWiCgAAAKoEBU_Q8lE7

  36. Barry Summers

    What a whiner! If you don’t like St. Joe’s, go to a different hospital.

    There were a couple of statements like this… Question: what other full service hospitals are there in Asheville?

  37. Excerpt from the Library of Congress website;

    http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/awhhtml/awlaw3/d6.html

    Margaret Sanger’s “fight for birth control” involved many confrontations with the law. As a consequence of distributing three issues of her journal The Woman Rebel, which contained articles on sexuality, she was indicted in 1914 for violating the Comstock Act of 1873 (An Act for the Suppression of Trade in, and Circulation of, obscene Literature and Articles of immoral Use, c. 258, 17 Stat. 598), which classified materials “for the prevention of conception” as obscene and made it illegal to send them through the mail. In 1916, she and her staff were arrested for operating the first birth control clinic, which was located in Brooklyn. Sanger was convicted in 1917. The appeals court affirmed the conviction (People v. Sanger, 166 NYS 1107 [1917]), and she served one month in the penitentiary for women in Queens, New York. As women’s suffrage passed into law, Sanger gradually won support for family planning from the public and the courts. She organized the first American (1921) and international (1925) birth control conferences and formed the National Committee on Federal Legislation for Birth Control in 1929. In 1936 the United States v. One Package (86 F2d 737 [1936]) decision changed the Comstock Act’s classification of birth control literature as obscene, and in 1971 Congress amended the statute to remove any trace of prevention of conception. The U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut (381 U.S. 479 [1965]) ended the ban on the use of contraceptives by married couples, and Eisenstadt v. Baird (405 U.S. 438 [1972]) allowed unmarried couples to use birth control devices legally. Sanger’s publications and papers are held in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division and the Manuscript Division respectively, but a visit to the Law Library provides an examination of the laws that relate to birth control and family planning.

  38. thunder bear

    Other hospitals? Well, there’s…uhm.. Misson Hospital(across the street), Parkridge Hospital(Fletcher, 20 min. drive from dntown A-ville), Pardee Hospital (Hendersonville, 30 min. drive)…
    But of course Ms Brennan’s ‘shocking experience’ is entirely someone else’s fault and they are obviously evil mysogynists. What I and perhaps other writers are responding to is Ms Brennan’s seeming inability to take any personal responsibility.

  39. travelah

    Dial, you have not noted me to make any claim of being a graduate of a Seminary. That is a work in progress.
    As for Paul Tillich, I would be curious to know what you find interesting about him. I have read his Systematic as well as Dynamics of Faith. I cannot state I agree wholeheartedly with his full ontological viewpoint. Obviously this has nothing to do with the thread but if you feel up to discussing correlation systematics, give it your best shot. When you are ready to move onto Barth and dialectical theology, let me know.

  40. travelah

    Sanger is noted for more than just being a birth control advocate. She was a strong advocate for eugenics and was an avowed racist. She advocating sterilizing those she deemed unfit and her policies were actually implemented in Lynchburg, Virginia at a hospital and facility for the mentally impaired. Sanger wrote in one of her pamphlets entitled “What Every Boy and Girl Should Know” in 1915 the following …

    It is a vicious cycle; ignorance breeds poverty and poverty breeds ignorance. There is only one cure for both, and that is to stoop breeding these things. Stop bringing to birth children whose inheritance cannot be one of health or intelligence. Stop bringing into the world children whose parents cannot provide for them….

  41. As I said “ While she certainly made some serious mistakes ……she was the impetus for the research into a reliable contraceptive. “

  42. yes, travelah…I’m well aware…it just never looks right to me when I see “nobodies” in print. here are a bunch more typos…edit your heart out, cuz i know how supeirior it make syou feel, and in the process attempt to de-rail the thread again, like the straw man you are.

    Now back to the subject at hand.

    Contraception and the struggle for couple’s choice in the matter, is not a liberal or conservative issue…it is a human issue.

    I notice you didn’t hone in on the travesty that up till 1965 it was against the law for couples to practice contraception.
    It was also illegal for a physician to educate or instruct their patients on contraception.

    To Brenda’s situation…my husband is a retired physician. He practiced in California, Boston Mass and at the Coast Guard Academy in CT., and is retired from the US Public Health Service. He’s the first to be critical of attitudes of his fellow physicians. He’s seen a lot of very questionable medical practice, EVEN in the more prestigious practices and hospitals.

    People must ALWAYS be their own best advocate or have a loved one advocate for them, in case they’re unable to do so. Use your instincts about a personal physician…they can come with all lot of personal baggage…if it doesn’t feel right (nurturing, caring,& in the patient’s best interest), find another Doc.

  43. travelah

    Dial, how does one become a “strawman”? As for your typos, they are fine to remain as is. There should be an edit function.

    Now, as for everything else you offered, what does any of it have to do with St. Joseph’s not participating in providing birth control services in their facilities? Right or wrong, it seems it is their religious right to conduct their non-profit services as they deem appropriate. Again, all one has to do is cross the street.

    The birth control pill was not introduced to the public until the early 1960s so I am really not sure what in the world you are talking about.

  44. A hospital is in the business of providing legal procedures to their patients. A decision to have a sterilization procedure is a personal one.. Ms. Barrett was un-informed of their denial of a contraceptive procedure based on a religious belief. That hospital should be avoided at all costs, by anyone more concerned with rights than potentiating repression.

  45. caleb hearts golfp

    [b]Travelah is unmoderated — his comments go up directly, without filter[/b]

    Right. And I am asking why this is so when he clearly posts offensive and trolling comments.

    It appears that the MX bends over backwards to cater to a certain demographic, and gives them special treatment.

    why is this?

  46. @ Ms. Williams

    I respectfully submit that most of the comments here with Mr. Mallet are “tit for tat” and consider that comment a condescending opinion on your part.

    Most threads that get lot of comment are ones that touch something within the folks who post. Travelah / Mallet likes to condemn or castigate others who do not totally follow his line of belief …so naturally we tend to respond when begin condescended to by him. Especially on deeply felt issues of spirituality or unfairness in the health care system.

    If it’s so difficult for you to carefully follow the train, then perhaps Mtn.Exp. needs another moderator. One who might just be interested enough to figure out what’s going on, instead of (Oh Christ I gotta do my dirty work and stop these kiddies from fighting in the playground, again!!!)

    The authors experience represents a much deeper issue. One of milliniums of repression of the type that people like Mallett /Travelah have fostered, (religious fundamentalitst) and I take umbrage that you caverlierly dismiss defenses of this repression as mere tit for tat.

  47. travelah

    Travelah / Mallet likes to condemn or castigate others who do not totally follow his line of belief …so naturally we tend to respond when begin condescended to by him. Especially on deeply felt issues of spirituality or unfairness in the health care system.

    Aside from poisoning the well with your personal dislike of myself, what gives you cause to believe I do not consider issues of spirituality or even disparities within the health care system with sincere concern and interest? I have employees who depend on a well functioning health care system not to mention my own previous and certainly future needs. I would agree that your condescension is natural however it remains no excuse. If you look back through this particular thread, you will note you injected your vitriolic rhetoric without solicitation or mention. Aside from that, it was Betty Cloer Wallace who turned the thread into a personal amimus with your unsolicited commentary on her notion of “Sky Bubba, the God of Abraham”.

    The authors experience represents a much deeper issue. One of milliniums of repression of the type that people like Mallett /Travelah have fostered, (religious fundamentalitst) and I take umbrage that you caverlierly dismiss defenses of this repression as mere tit for tat.

    Not that I would expect this to matter, but you just engaged in the very ad hominem argument the moderator was concerned with. I believe I have made it clear that I am not a “religious fundamentalist” as some of you use the phrase. I am an evangelical in the Protestant sense of the term. None of that has any bearing on this thread however. Perhaps you would do well to excoriate Betty while you are on your soapbox for intentionally derailing the thread with her diatribe against the faith of so many people.

    Personally, I appreciate the work of moderators even when I am being corrected. It is a thankless job.

  48. travelah

    A hospital is in the business of providing legal procedures to their patients. A decision to have a sterilization procedure is a personal one.. Ms. Barrett was un-informed of their denial of a contraceptive procedure based on a religious belief. That hospital should be avoided at all costs, by anyone more concerned with rights than potentiating repression.

    A Roman Catholic affiliated hospital is in the “business” of provided “merciful” care to patients in need within the proscribed guidelines of their particular faith. As you noted, a sterilization procedure is a personal one. So too is the decision of a church to not participate in such nor fund and support affiliated facilities in such measures.
    I think you should avoid that hospital at all costs and allow that bed and room or service to be utilized more appreciatively by those who do not share your objections. I assure you, there is no shortage of patients in need of mercy.

  49. travelah

    Right. And I am asking why this is so when he clearly posts offensive and trolling comments.

    Having participated on this board for some time now (longer than your sockpuppet identity for certain)it is pretty clear I am not trolling. I present an alternative viewpoint to the statist liberalism that dominates most viewpoints. You don’t like it and that is about all there is too it.

    Now how about those St Joes ?? Are they sick or what??

  50. Barry Summers

    I have yet to see Travelah suitably reprimanded for continually referring to people he disagrees with as “retards” or “‘tards” or “Rhamtards” or whatever permutation of the insult he thinks is funny. The Travelah puppet is a mean little cuss, and the tit-for-tat almost always starts with a condescending statement or outright insult from him.

  51. Betty Cloer Wallace

    May I repeat my prior statements, which not only do not derail the thread but instead lie at the very crux of Bridget Brennon’s letter, ergo the thread: St. Joseph’s hospital bases its practices on its religion rather than on accepted American medical practices regarding women’s health and contraception/sterilization.

    Well, this is just one more shameful example of women suffering under the long tentacles of a God of Abraham religion—one of a large collection of male-constructed religions foisted upon humankind that I call “the Sky Bubba religions.”

    http://bible.cc/genesis/3-16.htm (Read it and weep, or get angry.)

    Some day out there, perhaps, women will wise up enough—and in large enough numbers—to overthrow this kind of self-serving male domination.

    Bondage has many faces, and childbirth and sexuality and creation—a woman’s right by nature—being controlled by a man’s religion is a form of bondage.

  52. Should have been ; I respectfully submit that most of the comments here with Mr. Mallet are NOT “tit for tat” and consider that comment a condescending opinion on your part.

  53. Margaret Williams

    DDial: You don’t know me well enough to suggest my motivation is “(Oh Christ I gotta do my dirty work and stop these kiddies from fighting in the playground, again!!!).” You have no idea what my motivation is.

    No condescension was intended, and you are unaware of the complaints that we field behind the scenes, nor how often we defend commenters’ freedom of speech… I read the entire thread before making my comments (and I’m one of the folks who edited the original letter).

    Your complaint could have been made without resorting to a personal attack.

  54. Barry Summers

    “…she is condemned to a state of sorrow and a state of subjection: proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride… She is here put into a state of subjection: the whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is for sin made inferior.”

    That pretty much says it all. The “fig leaf” for millennia of misogynist treatment of women.

  55. Margaret Williams

    Barry Summers & Caleb(etc): DDial & Travelah both have a right to their opinions and are involved in a deep discussion, although Travelah’s choice of words (and thinly veiled insults) do indeed push the boundaries here — and bait people to respond, IMO (and DDial pushed mine). It’s to both Betty and DDial’s credit that they’re trying to have a civil dialogue on issues that she cares deeply about. And Travelah’s “alternative viewpoint” is welcome … but I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to cut back on the insults. (What is the purpose is calling DDial musings “clueless & ignorant”? for example). The latter is what I meant when I said the thread’s gone a bit tit-for-tat.

  56. Barry Summers

    Travelah’s “alternative viewpoint” is welcome … but I’m sure he’s intelligent enough to cut back on the insults.

    Years of evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

  57. “”…she is condemned to a state of sorrow and a state of subjection: proper punishments of a sin in which she had gratified her pleasure and her pride… She is here put into a state of subjection: the whole sex, which by creation was equal with man, is for sin made inferior.””

    OMG! That is infuriating…..and shameful. Coincidentally for me, my Great, Great Grandfather William Alfred Smith made it possible for a Wesleyan Methodist Church to be founded on the old homestead in Liberty, SC. (Smith Chapel) The Church is named after him…and lots of ancestors are buried in the old family graveyard that is now church property. I’ve always lived far away so never had a chance to attend and get to know the Church stance and it’s people. I had planned on changing my will so that a large part of my estate would go to this church. I didn’t know this was a mindset of the Wesleyan Methodists….I’m gonna have to do some serious research so see if this is in fact so, as I’d be rolling in my grave for eons, if I gave money to an organization with such a primative and wrong headed belief system.

    Maybe I’m reading this wrong….I hope so.

  58. travelah

    Ms Margaret, I believe most observers of civil discourse would have difficulty recognizing Ms Betty’s foul descriptive of teh faith of many people as that of some “Sky Bubba, God of Abraham”. Now, personally, I fully expect such comments but let’s recognize the lowest common denominator for what it is.
    You are right in your opinion that I push people for comments. I have found that they clear their thoughts more directly when pushed, especially when I am roasting their sacred cows. As for thinly veiled insults, even the most polite yet disagreeable exchange is a veiled insult to some degree. The key is to keep it covered with a veil. Now I suppose I should not have referred to Dial’s comments as clueless and ignorant. I should have lied through my teeth and charmed her with falsehoods. (I should really state nothing in such circumstance and this is where I would make some condescending remark about Barry and Betty but I’ll bite my tongue).
    At the end of the day I am playing against a full field of 9 and still manage to logically trump the opposition and of course they disagree.

    Now, back to the discussion of how and why St. Joes has a right to manage their resources in a manner suited to their religious views.

  59. travelah

    St. Joseph’s hospital bases its practices on its religion rather than on accepted American medical practices regarding women’s health and contraception/sterilization.

    No,Betty, you are wrong again. St. Joes’s does not base it’s practices on anything except accepted American medical practices and procedures. They choose not to participate in some of those practices within the auspices of it’s Roman Catholic affiliations. It’s sister facilities right across the street provide the services you are so up in arms about. Should St. Joes be forced to provide abortion services against it’s religious convictions? How about euthanasia?

  60. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Bridget Brennan was asking for a tubal ligation, not abortion or euthanasia.

  61. Never-more

    “At the end of the day I am playing against a full field of 9 and still manage to logically trump the opposition and of course they disagree.”

    Don’t think so Travelah…it’s more like the dottering old uncle every family has. We tell them yeah they’re right, but go on doing our thing….because in the end, it just doesn’t matter what the old man says. We know we can never get through to him anyway.

  62. Barry Summers

    At the end of the day I am playing against a full field of 9 and still manage to logically trump the opposition…

    No, you still manage to believe that your religious faith ‘trumps’ any and all arguments. Your beliefs are yours, and you are entitled to them – the problem comes when you take your ‘beliefs’ and call them ‘facts’ or ‘logic’, and this is where you turn to insult. Anyone who doesn’t accept the supremacy and infallibility of your religious beliefs gets called “retarded”, “reprobate”, or “fool”. You don’t have it in you to persuade, do you?

  63. Ken Hanke

    At the end of the day I am playing against a full field of 9 and still manage to logically trump the opposition

    In your own mind.

  64. travelah

    Betty, whether a tubal ligation or an abortion, both are accepted American medical practices so my comparison still stands. The euthanasia example might be a stretch given the current political climate. Nonetheless, it is hardly a dereliction of medical practice and standards to refuse to kill unborn babies in the womb. Likewise with a tubal ligation when the same organization provides for those services directly across the street.

    Never-more, whose sock puppet are you today?

  65. travelah

    The extent of Hanke’s contribution:

    “Open enemy of God,” eh? Betty, now really you ought to have that turned into a sampler and hung on your wall.

    You are near to being the last person I think is in any position to judge anyone’s moral condition, but I’m so mired in sinful humanistic thought that I’m sure I know nothing.

    I can make the distinctions, but I can also read between the lines as concerns the level of your judgmental stance. (Oh, yes, I know, they aren’t your judgments, they’re God’s.)

    In your own mind.

    Hanke, you were never in the running to begin with.

  66. Betty Cloer Wallace

    If you have not looked at this site, please click on it: http://bible.cc/genesis/3-16.htm

    It can be read in a couple of minutes and points out succinctly the root of and platform for the subjugation of women by Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) throughout roughly a third of the world’s population, including the fallacious idea that men are in charge of women’s bodies and have the right to make decisions about them.

    Quite simply, it’s all about half of humankind (men) asserting power and control over the other half (women).

    St. Joseph’s Hospital, for example, bases its practices on a male-dominated Roman Catholic sub-set of Christianity regarding contraception/sterilization of women, as per Bridget Brennan’s letter above.

    The subjugation of women through these Abraham-based men’s religions ranges from verbal insult to stoning and other such “honor killings” of women who step outside their prescribed submissive roles. (CNN does a good job of exposing many such atrocities, especially high profile cases, but not nearly enough, not nearly as much as do many foreign news sites.)

    So, it’s a bit of comic relief to refer to that kind of male subjugation and bondage of women as “Sky Bubba” practices, and if that is worse than the actual humiliation, sickness, brutalization, and death that women suffer every day because of these male-dominated religions and their long tentacles into our daily lives, then all the women out there—mothers, wives, sisters, grandmothers, daughters, granddaughters—should just curl up and weep.

    Or, women can band together, and gather up all the real men they love and who love them, and try to stamp out such misogyny at every opportunity.

    Actually, we’re doing a far better job of it than are some other countries, but it is still an uphill battle when all the American health care boards that make the health care policies have been male dominated for so long.

    It’s good for people to have choice about their own bodies, even though St. Joseph’s does not think so.

    Bele chere!

  67. Ken Hanke

    Hanke, you were never in the running to begin with.

    You know, the fact that you hold me in contempt makes me feel good about myself.

  68. Barry Summers

    Hanke, you were never in the running to begin with.

    Hey, I want a negative Trav endorsement, too.

  69. The ” heatherns who decline Travelah’s repeated admonishments, but instead choose the bondage of our wicked, wicked ways.” Oh law, have mercy on us for rejecting the philistine.

  70. Betty Cloer Wallace

    When reading the writings of the Abrahamic religions (Jewish Torah, Christian Bible, Muslim Qur’an/Koran)—all written by men in the great Sky Bubba firm—just think how different and how much further ahead our civilizations might be, including our health care, if women had been allowed to read and write alongside the men—or even to speak in public.

  71. It’s truly shocking, Betty. My observation of our men-folk is…those that “get it” and those that don’t.

    In the not too distant past, men get preferential treatment because they are generally the ‘breadwinner”. Least that was how it was in my Mother’s generation. But a woman brings qualities into a marriage and the family setting that money cannot buy.

    Those men who continue to expect a superior and unchallenged role just by accident of birth, will just have to stay on the reject pile for those of us who have “seen the light.”

  72. travelah

    The interesting observation in this thread is the quickness of herded sheeple to attack my faith rather than address the religious liberties of the instution attacked in the leter. It essentially boils down to a “she goddess” worshipper attacking her “Sky Bubba” caricature. There is no discussion of St. Joes religious rights. No acknowledgement that the very services dsired are offered by the same organization right across the street. o mention of the poor lack of planning on the letter writer’s part.

  73. There was plenty of talk about going across the street. There was plenty of talk about using another physician who was cognazant of this policy at St. Joesph. This Doctor should have informed his patient ahead of time of the option.
    My guess is that author was not aware of the reason behind this bizzarre denial of a basic human right. Probably couldn’t fathom it.

    Besides she was in for condition medical condition that was most likely very upsetting. And may not have been able to think as clearly as you, in your linear thinking mind seem to thing she should have been.

    Given the long & bloody history of the Catholic Church to maintain dominance, I look at this a yet another attempt to control….no different from their patterns in the past. So no….discussion as to their “religious liberties” is total crap, in my book. And you’re free to wallow in your supposed “faith” to your hearts content…just don’t expect us to accept your shoving your belief system down our throats. We’re not your sheeple…that’s for damn sure.

    You’re so quick to play the victim,…a typical trick of an strawman/ instigator…. or somebody with a big chip that dares others to knock it off, then whines about when they do..

  74. travelah

    Hanke, you were never in the running to begin with.

    You know, the fact that you hold me in contempt makes me feel good about myself.

    Stating “you were never in the running” is not a statment of contempt and should not be considered as such. I think it is more an issue of your having to deal with your insecurities.

  75. travelah

    Dial, perhaps you should discuss the matter with your physiciamn husband and have him explain the doctor patient relationship and how these matters are generally discussed beforehand.

  76. Betty Cloer Wallace

    St. Joseph’s Hospital bases its practices on a centuries-old male-dominated Roman Catholic sub-set of Christianity regarding contraception/sterilization of women, as per Bridget Brennan’s letter above; and it is an uphill battle for women when all the American health care boards that make the health care policies have been male dominated for so long.

  77. Thanks for yet another opportunity.

    Many people are not aware that a physician is making a choice, when he spreads out procedures that can easily be combined….thereby making it easier on the patient but less money in his pocket, due the combined charges of the surgical room, staff, anesthesiologist, etc. Or this Doc could be stuck in the same outdated control mode as Trav.

  78. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Mallett/Travelah’s Arminian Christian religion—and St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic foundation and policies—are based in the evangelical, imperialistic, Abrahamic “desert” religions growing out of the Middle East, worshiping a tri-partite male-gendered vengeful God oppressive to women, touted as the only true religion, with the fiery pits of everlasting hell being the end result for those who do not succumb to his wrathful monotheistic (albeit three-headed) male God (Father, Son, Holy Ghost) who is cast upon the earth in human male form.

    My God is a different entity entirely from the God of Abraham to whom Mallett/Travelah and St. Joseph’s subscribe.

    My universal God (The Great Mysteries) is non-gendered. ‘Tis within the polytheistic Mother Earth in whom the feminine aspect of creation becomes manifest. The Earth Mother respects all aspects of feminine/masculine/otherwise creation (creation-birth-death-rebirth). She appears in the multifarious “forms” of the earth, not in a human form. She is non-evangelical and non-imperialistic, inspiring religious and secular practices as have evolved from the Northern European Celtic tribal cultures, the ancestral heritage of most people around here.

  79. Should have added to the 5:29 am post…..you can demand that a physician use another facility…and if they refuse. You need to know the real reason why.
    _____________________________________________

    Well said Betty!

    Many of us have been under the control, raised by or deeply inhibited and traumatized by this type of individual. Some go through years of expensive therapy to remove the brainwashing of the “script,” applied to conform to another individual’s vision of who we are supposed to be, or are like in their eyes. Other’s turn to alcohol or drugs to escape the pain of never measuring up to this type of authoritarian personality. Then some of us say “no effing way.” And if we’re fortunate we find an alternative to this type of repressive belief system…and find a more caring, grace filled belief system. One that celebrates humanity instead of defiling it.

    Old fossels like Mallett are a dime a dozen, though he fancies himself very unique. Every one of us had had this type authoritarian personality in our lives…..some have come to realize that they are projecting all their internal evils onto those of us who do not bow to their self imposed supremacy.

  80. Ken Hanke

    I think it is more an issue of your having to deal with your insecurities.

    No, it has more to do with the fact that I realize I could get a better conversation out of a turnip than I could from you.

  81. travelah

    Ken, I am sure you could. I once knew a fellow such as yourself who found great entertainment talking to himself.

  82. Ken Hanke

    I once knew a fellow such as yourself who found great entertainment talking to himself.

    As far as convincing anyone to buy into your judgmental worldview, what do you think you’re doing but talking to yourself? You’re surely not making converts. And you’re certainly not presenting your faith in any light that would entice anyone to join it.

  83. Barry Summers

    …what do you think you’re doing but talking to yourself?

    It’s called ‘sand in the gears’. Derail any conversation in a public venue that looks to be headed in a direction you don’t like. Unfortunately, folks like Trav can’t pull this off without help from others, and I reluctantly plead guilty. How can we avoid helping him derail conversations in the future?

  84. travelah

    Hanke, I have no interest in convincing you to buy into anything. So far, your comments have amounted to nothing more than irrelevant hawking from the street corner i.e. nothing of substance. You have not addressed the letter opening this thread not any of the objecitons. Instead you are backslapping among the apes, not that it is unexpected.

    Sky Betty, I generally do not remember most dreams unless I happen to wake up in the middle of one.

    Eyeball, the person who derailed the thread was Sky Betty.

  85. travelah

    …and find a more caring, grace filled belief system.
    This is an interesting comment. St. Josephs operates from a purpose of mercy i.e. grace. Grace is unmerited favor, mercy, unearned and is the foundational doctrine of Christ. The teachings and commandments of the Christianity are summed with the term charity yet these truths are dismissed in order to postulate some abstract and undefined belief system for the purpose of dismissing charity and usurping it for some unhallowed purpose.
    What is this caring, grace filled new belief system and what are its documents, its sources, its apologists? What hospitals and facilities have been established by its adherents for the purpose of caring for the sick, injured and elderly? Can you name one?

  86. Betty Cloer Wallace

    And will they consider the lives and health of women more important than forcing women to depend on the “mercy” and “charity” of men?

  87. Betty Cloer Wallace

    And will they consider grace to be “unmerited favor”?

    And “unearned”?

  88. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Women need to ask such questions as these before they ever again sign on with a doctor and/or hospital.

    Men, too.

  89. travelah

    Doctors prescribe Viagra and pharmacies dispense it … but aside from that, I’d probably tell you to go open your own hospital and do with it what you will.

  90. Barry Summers

    In much of Africa, Female Genital Mutilation is sill common, and it is based on the longstanding custom and beliefs of the male-dominated societies there. They see nothing wrong with a practice designed to suppress female sexuality and enforce submission. We rightly consider what they do to be barbaric, and the practice is slowly being eradicated – but the people who have practiced this for centuries see nothing wrong with it, and resent being told what they can or cannot do.

    Before any of the kneejerkers jerk their knees and say that I’m comparing refusing some medical treatments with the barbaric mutilation of young girls, I’m not. I’m pointing out that people get convinced that their cultural preferences and traditions are sacrosanct, and it’s only with the distance of time or continent that we sometimes see that those practices should be retired. Years from now, it will be hard to believe that some major hospitals refused common medical services to women, or demanded that their religious views should dominate a woman’s child-bearing decisions.

  91. Betty Cloer Wallace

    OMG, Barry, the list of atrocities is so long regarding brutalization of women and children (girls and boys) in the name of all kinds of male-dominated religions and customs, and the Abrahamic religions are the worst of the bunch.

  92. thunderbear

    Betty, great you have found a religion that works for you. I mean it. But why the need to blame and preach? Personally, I don’t care about whatever your religion is–that’s no business of mine. The people I know who are secure in their faith–whatever it may be–don’t blame and preach, don’t trash the faith of others. Instead, they LIVE the truth of their own faith. You and Dial seem heavily invested in the ‘innocent victim’ (you) vs ‘evil oppressor'(them: white males, Christianity, etc…) dynamic. Good luck with that disempowering stance. If you don’t like Christians, then ‘don’t be one’. How about a huge ‘thank you’ to the Sisters of Mercy for years ago establishing a top notch hospital here in the mountains? They actually LIVED their faith and took positive actions to serve
    the ‘community’. And not just
    Christians …anyone. Glad these special women didn’t have your attitudes, because they would never have accomplished squat. BTW, I am not a Christian.

  93. Betty Cloer Wallace

    I remember so well when former President Jimmy Carter announced that he could not stomach this kind of shameful “religiosity” any more. He resigned from the Southern Baptist Convention and said he would spend the rest of his life trying to improve the lives and health care of subjugated women and children worldwide.

    And he has.

  94. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Warning: derailing the thread

    Could we pause for just one moment to pay our respect and love and gratitude to our own latest WNC fallen soldier, U.S. Army Sgt. Donald “Rocky” Edgerton, who was killed in action in Afghanistan on July 10. His body was taken home to his family in Murphy last Wednesday.

    The news media doesn’t cover this kind of thing much anymore.

  95. Ken Hanke

    So far, your comments have amounted to nothing more than irrelevant hawking from the street corner i.e. nothing of substance.

    As far as I’m concerned, everything you say is irrelevant — and generally wrong. So it goes.

  96. Ken Hanke

    How can we avoid helping him derail conversations in the future?

    I suspect that it everyone ignored him altogether, even he would get tired of making pronouncements from on high and just go away. That is my usual approach, since I merely assume anything he says is hard-right Christian party-line.

  97. travelah

    Hanke, that may be however you rarely substantiate your allegations and based on your faulty assumptions you are consistently predictable.

    My prayers are said for the family of Sgt Edgerton.

  98. Betty Cloer Wallace

    @ Thunderbear: “(St. Joseph’s) actually LIVED their faith and took positive actions to serve the ‘community’. And not just
    Christians …anyone.”

    Aah, no, Thunderbear. St. Joseph’s did not serve Bridget Brennan, as per her letter above.

  99. Barry Summers

    Right, if a woman chooses to not have any more children, & wants her tubes tied, somehow that violates the “conscience” of Saint Joseph? Women have an obligation to God (or is it to their husbands) to be fertile & bear children whether they want to or not?

    Could she have the procedure done elsewhere, as part of her necessary ovarian surgery? In this case, it sounds like it was inconvenient or perhaps expensive enough that she missed her chance to have it done. IMHO, at some point, when it impacts the choices and health of people in the community, the biggest medical facility in a city has an obligation to shelve their religious-based moralizing and provide whatever legal medical procedures that a doctor recommends for their patients.

  100. travelah

    St. Josephs did provide the medical procedures that brought her to the hospital in the first place. It seems to me that her tubal ligation request was an after thought. In addition, as has been mentioned repeatedly, she could have crossed the street and had the procedure.

    I think she should find out where Sky Betty has her hospital for the merciful delivery of health care and go there.

  101. Betty Cloer Wallace

    And will they consider the lives and health of women more important than forcing women to depend on the “mercy” and “charity” of men?

  102. Trav, you might start praying for yourself.

    Authoritarian Personality Disorder

    Authoritarian Personality Disorder stems from heinous cultural beliefs of inferior and superior “caste systems” of power and authority over other. These types of people are attracted to positions of power such as politics, the justice system, law enforcement (Correctional Officers and policemen), and as religious leaders. They respect (kiss up to) those above them in authority (unless it is a woman, black, or Jew, etc.) and abuse those beneath them (woman nurse and prisoners abused by Correctional Officers, criminals abused by police officers, wife abused by her husband, etc.)

    For several examples: The person with the Authoritarian Personality Disorder believe according to their cultural and religious dogma, for instance, that women and blacks are inferior to the white male. This sick culturally caused thinking could also be found in a black society against whites. Or that Jews are inferior compared to Christians. Or that Jews are the only “chosen” people or that the Mormon church is the “only true church.” Or that Christians are “infidels” and should be killed according to Muslim cultural dogma who misinterpret the Koran.

  103. Betty Cloer Wallace

    @Travelah the Mallett: “It seems to me that her tubal ligation request was an after thought.

    Aah, no, Travelah/Mallett.

    The decision for a tubal ligation is never “an afterthought.”

  104. travelah

    Aah, disciple of Sky Betty, the ovarian cyst was an after thought of the tubal ligation. Of course not … women always get a tubal ligation following surgery for an ovarian cyst at least in all the hospitals that the Sky Betty Goddess religion has founded over the millenia.

  105. travelah

    Dial, if you knew anything you seem to want to express some authority of, you would know devout Christians pray for themselves as well as others. The Sisters of Mercy, in their particular faith, pray for their patients daily.

  106. Barry Summers

    “Wife: Be content to be insignificant. What loss would it be to God or man had you never been born.”

    John Wesley

    …While slandering and libeling the Christian community as having a perverse and immoral attitude and practices toward women (all of which is rather absurd and unfounded), this person(“Sky Betty”) was embracing pagan religion and not disclosing (either though ignorance or design) the horrific abuses women and infants suffered through its many ancient derivatives. Human infant sacrifice and rape were not at all uncommon in several pagan “goddess” societies.

    A.M. Mallett

    http://travelah.blogspot.com/

    “I know you are, but what am I?”

  107. travelah

    Ms Wallace, you are keeping all those humanitarian efforts of the Sky Betty religion close to the vest, aren’t you? Don’t want the word to get out?

  108. Betty Cloer Wallace

    @Travelah the Mallett: “The ovarian cyst was an after thought of the tubal ligation.”

    I don’t know. Perhaps you should ask Bridget Brennan?

    It’s her body and her letter to the Mountain Xpress.

  109. Barry Summers

    Eyeball, thanks!

    Anytime, Mr. Goldwater

    Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.
    …..
    The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom…. I’m frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in ‘A,’ ‘B,’ ‘C,’ and ‘D.’ Just who do they think they are?… I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of “conservatism.”

    Barry M. Goldwater, 1994

  110. travelah

    Ms Wallace, there is no need to ask her. The tubal ligation was an afterthought of the ovarian cyst. Perhaps you might suggest she was contemplating the ligation first and then the cyst was discovered? If that is the case, what was she doing at St. Joseph’s? No, logically, it is already clear.

    Where do all the Sky Betty disciples go for medical treatment?

  111. travelah

    Mr. Goldwater was referring to a particular activist element within the Republican Party. I was not ever a member of the Moral Majority or any of it’s later offshoots. Sorry to disappoint you but I have been a social libertarian for over thirty years.

  112. Barry Summers

    Mr. Goldwater was referring to a particular activist element within the Republican Party. I was not ever a member of the Moral Majority or any of it’s later offshoots. Sorry to disappoint you but I have been a social libertarian for over thirty years.

    Wow am I sorry. Must be my seared conscience. Do you think Saint Joseph will give me a salve for that? Or would that put his everlasting soul in jeopardy?

  113. Travelah can speculate about the whys and where fores, the shoulda, and oughtas till the cows come home, ….it’s obvious he doesn’t care except to sit in judgement.

    I say the authors experience is just the tip of the iceberg of a system that needs changing. BigTime!

  114. Betty Cloer Wallace

    And from today’s Travelah/Mallett website (7/26/10):

    “…While slandering and libeling the Christian community as having a perverse and immoral attitude and practices toward women (all of which is rather absurd and unfounded), this personwas embracing pagan religion and not disclosing (either though ignorance or design) the horrific abuses women and infants suffered through its many ancient derivatives. Human infant sacrifice and rape were not at all uncommon in several pagan “goddess” societies.
    A.M. Mallett http://travelah.blogspot.com/ “I know you are, but what am I?”

    And there’s even more description of Mountain X on Mallett’s site. He loves you, too, folks. Check it out.

    http://travelah.blogspot.com/

    Sky Betty?

  115. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Hate-mongering, yes, decidedly, and libel and slander of Sky Betty? (trademarked) and Mountain Xpress, but what is a “TOS”?

  116. Betty Cloer Wallace

    “I’m curious if you can get a vasectomy at St. Joe’s…”

    Would you want to risk it?

  117. Piffy!

    why it took this long to moderate travelha is beyond any logical reasoning.

    others would have been outright banned years ago for the hateful nonsense he continually posts.

  118. Barry Summers

    Just to be clear – I posted the quote from Travelah’s blog onto this thread, not him. I wouldn’t think that it was a TOS violation for him to call us:

    “seared consciences in this matter, real, hardcore haters of Christ”

    “crackpot types”

    “those generally inclined to despise religion”

    or my favorite, “God haters”

    …on his own website. I was confused by this admission, tho:

    “The practice of rape in the course of sexual ritual has been documented over the years.”

    Is he now going after Catholic priests, as well?

  119. Barry Summers

    Anyway, I think the term “God haters” could only really apply to Satan worshippers, and I would be surprised to find any of them on this thread. I’ve met one or two over the years, and they are some of the saddest individuals ever. They are not pagans, or anything like it, they are Christian heretics. You have to first buy into the cosmology of the Christian belief system, and then reject it, saying “Lucifer Was Right – Darn You Anyway, God!”… Pathetic.

    There are no “God haters” here, Mr. Mallett, just people who see the universe and the Divine differently than you.

  120. travelah

    Betty, my post on that blog was not describing Mountain Express. It is rather dishonest of you to present it as such.

    Eyeball, my comments were directed at pagan practices from millenia ago and not the Roman Catholic Church. The point being made is that as one embraces paganism and heathenism from the ancient world while castigating Christianity for imagined ills, it demonstrates a rather profound degree of ignorance. As it relates to this particular thread,the Sisters of Mercy organization is being portrayed as a group of evil men dominating women by segregating their medical practices between co-owned facilities separated by one street. It is a rather absurd charge that is not sustained by the facts of the matter. Aside from the truth that St. Joseph’s was established by women, it is rather outlandish to suggest that this charitable hospital with a long and storied history of serving this community exists for the purpose of dominating and subjugating women under the guise of religion.

    I will deal with comments regarding my blog post on that media or one related to it although the audience for those comments are generally interested in Christian apologetics and theology.

  121. travelah

    Wow am I sorry. Must be my seared conscience. Do you think Saint Joseph will give me a salve for that? Or would that put his everlasting soul in jeopardy?

    It is called the Balm of Gilead and it doesn’t come in a jar although the reference is going to be completely outside even a modicum of your understanding. St. Joes doesn’t keep it in stock.

  122. Barry Summers

    It is called the Balm of Gilead and it doesn’t come in a jar although the reference is going to be completely outside even a modicum of your understanding.

    No, I get it:

    “Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?”

    Jeremiah 8:22

    The balm was highly valued by the Israelites, and traded in Gilead to the point that it was worth twice the value of silver. Privatized healthcare is a bitch, AIN’T IT!!!

  123. Barry Summers

    I was not ever a member of the Moral Majority or any of it’s later offshoots…

    …immediately a rooster crowed.

  124. travelah

    no, you didn’t get it. It would be like asking you to understand the following.

    “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” (So 2:1-2 AV)

    … however, I digress. I am going to think more on the “God haters”. There is a small sliver of truth in what you stated concerning the phrase although philosophically it might turn in a direction other than you intended.

  125. Barry Summers

    “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” (So 2:1-2 AV)

    Yes, this is one of the weirder things in the interpretation/misinterpretation of the Bible – some contend that Jesus is ‘The Rose’ in this Song, yet this is traditionally sung by a woman. It’s a little, well… brokeback don’t you think?

  126. travelah

    Yes, this is one of the weirder things in the interpretation/misinterpretation of the Bible – some contend that Jesus is ‘The Rose’ in this Song, yet this is traditionally sung by a woman. It’s a little, well… brokeback don’t you think?

    Only to a mind broken by perversion but then again, I did tell you that you would not understand it. To that, I’ve stated enough.

  127. Barry Summers

    OMG! You’re headed straight to hell for that.

    Luckily I don’t believe in hell…

    Here’s an example of what I was referring to, from a website that for some reason, MtnX won’t let me post a link to:

    “The person saying she is the “rose of Sharon” in the above verse was a Shulamite woman who apparently was Solomon’s bride.
    Here is the reason that I think people like to use the analogy of Jesus being the Rose of Sharon. The New Testament refers to Jesus as the Bridegroom and the Church as His Bride. This tells us right here that God is using the “lover” analogy to describe the relationship that He wants with us and that He also wants us to have with His Son.”

    Passages out of the Bible have always been used by men for whatever meaning serves their political purpose, or the purpose of their inner demons, and that process extends back, yea, unto the Middle Ages…

    The ‘Rose of Sharon’ translation comes from the King James, which was itself a political document, more than a true record of ‘God’s word’. The original Song of Songs was lost in re-translations and patchworks of Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Latin, and finally English. The original poem has no explicit reference to God, Jesus, or religion of any kind, but is instead, a woman singing of her erotic love for a man. And while the Jewish tradition holds that the Song is an allegory for God’s love of the Jews as the chosen people, early Christian theologians felt the need to spin it to represent Christ’s love for the Christian Church.

    The original poem was a woman singing her love for a man – over the centuries, it’s been twisted to represent Jesus singing to His followers, that they not be seduced by other Religions.

    This Book of the Bible reminds me more than any other of the science fiction novel, “A Canticle for Leibowitz”, where an engineer named Leibowitz, after nuclear holocaust has created a new Dark Ages, is turned into a saint, and all his scribbles and writings and even electrical diagrams are turned into sacred relics, divorced from any possible original meaning, free for whatever demagogue or power-broker to take advantage of…

  128. Betty Cloer Wallace

    Betty, my post on that blog was not describing Mountain Express. It is rather dishonest of you to present it as such.

    [Posted by A. M. Mallett at 9:36 AM, Monday, July 26, 2010]:

    An Introspective of an Arminian Christian

    Once in a while one of those crazy discussions pop up that just demands a little introspection. While reading and posting on a small, very liberal weekly social paper recently, I seem to have encountered the wrath and indignation of one of the local “God haters”. This particular paper draws a lot of interest among atheists, agnostics and those generally inclined to despise religion, especially the faith of Christians. So when a recent letter excoriated a local Catholic affiliated hospital for refusing to violate it’s particular religious policies and beliefs, it was certainly expected that a local chorus of antagonists would join in and find fault where there was any to be found and mostly where none was to be seen. There was certainly no disappointment in that regard. Asheville, NC, the community in which this discussion was centered, is known locally as something of a magnet for crackpot types. Perhaps it isn’t the general agnosticism and unbelief that fuels these reactions as it is the voraciousness with which the “God haters” beat upon anything identified as of Christ. The story line of the letter was the indignation that a Catholic hospital would not perform a tubal ligation or sterilization following the removal of an ovarian cyst…..

    So what newspaper were you referring to if not Mountain Xpress?

  129. OMG! You’re headed straight to hell for that.

    Luckily I don’t believe in hell…

    Actually, I believe we make our own he’ll…..right in the here and now. But I’m not about to force that belief on anyone.

  130. Ken Hanke

    Asheville, NC, the community in which this discussion was centered, is known locally as something of a magnet for crackpot types.

    Enter travelah.

  131. I’m wondering of St. Josephs receives and state or federal funding. And if so doe sit have the luxury of continuing to deny women the right to legal procedures???????????

  132. travelah

    Betty, your charge was that I was slandering and libeling Mountain Express. That is a falsehood as you demonstrated by posting my remarks. Instead my remarks were describing your reaction to a letter posted on Mountian Express. As an author you should be able to make that distinction.

  133. Barry Summers

    Betty, my post on that blog was not describing Mountain Express. It is rather dishonest of you to present it as such.

    deuteronomy 5:20

  134. Betty Cloer Wallace

    LOL, Barry. Those two sentences constitute a double dose of “bearing false witness”!

  135. Barry Summers

    Seriously, Trav. Did you think people can’t read, or what? You were talking about MtnX. This is a baldfaced lie. You’re the dishonest one here.

    I enjoy sparring with you, and I have never advocated barring you from these pages, but this leads me to think you need to be moderated at the very least.

  136. Betty Cloer Wallace

    @ Barry: I’m curious if you can get a vasectomy at St. Joe’s…

    Did you ever find out if St. Joe’s provides contraception/sterilization for men?

  137. Barry Summers

    Did you ever find out if St. Joe’s provides contraception/sterilization for men?

    I’ve not tried, really – I’m not seriously interested myself. Years ago, I was threatened with castration by some Christian kids in my neighborhood who heard I had once volunteered as a clinic escort. But I didn’t ask if they offered simple vasectomies…

  138. Betty Cloer Wallace

    So funny, in retrospect.

    Well, maybe someone else knows. That’s the last bit of curiosity raised by Bridget Brennan’s letter–whether men, too, have to “walk across the street.”

  139. Barry Summers

    So funny, in retrospect.

    Yeah, although at the time it freaked me out pretty bad. I didn’t feel threatened enough to go to the cops, but I did go to the kid’s father, who I worked with. He was in shock, and wound up quitting his job and moving the whole family to another state, to escape the church his wife had been taking the boys to…

  140. Duh…well yeah.
    We had been back in biblical times during this thread…16 years in that context is recent. But it was also a wake up call to all state and federally funded institutions regarding discrimination.

  141. It is appalling that a physician would expose a patient to the unnecessary risk of two surgeries when these two procedures are EASILY combined. It’s almost a given that if he has hospital privileges at St. Joseph, he certainly has them at Mission.

  142. JWTJr

    The doc’s reimbursement must have paid him more to do two procedures than if he did the two at once.

  143. Barry Summers

    I wonder if her insurance won’t pay for the voluntary tubal ligation by itself, but will pay for it if it is combined with a necessary cyst-removal operation. That seems a strong likelihood to me.

  144. becca

    What many people are missing in the article is that it basically boils down to what building the procedure is performed in. There is no Memorial Mission Hospital or St. Joseph’s Hospital anymore…it is one entity, Mission Hospitals. However, the merger did include the stipulation that no abortions or sterilization procedures would be done on the St. Joseph campus. Do not blame the physician. They operate at both campus’s. Simply, there was OR time available at SJ first for a procedure that could not wait. “Adding on” a tubal ligation would have been possible and paid for by insurance if the procedure could have been done at Mission campus. Vasectomies, which are much simpler and quicker procedures are done in the doctor’s office. Another thought: if your have insurance from your employer, they pick and chose what coverage you have.

  145. thunderbear

    Thank you becca for a voice of sanity and accurate information in this otherwise brawl of hysteria and confusion.

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