Word: gagged
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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What's ailing these doctors? In three words: the gag rule. Two months ago, the Supreme Court upheld a Reagan Administration ban on abortion counseling at federally funded clinics and thus permitted the type of government meddling that makes doctors most uncomfortable: restricting, based on political rather than professional considerations, what they can say to patients. Ever since, the medical establishment has been running a high fever, dashing off angry letters, signing petitions and marching in street demonstrations like any other disaffected interest group. "This is a bald-faced issue for doctors," says Dr. Marjorie Braude of the American Medical...
...gag rule that really got doctors steamed. The Supreme Court case centered on the Public Health Service's Title X program, created during the Nixon Administration to provide family-planning services to low-income women. The original act stated explicitly that federal funds were not to be used to finance abortions, but in 1981 the guidelines were changed to make it clear that pregnant women should be advised of their full menu of medical options, including prenatal care, foster care, adoption and abortion...
...words: "The project does not consider abortion an appropriate method of family planning and therefore does not counsel or refer for abortion." The directive did not take effect immediately because it was challenged in several state courts, but the Supreme Court cleared away those obstacles when it declared the gag rule constitutional...
...doctors, already beset by nit-picking insurance companies, shrinking Medicaid payments and malpractice lawyers, the gag rule seemed the final intrusion -- one that was doubly galling because it came from an Administration many had supported. Says Alan Altman, a gynecologist in Brookline, Mass.: "((The government)) bothers me in the pocketbook, it bothers me in the delivery room, but it has never before bothered me in the consultation room." Dr. Laura Sirott, a Pasadena, Calif., obstetrician- gynecologist who describes herself as a past supporter of Bush, complains that the gag rule violates a patient's right to be fully informed. "This...
...Julia Roberts or Meryl Streep, Madonna is the modern movie star because she has created her own roles: boy toy, Marilyn Monroe avatar, Penthouse pinup, sly feminist, scandal magnet. With docile avidity, the world has eyed this procession of Madonnas, each one an incendiary variation on the last. The gag is that despite some fine screen work, she has never quite made it in Hollywood, a failure of the moguls, who haven't figured out how to channel her charisma. She is not one to wait for other people to do her a favor. So Truth or Dare serves...