Some days are Sunny, others are a B*tch

Blogville for Jan 9 TABOO

TABOO (HUMAN RIGHTS)

Everyone wants to have their human rights protected... but give that protection to others? "No One Can Take Away Your Human Rights." Or so they say; and yet... do you feel that you, your family, your friends, your immediate community, has been denied human rights or protected? Share one or more story that you were a part of or witnessed. Many of the taboos here center around religion, speech, sex, gender, age, affiliation and expression. And that's where human rights become compromised whether we openly talk about it or not.

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights


While I hear people talk about their rights to not take a vaccination that has been proven safe and we are in the middle of a pandemic, I am totally confused. When my sons went into the service they got about 20 different vaccines and when my kids and I went into school, we had to have all our vaccines. As an RN, every year I had to go to the health resources office at the hospital to get up to date on my vaccines or lose my job. See as a person of science this makes sense to me. I already cannot give blood donations anymore, after years of doing it, because I have Hepatitis B antibodies. Although I wasn’t ever symptomatic, I have had my share of needle sticks over the years as most hands on medical professionals that do invasive procedures. In getting vaccines I was protecting people under my care with fragile immune systems, children and older people. Now that I am older, out of respect, I feel younger people should try to protect me. My children certainly do and I don’t have any chronic conditions except age and my dystonia, which doesn’t really count.

Either we all take care of each other because we care and we have a right to liberty, justice, life and happiness, or we are a very selfish society thinking of our own rights. Where has empathy gone?

We are a people who believe in freedom of religion, it is a cornerstone of our democracy yet people are trying to force their own idea of religion in schools. There are many religions represented in our citizenry, many Muslims serve the US military. Many Buddhists worship here among other religions. These are older than Christianity yet we keep saying this is a Christian country. No it was a “freedom to believe what we wanted” that we fought and died for.

I remember I had a patient that was having a major gastrointestinal bleed and I was trying to slow it down before we took him to surgery. It was 11pm and I was about to go off shift but I stayed and kept putting iced saline down his nasogastric tube while we hung one unit after another of blood. The surgeon was on his way in. A nurse that was working the night shift came in the room with her Bible and began to speak in tongues over the patient. I know she meant well but she didn’t know what religion they practiced and it wasn’t even her patient. I asked the family if she had asked their permission and the answer was “No!” They were shocked and didn’t understand what this had to do with medicine. They had their own minister they had called. The LPN was a nice lady and good nurse but she was infringing on their freedom of religion. If they had been Wicca or atheists, they had the right to privacy and freedom. I have never forgotten that.

The Constitution is a wonderful document and gives us rights. It is unique and we are fortunate to live in a democracy but we are all different with our belief systems and politics. We need to honor each other.