Following is a transcript of Minnesota State Senate candidate Barb Goodwin's appearance with Marie Castle, as found on the Atheists for Human Rights website.
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Marie Castle: Well hello, and welcome to our atheist show, where we discuss religion, sex and politics and usually all of them at the same time. I’m Marie Castle and I’m the Communications Director for Atheists for Human Rights. Our show is produced and distributed by Atheists for Human Rights. We’re going to talk about anti-human health care today, and there’s a lot of it out there.
Our organization is really dedicated to helping create a good life for everybody and we don’t want people to be hurt. And since we are atheists, we object to a lot of the religious views that hurt people and those are the religious right. We have no problem with these good liberal religionist people who are all for human rights and everything and we actually work with them and are supportive of their views, but there are some that are an extremist view and we object to that. Our organization actually has a “moral high ground” project that where we help the victims of religious authoritarianism and we have a scholarship fund for gay or lesbian atheist students to show our support for that group because they are so victimized. And we also provide funds to help poor women pay for abortions, again because sometimes they are living in a state that is so restrictive that it makes abortion almost inaccessible. And we also provide funds for some stem cell research at the University of Minnesota, because the religious Right there again is trying to prevent that sort of research by denying federal funding, so we do that sort of thing.
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And okay, so today we have with us Representative Barb Goodwin, who represents an area of the Twin Cities, Columbia Heights, District 50A, so you’re in the Minnesota State House of Representatives. And we’re going to talk about anti-human health care, and as a representative, you’ve been experiencing some of this sort of thing lately and you’re all fired up about--
Goodwin: Yes I am.
Castle: and they’re resurrecting poor Terry Schiavo for political purposes. Okay, tell us about that.
Goodwin: Well, just recently in the House we heard a bill in the Health Care Committee, which I’m on, that would require that a person get feeding tubes and hydration, whether or not they wanted it, if they didn’t have it specifically written in a health care directive that they didn’t want it. So that is a result of the Terry Schiavo case. It was brought to the House, the bill was, it was introduced by Representative Tim Wilkin, and he was, he is part of the right-wing extremists that are part of the Minnesota legislature and unfortunately the leading part of the Minnesota House of Representatives. They are in control right now and their health care legislation over the past few years have qualified for what you’ve termed, anti-human health care.
Castle: Yeah, it hurts people. Everything they suggest doesn’t help people, it hurts people, it causes pain and suffering, like it’s like the Schiavo bill, the families have no say in anything.
Goodwin: Yeah, yeah.
Castle: This is their loved one and it doesn’t allow them to uh. . . . You know, they lie a lot, because you know I heard some of this testimony they had at the state legislature and they talk about this starvation and they say, “you know, they’re dying of thirst and they’re starving to death.” These people, they’re pretty much in a coma and they can’t feel anything and they don’t starve to death, they actually die of dehydration and it’s a slow wasting away and they don’t feel pain.
Goodwin: Yes, and exactly -- I’ve been through this with several members of my family and most recently and uh, still with a brother-in-law who is still in the hospital five months he’s been in the hospital now.
Castle: Oh, uh-uh.
Goodwin: And, he went to the hospital in critical condition and he, uh, a week later he stopped breathing, excuse me a few days later, he stopped breathing and my sister, his wife, was there to make health care decisions for him but they would not allow her to make health care decisions for him.
Castle: Ohhh.
Goodwin: And he, um, wasn’t in the beginning in a place where he could make them for himself so they did inject a feeding tube and of course they did give him hydration. He continued to lose weight – when your body is shutting down, the body doesn’t want food and water.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: So it’s not like – a lot of people are mistaken in thinking that “I don’t want to starve, I don’t want to be thirsty.” But that’s not the situation when you’re in critical condition, your body is shutting down. When you give or force feed a body that is shutting down, that can be extremely painful.
Castle: Yeah, yeah.
Goodwin: And not only can it be extremely painful, But for him, it created a case where he had diarrhea day and night for days and days.
Castle: Uh yeah.
Goodwin: He lost weight, more and more weight, and was way underweight when we went into the hospital, so in his case it was technological torture to continue feeding him. He had several times during that time where his body tried to give out and he got pneumonia three or four times and that sometimes can be a blessing because.
Castle: Oh yeah.
Goodwin: Because the body, it’s uh, it’s a quieter way of the body dying.
Castle: Uh-huh.
Goodwin: But it was always aggressively treated. He is doing, uh, some better at this point, but the thing is he’s only 50 years old, he was a professional architect, he’s never going to be able to work again. His organs are still, uh, a mess and he’s not going to be able to, if he does survive this he’s going to be living in a nursing home for the rest of his life. That is not what he would have wanted and that is not what he wants, even now.
But that’s the kind of issue, that’s the kind of decision that the Republican Right is trying to force on individuals.
Castle: Well, they know better than the family--
Goodwin: Absolutely.
Castle: What the person wants.
Goodwin: Yes.
Castle: Oh, they’re much more caring than the family.
Goodwin: Exactly.
Castle: Yeah, sure they are.
Goodwin: And they know better than the doctors. They know better than anybody what we all need at the end or what we all need at the beginning of our lives. I just um, I’ve really been uncomfortable with what’s been happening at the House of Representatives because it seems to me that this party, that sold themselves as the party of individual rights and freedoms –
Castle: Oh, yeah!
Goodwin: Are getting into the most private and personal parts of our life. And I said uh, I don’t want government in my marriage.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: I don’t want government in my uh, reproductive choices and I certainly don’t want Republicans in my death bed with me.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: I want my personal life, that doesn’t affect anyone else, to remain free of government and that is not what we get. We get exactly the opposite, oftentimes, of what we’ve been hearing.
Castle: Yeah, and when the Republican Party used to be pretty much for individual rights and now they were taken over by the Religious Right –
Goodwin: Right.
Castle: And so you see this extremist religious view taking over, and they want to adjust their laws to what they think the Bible says or their God says or the Pope says and there was an exchange in another state between a couple of legislators and this one woman legislator was wanting to quote the Bible “we should do this or that because it says so in the Bible” and the other legislator says “when you took office, you put your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You didn’t put your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.”
Goodwin: Well--
Castle: And so you see that they will come out with come out with these statements every once in a while that indicates that they have a religious, doctrinal motivation and it’s an extremist view, too.
Goodwin: Well, and there’s such a conflict in their own in their own views because, for example they uh, they proclaim heavily that they are pro-life but at the same time they introduced a bill just this last week that would prevent pregnant, undocumented women from getting prenatal or postnatal care.
Castle: Ohhh.
Goodwin: Now uh, that doesn’t even make sense – it doesn’t make sense morally, it doesn’t make sense ethically—
Castle: Yeah—
Goodwin: It doesn’t make sense religiously and it doesn’t make sense financially because it actually ends up costing the State of Minnesota—
Castle: You know—
Goodwin: I just want to finish this one point – it ends up costing the State of Minnesota five million dollars next year if we stop uh, that care, because we lose federal dollars because we then, uh have babies that are born, babies that are then, once they are born, citizens of Minnesota and citizens of the United States, those babies are, but then we are saying we’re not going to give their mothers the prenatal care they need to ensure that they are going to have a healthy baby. Once they’re born, as a citizen, they are eligible, that baby is, for medical assistance or whatever if they qualify. Well, now so suddenly you have a baby that seems sicker than it needed to be and it’s costing the taxpayers even more, and, of course, so it’s actual cost to the system – the fiscal notes show that it was an actual cost of five million next year, and seven million the following years after that. And that doesn’t even count the cost of uncompensated care, because the women, in, if there’s a medical emergency are still going to get care from the hospital.
Castle: Uh-huh.
Goodwin: The hospital is not going to get paid for it, so the hospital is going to pass all the costs onto taxpayers and the insurance companies, which of course will then pass it down to the taxpayers, because nothing is free. So, it doesn’t make sense financially and it doesn’t make sense morally, and these are the people that say they are pro-life.
Castle: Pro-life (laughing).
Goodwin: They are pro-life and I’m trying to figure out what part of life are they for.
Castle: I just think they want to make sure that some fetus gets born but as you say they don’t even want to provide the prenatal care so because, what, they’re undocumented—
Goodwin: Because they’re undocumented so that they don’t deserve —
Castle: They’re still human beings—
Goodwin: Exactly.
Castle: And if you’re worried about undocumented people, uh, you deal with that but you don’t punish them and you don’t make life tough for them and you don’t punish their babies.
Goodwin: Exactly. Absolutely.
Castle: You deal with the situation in a realistic way.
Goodwin: Yes. Absolutely, absolutely. So it doesn’t make sense and, in fact the Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life – I’m sure you’re familiar with that group —
Castle: Oh, yes, in fact those initials spell out a year in the Middle Ages.
Goodwin (laughing): Yes, they do! That’s delightful.
Castle: In fact my friend the late Sue Rockne used to say that it spells out a year in the Middle Ages.
Goodwin: Well you know, what’s interesting is that the people who contribute to that group need to be careful about what they’re contributing to because I don’t think they know for sure, uh the MCCL took a neutral stand on that bill.
Castle: Ohh.
Goodwin: And I said uh, I said that I always was concerned about MCCL anyway, because my motto for them was, “life until birth.”
Castle: Yeah—
Goodwin: But, uh- [CROSSTALK]
Castle: Yeah I know because they don’t want to uh, fund welfare programs.
Goodwin: Yeah, but it’s – right. But it’s not only “life until birth,” it’s not even “life until birth” in this case because they didn’t even support allowing people to get prenatal care so they have healthy babies, which then society doesn’t end up having to take care of. So, it’s like what I’m saying, it’s a real conflict in thought, it’s not a clear and concise position that they have.
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: It’s situational ethics.
Castle: It is clear when you consider that it comes from their religious beliefs, their doctrine.
Goodwin: Right.
Castle: Which says, you don’t have sex unless you intend to have babies and, it’s like the whole thing with same-sex marriage, you know, they’re working that one over, and so it’s only sex between one man and one woman and only when they’re married and if you can’t or don’t or – MCCL is against any program for Planned Parenthood—
Goodwin: Yes they are.
Castle: To prevent unplanned pregnancy. If you try to, say, let’s try to prevent this, they will not support a program that actually, uh, prevents pregnancies.
Goodwin: Absolutely.
Castle: They don’t do that. And—
Goodwin: That’s a conflict. I would have actually more respect for them, in the 20 years I’ve been around the legislative process, because I worked at the House for several years and I’ve been in office for six. When uh, I never once, once not once, seen them come to the Legislature in support [of] child care, support anti-abuse, domestic abuse issues, support um, education, support health care for children. Not one time in 20 years. It’s all about abortion. And I would have respect for them if I could see some consistency in their thought, but I don’t see any consistency in their thought. In fact, they have fought against things that will uh, help people.
Castle: Well, even the “morning after” pill, you know, I don’t even know if they’re doing much at the state level but even at the federal level they’re trying to prevent that from being an over-the-counter, uh, prescription.
Goodwin: Well absolutely, and that’s another health care issue that you’ve brought up – that’s a good one that’s also in the Minnesota Legislature this year and that is uh, whether or not pharmacists should be required to dispense medications that physicians—
Castle: They got that one in the legislature, too?
Goodwin: Yes. What happened is that Representative Tom Emmer introduced a bill that would say that pharmacists can deny, they can, not sell prescriptions for any moral, ethical—
Castle: Ohhh!
Goodwin: And a whole slew of reasons. I had the opposite bill. I had a bill that said pharmacists, uh, pharmacies, I didn’t put it on the pharmacists, I said pharmacies, so if there was one pharmacist in there that had an objection, they could get some other pharmacist to fill the prescription, that they would have to fill the prescription.
Castle: Well, who’s gonna ring up these things? What if you come up to the cash register and you’ve got a package of condoms or something and then that person uh, doesn’t believe in that? “I refuse to ring that up”—
Goodwin: Exactly – where does it stop.
Castle: Oh, let’s bring another cashier up and – this is ridiculous. You’re hired to do a job and you go and do the job or else you go and—
Goodwin: Well right.
Castle: you go and find a job where it doesn’t conflict with your beliefs.
Goodwin: Exactly, again that should be between a patient and her doctor. And uh, one thing I want to say about the “morning after” pill is that uh, this bill, actually, my bill came about because two women, in two different pharmacies, were turned down for filling birth control pills, not “morning after” pills.
Castle: Ohhh!
Goodwin: Not “morning after” pills. The pharmacists had a moral uh, objection to birth control pills and they refused to fill their prescriptions. So it is a dangerous path that that’s on, and okay, in the metro area we can go to a different pharmacy. What do you do in a rural area?
Castle: Yeah.
Goodwin: What do you do in Long Prairie, Minnesota, when Dr. Barrett, from the uh, not the doctor, the pharmacist, Mike Barrett there, uh, refuses to fill prescriptions for the women of Long Prairie that have anything to do with birth control.
Castle: Really?
Goodwin: And he testified in committee. Yes he did.
Castle: So, uh—
Goodwin: Right. And he said that—
Castle: And uh, so, how many pharmacies are there in Long Prairie? There can’t be that many?
Goodwin: There can’t be that many.
Castle: And why should somebody be chasing all over looking for a pharmacy—
Goodwin: And sometimes you’re asking people to go 40 or 50 miles to another pharmacy in some towns in order to get their prescriptions filled. That’s just not right.
Castle: No, yeah, you know that people, they have their religious beliefs and when I say you have a right to your beliefs, but you have no right to force them on other people.
Goodwin: Absolutely not.
Castle: And if you’re at a job that requires you to serve the public and you have to do things that you don’t believe in, then find a different job.
Goodwin: Yes.
Castle: Or uh, just work in a Catholic hospital or something like that.
Goodwin: Exactly.
Castle: We could go in for, uh Catholic hospitals too, where they deny uh, certain services to people because it has to conform to uh, Catholic doctrine, and that includes the end of life care, and uh, there’s a lot of that where they just think uh, they have this theological position where they just think that suffering is good for your soul. Well, if you don’t believe you’ve got a soul, or if you don’t believe it’s supposed to suffer, why should you suffer because of somebody else’s religious beliefs?
But they have this thing about, uh the meritorious nature of suffering, and that only God can decide when you’re going to die. And uh, well, then, medical care just keeps you alive – you shouldn’t have medical care? So uh, there’s all that and uh, it really conflicts with reality, that the reality is that people suffer and we have to stop people from suffering and that we have to relieve it and we don’t make it worse.
Goodwin: Right, exactly —
Castle: And they’re making it worse.
Goodwin: They’re making it worse. Because on the same token, last year they tried to cut 40,000 people off health care – Minnesotans – this uh, uh, isn’t an immigrant population, this is uh, working Minnesotans who have Minnesota Care and pay a premium to have that – they’re not getting it for free. It’s not government sponsored, it’s sponsored by a provider tax and it’s sponsored by their own premiums, their own premiums. They tried to cut 30, uh, they tried to cut 40,000 off last year – they managed to cut 38,000 off the year before, so that’s almost 80,000 people that would lose health care entirely. And we managed to fight off – Democrats managed to fight off the cuts last year and now we have work through to try and reinstate some of the cuts because we’re finding out that it costs a lot more to eliminate that, uh that, because then you end up with a lot more people in the emergency room, you end up with more uncompensated care in the hospital, Hennepin County, I don’t want to, but I think Hennepin County Hospital had something in the neighborhood of $20 million in uncompensated care. That just gets passed down to the people that do have insurance – nobody’s eating those costs except the public. The public is eating those costs. And so you’ve got people without health care, and you’ve got the rest of us, who, our health care has become so expensive that a lot of people can’t afford to pay the premiums.
Castle: And then they were, then they were trying to, I think there’s a bill somewhere in the Legislature to stop, to rescind the state law that the state has to pay for abortions as well as child care, uh child birth, that if they have to pay for child birth they have to pay for abortion care, so they’re trying to change that.
Goodwin: Well uh, that—
Castle: So what that does is that it increases the number of births and then that increases the number of welfare cases – they don’t want anybody on welfare, but they’re guaranteed to have that.
Goodwin: But they don’t want to provide anything for those in the most need if they do carry their child—
Castle: Oh, they’ll give them some diapers.
Goodwin: (Laughter)
Castle: They’ll give them some formula, too—
Goodwin: If they do, I don’t even know where they do that.
Castle: I mean, you talk about, for 18 years you’re raising a child.
Goodwin: Right.
Castle: At least 18.
Goodwin: Well, and uh, the problem with that bill is uh, that already was tried in Minnesota and was uh, the courts ruled it unconstitutional. So they couldn’t do that and yet uh, they’re trying it again and they know they’re facing another court challenge. And so they’re putting this like uh, South Dakota, did with their uh, basically no choice bill that they had and, uh, now they’re putting it up and uh, the people of South Dakota are going to have to pay for it all the way up to the Supreme Court, and the people of Minnesota are going to have to pay for these bad decisions when they know that once again, it’s going to be ruled unconstitutional. The constitution hasn’t changed.
Castle: And, uh, the people when they go and vote think that, well, uh, I’m never going to have an abortion or I don’t have this problem and this or that, and so it doesn’t affect them directly or personally. And uh, I’ve got a living will and all that, so they don’t consider that when they vote. They don’t realize that they have to pick up the costs of all that.
Goodwin: Absolutely. And the same is true of the starvation and dehydration bill. If you’re going to make people have feeding tubes and hydration way past the point where their body will, uh, easily accept it, you’re going to again cause huge costs to the system and again, you’re trying to take away basic health care. Some of those same people that you want to keep on a feeding tube, and hydration, long past the time when their body is uh, willing to accept it. So, uh, so it’s so convoluted that it doesn’t, that there’s no, there’s no ideology there that’s constant, that’s connected.
Castle: However, there is a theology. It all goes back to their basic religious beliefs that they don’t talk about publicly because, frankly, I think they’d be laughed at, about the ensoulment, and about the merits of suffering and a few things like that, and their views about sex and who can have it and when and under what conditions and all that, so there’s a whole theological justification for that.
Goodwin: That’s true.
Castle: And so that’s why they need their so-called secular justifications to get it past the public.
Goodwin: You’re right.
Castle: And so it doesn’t work. But so, and, well, thanks for being with us and talking about this, a really important subject.
Goodwin: It is—
Castle: And I hope that the general public pays a little more attention to what their legislators are doing, because whether it affects you personally, it’s going to affect you financially for sure.
Goodwin: Absolutely.
