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May 19, 2006

Confused Americans for Truth - A Terrible Problem that Affects Spanish-Speaking Teenage Girls

by Ferdinand T Cat

Yesterday the Senate debated an amendment declaring that English was the national language of the United States. While speaking against the amendment, Minority Leader Harry Reid told the following story about one of his employees (excerpted from the Congressional Record).

[Frederico] also told me that he became ill--very sick. He didn't know what was wrong with him. He speaks Spanish, and I don't think I would embarrass Frederico in saying that even today--he is well educated, a longtime citizen--he still speaks with an accent, a Hispanic accent, for want of a better description. He speaks good English with a slight accent. He was so sick. He didn't know what was wrong with him, and he was afraid, when he went to the hospital, the emergency room, he was afraid that he couldn't communicate to the health care workers what was wrong with him, and he asked: Is there anybody here who speaks Spanish? And there was--one of the nurses--and he was able to communicate. He felt better and the emergency room personnel felt better because he could explain to them what was wrong.

I don't always agree with Senator Reid, but he makes an important point: even people who have learned to speak English might not be able to accurately describe medical problems unless they find a native speaker of their own language. Even now, Polish immigrants all over the city of Chicago could be risking death by going into hospitals where there's no Polish-speaking nurse in the emergency room. In fact, now that I think about it, this city is a major-league melting pot. The only way to be absolutely safe is to have a full staff of United Nations interpreters permanently on call at every major Chicago hospital.

Unfortunately, there's one problem that even the presence of a trained interpreter can't handle, because it's the greatest, most important medical emergency of all-- abortion.

You may recall that last November the Supreme Court heard arguments about a New Hampshire law requiring parental notification for a minor child seeking an abortion. At the time, attorneys for Planned Parenthood argued that if a young girl were suffering from high blood pressure, even the slightest delay before killing the fetus could result in a serious health risk.

Clearly, if talking to the parents is a health risk, then trying to find an interpreter is even worse. Most children know how to find their parents, but very few can give you the phone number of a qualified interpreter. Fortunately, I have a solution: before a girl can graduate from the sixth grade, she should be required to learn the English phrase I need an abortion right now and you can't tell my parents.

I know, I know. A lot of people don't like the idea of requiring prospective graduates to pass a test. I think, however, that in this case even Senator Reid would make an exception. We are, after all, making abortion easier.

So there's no time to lose: get the message to your Senators right now. Even though it's going to take time away from the debate on immigration, we're talking about the health of pregnant teenage girls, and that's one thing where you can't even afford to waste a single second.

Respectfully submitted,

Ferdinand T. Cat

Trackposted to Sed Vitae, Reservado Fabricación De Ruido, Sentido Común Del Liberal, El Inclinarse Derecho Para arriba, Perro Perdido Encontrado, MacBros Su Lugar, Ficción del evangelio, Cómico Jenee: La gente es idiotas, Honor Usted mismo De la Mujer, Café De Jo, and Basil's Commentary That is Not Presented in the Official Language of the United States of America.

# At Fri 1:47 PM | Permalink | Trackback URI | Comments (5) | More Confused Americans for Truth

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Tracked on May 22, 2006 6:44 AM

Comments

lolz..good one CC!..I'll pass along yer suggestions and hey thanks for the link!


Posted by: Angel [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 19, 2006 2:09 PM

I love my link name in spanish, El Inclinarse Derecho Para arriba.

I gotta write that one down.

Thanks for the afternoon chuckle.

Karl


Posted by: Karl [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 19, 2006 3:52 PM

a few days ago i read about a service some hospitals are using now, they have phones with two receivers and can call up an interpreter so they can communicate with patients that don't speak english.


Posted by: maggie katzen at May 20, 2006 2:08 AM

So I guess what you're saying is that people should be required to speak English before they get sick. And if they don't have health insurance they shouldn't get sick. And if a girl is raped by a relative, too bad. She should be forced to have the baby. Gee, I wonder why people are sick of conservatives?

And by the way, if you're going to attempt "humor" you might try making it funny first. Just a suggestion.


Posted by: Hollis Brown at May 20, 2006 2:56 AM

To communicate your health problems to the doctor in a native language is very often as hard as in a foreign language.


Posted by: John at June 4, 2006 5:24 AM

HTML is not allowed in comments; however, if you put in a raw URL (http://www.somewhere.com/page.html) it will automatically be converted to a link.. Also, it is likely your comment will not appear unless you refresh the page manually after posting it.

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