‘Fill My Pills Now’ is a website and an affiliate of Planned Parenthood and an extension of Save Roe, which has plenty of very important information on not only the attacks on Roe v. Wade, but also pharmacists’ attack on women’s reproductive rights. All throughout the country, states are making laws either permitting or denying pharmacists to turn down women seeking to have their contraceptive medication refilled or obtain emergency contraceptives. You can also find out which states are ‘doing what’ with this issue and the ‘report card’ on pharmacies apart of all this. It’s nice to know your enemies’ tactics against your rights.
Barry’s BlueSky- Untitled April 26, 2024Thread [contains quote post or other embedded content]
- Untitled April 24, 2024And there's a written version! https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/24/zionism-seder-protest-new-york-gaza-israel [contains quote post or other embedded content]
- Untitled April 24, 2024Naomi Klein on how Zionism has become a false idol. https://youtu.be/U75KcMUjMyI?si=uZuV_UNZkWXNFYG3&t=198
- Untitled April 24, 2024The Leader of All Manhood has issued his ruling: It's gay for men to love sex with women. Guys: If you hate sex with women, you can do it and be straight. But if you love sex with women, that's gay. If you want to be straight, fuck men instead. Sorry, but that's the rule.
- Untitled April 26, 2024
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I don;t think that it is right to tell a business that if they want to sell any drugs, they have to sell contraception as well.
On the other hand, if I own a pharmacy, I should also have the right to tell my pharmacists what prescriptions they have to fill if they don’t want to get fired.
I am for allowing pharmacies to refuse to stock contraception. I am utterly against laws prohibiting discrimination against pharmacists who refue to fill contraception prescriptions (i.e. I believe that the pharmacy has the right to force you to fill the prescription underr the pain of lsoing your job).
I think Sam’s doesn’t stock contraceptives (although I might be wrong). I know they stoped stocking condoms a long time ago. Of course the evil cousin Walmart still has both (but for how long?).
I personally think pharmacies should have to stock all FDA approved and prescribable drugs in order to stay open (or at least be able to hae them brought in for customers). I cannot stand this trend to refuse contraceptive prescription filling and aside from the obvious assault on women’s rights I think it is a dangerous slippery slope for each and every one of us. Imagine if they start skipping out on all the meds from a company because they make a morning after pill, it would be an utter disaster. Pharmacies (especially in rural areas) fulfill a vital need which the government does not want to provide. If they don’t want to fill certain prescriptions they should find a new business to participate in.
I don;t think that it is right to tell a business that if they want to sell any drugs, they have to sell contraception as well.
Because it’s not like peoples lives depend on medicine.
Oh, no. Wait, they *do*. So what you’re basicaly saying is you’re OK with denying someone something that might be neccesary to thier health, even if you’re in the buisness of selling it.
I personally think pharmacies should have to stock all FDA approved and prescribable drugs in order to stay open
A common belief among this community.
Hypothetical: A boring FDA approved medication – let’s say Zyrtec, the allergy med – is discovered to have an interesting side effect. When taken on a regular basis, it decreases and even eliminates same-gender sexual desire, while leaving heterosexual desire intact. If used consistently for several months, the homosexual desires never return. People who are unhappy with their sexuality take the medication. Gay activists are outraged and denounce the plot to de-gayify America.
Barry, a pharmacist in Portland, refuses to fill Zyrtec prescriptions any more. He believes that homosexuality is inborn and that homosexual desire is no different than heterosexual desire, and that nobody should try to overcome unwanted desires through medication. Just for fun, Barry belongs to a church that does hold this as one of its tenets. Barry’s pharmacy respects his conscience and doesn’t require him to fill any scrip he has a problem with.
Should Barry be required to fill Zyrtec prescriptions? They’re legal. The drug is safe and FDA approved. It is being used in the service of increasing individual autonomy over their sexual functioning.
Or should the state leave this question of his conscience between Barry, his employer, and/or his God?
Robert: My 2 cents on your hypothetical question (and it is quite far-fetched IMHO, I dont there ever will be a side-effect like the one you have described, but I might be wrong). Is yes, Barry should be “forced” to fill the description, and homosexuals who want to become heterosexuals should be allowed to do so.
I think the state, Barry, his employer and his God should leave the question to the person needing the drug. Simple.
BTW, I know religious freedom is a big thing in the US (first amendment I think), and it is a great thing. BUT I cant accept the “My God commands me to discriminate and state must support that” line of reasoning in any case.
:(
put “think” between the words there and will.
Robert: yes. next question?
PS. It’s amazing that you get to write a script for what gay rights activists would be doing, considering you’re the opposite of one. Could you create a more classic strawman?
The thing is I don’t get why so many support this made-up right. You’d think more men would be less worried about protecting the pharmacy’s right to treat women like shit and more worried about having effective contraception.
You’d think more men would be less worried about protecting the pharmacy’s right to treat women like shit and more worried about having effective contraception.
You’d think so, but I suppose many men simply haven’t thought it through – that this could mean they themselves having to pay child support for the next 18 years for a child they didn’t plan on having. Perhaps they think of it in terms of “oh, I never make mistakes like that” – or perhaps they’re just really good at ducking child support.
Or perhaps we recognize that functional pluralism requires letting people follow their consciences on most things.
I’m a vegan. I should get a job at a grocery store and refuse to sell anything with meat, fish, dairy, egg, or gelatin in it. Right? No.
The problem with pharmacies refusing to stock some types of legal medication is that there are areas where there is only ONE pharmacy. I grew up in West Virginia where there are a lot of small, isolated towns that have only a single pharmacy. A woman without a car in such a town is out of luck. There is also the fact that birth control is not only used as such, but the hormones treat conditions such as endometriosis, which can be life-threatening.
*ding* Wrong. Men are not more noble than women, so there’s no reason to think they are more likely to hand over control of their futures so some perfect stranger can have the satisfaction of sitting in moral judgement on someone.
I find it interesting that so many “pro-choicers” are only interested in forcing everyone to accomodate (rather than respect) their choices. There is a difference between saying birth control should not be banned and between saying that other people have to be made against their will to obtain it for you.
Josh Jasper:
So if people’s lives depend on medications, perhaps then every store should be forced to seel them. If I open a hardware store, I should have to sell drugs as well. If I want to provide a service to the community, I shouldn’t be required to provide other services in order to do it.
“I’m a vegan. I should get a job at a grocery store and refuse to sell anything with meat, fish, dairy, egg, or gelatin in it. Right? No.”
The grocery store would probably fire you, and I think that they have that right. People who are fighting to have the government to prevent pharmacies from firing people for not filling prescriptions are wrong. If a pharmacy stocks birth control, and the pharmacist doesn’t want to fill the prescription, the pharmacy should have the right to fire him. He or she who owns the pharmacy should have the right to make the rules.
However, let’s turn it around. You wish to open a vegan food store. Someone from the government comes in and tells you that you cannot sell any food unless you sell meat and eggs. Unless you sell all food, you will be shut down. Right? No.
Holding someone’s prescription from them is “respecting” their choice?
Anyway, Glav, comparing health care to other industries is a pretty weak comparison. There is a well-established set of ethical standards in medicine about putting the well-being of the patient ahead of the personal issues of the caretaker, and many of these standards are enforced by law. For instance, did you know emergency rooms have to treat everyone who shows up for care, whether they have insurance or not?
There is a well-established set of ethical standards in medicine about putting the well-being of the patient ahead of the personal issues of the caretaker
“The well being of the patient” is precisely what is at issue in many of these conscience questions. I believe that having an abortion is worse for a woman than bearing an unwanted child. As you will doubtless say, “then don’t have one”. Fair enough – but your right to an abortion does not compel me to be the one who performs it.
You may decide that certain opinions about the well being of the patient are out of bounds. Again, fair enough – but define, please, who exactly gets to make that determination. Phyllis Schlaffly in consultation with Rush Limbaugh? Congress? The editorial panel of the NY Times?
Are you back to arguing that Plan B is an abortificant? This whole ‘pharmacists forced into being abortionists’ is just plain silly. Do you also feel that police officers who object to abortion should be free from enforcing the laws when clinic protestors start projecting their moral’s on the patients?
The pluralism argument, btw, really falls short of the mark. The idea that the only way to respect a pluralistic society is by yeilding to issues of conscience, especially in the case of prescribed medicines ie; selling birth control, then by god let the culture wars begin, because I sure as shit won’t sit back and watch my rights, or the rights of my daughter pissed and squandered away at the hands of some moralistic power freaks with a grudge to bear against women.
Since when did contraception become an abortion? You may argue that EC is an abortificant (although would be hard for you to justify on scientific grounds) but the attack has gone beyond EC alone.
It is oh-so-easy for you to hold a position that abortion is worse than bearing an unwanted child since you’re never going to be in a position to make that choice. Of course, you’re entitled to your view but you’re not entitled to force it on me. It’s not just a question of finding another pharmacist for many women – the scarcity of pharmacists in some areas of the US means that some women end up with no choice in exercising their legal rights.
Pharmacists-for-life (sic) are discriminating against women pure and simple. Whilst they sit around wringing their hands over their consciences’ – actual women are paying the price in their actual lives – it’s not an intellectual exercise for us.
This article outlines the consequences of the ‘conscience clause’ for three women.
Actually, Robert, they are trying to override the woman’s decision to get pregnant in the first place. And if you listen to the woman who runs Pharmacists for Life talk about it for five minutes, it becomes very clear that “best interest of the patient” has nothing to do with her decision–she is very upfront with the fact that she doesn’t think repeated child-bearing is all that good for you, but she claims it’s pretty much one’s duty to God. She has had a bunch of children, herself, due to her religious beliefs, and there’s more than a little vindictativeness going on aimed directly at women who have a choice to use contraception she feels that she didn’t have–if I don’t get to choose, neither do you sort of thing. She thinks she gets to substitute “misery loves company” for “best interests of the patient” and she doesn’t try very hard to hide that fact.
Glaivester:
So if people’s lives depend on medications, perhaps then every store should be forced to seel them. If I open a hardware store, I should have to sell drugs as well. If I want to provide a service to the community, I shouldn’t be required to provide other services in order to do it.
Nice (failed) attempt at a reductio ad absurdum argument. Nope. The paralell here is in making an offer of services in health care, and then reserving the right to refuse treatment to someone based on non-medical criteria.
This would be like a doctor refusing to treat someone because they’re black. Doctors don’t have that right. Pharmacies are part of a medical treatment regimen. They don’t have that right eiher. If someone’s religion made it neccesary for them to deny someone heart surgery based on race, that’d be the same. On the other hand, no one isssuggesting hardware stores stock cardiologists.
Medicine is an integral part of any doctors visit. If a doctor rpescribes eomething, he or she is determining that it’s in the interests of the patient’s health to have it. Neither you, nor the pharmacists are equiped to second guess that doctor, nor are you invited to. The medical establishment is not going to start telling patients, “By the way, if some random schlub with no doctors license who’s employed by a pharmacy thinks he or she knows what’s best for you, you have to accept thier ‘diagnosis’, or have to play russian roulette by picking another person who’s never met you, who feels qualified to make that decsion on nothing mroe than religious convictions”
Mostly because, no, Robert et. al. *don’t* have the potentialy pregnant woman’s medical interests at heart. They’re not examining her for potentialy having health problems due to pregnancy and weighing them against the effects of emergency contraception. This is not something that they get invited to do, *BUT* they make a decision saying they know what’s best for her *anyway*.
Robert says it right here: I believe that having an abortion is worse for a woman than bearing an unwanted child.
Has he the medical qualifications to make that decision in every case? Does he know that there are some women who are likley to get reaaly sick if they have a child? Probably. Does he care? Not enough to say “some women”.
Now, knowing that some women who need EC have a good reason to need it, as a pregnancy might be detrimental to thier health, how does Robert propose to tell them apart from women who don’t? Does “Pharmacists For Life” have some amazing aura detector, or access to the patients medical records? Nope. What they have decided to say is that in *all* cases, even ones where a woman could suffer horribly, she ought to be denied EC, and that they have no need to even talk to her doctor before making that decision.
They are saying, in effect, that they can supercede her doctor on these issues without knowing anything about the patient.
Why? My theory is that they see women as breeding machines, and if a breeding machine is in risk of getting hurt in breeding, well that’s just too bad. The woman’s health interests don’t matter.
Robert:
Exactly how are you qualified to state that for every woman, in every situation?
My partner suffers a medical condition that would likely become worse in the event of a pregnancy, and would likely result in her going blind. Permanently
If, god forbid, she were to be raped and become pregnant, there would be much more at stake than 9 months of pregnancy (not that 9 mos of pregnancy is a walk of the park, either).
For you to state that bearing an unwanted child in this situation is “better” for her is the height of arrogance. Who gave you the right to decide whether she should sacrafice her eyesight? You are not her doctor. You haven’t a clue.
Per the best interest of the patient argument:
Pharmacists have no qualification nor right to make decisions on the best interest of the patient. For starters, they are not trained to perform diagnosis, tests or read test results. Moreover, they know nothing about a patient’s history when they walk into a pharmacy and are not entitled to that information and hence have no knowledge of why a drug has been prescribed. Contraceptives can be prescribed for any number of reasons (pain, acne, osteoporosis, etc…), very few of which have anything to do with contraception. They are simply hormone pills.
In support of Spicy:
Plan B (levonorgestrel), as you mentioned, is not an abortion pill. In fact, it is safe for pregnant women to take the pill and this was part of the process in getting the drug approved as it had to be proven to not be abortifacient or teratogenic in the case women would take it not knowing that they were already pregnant. It would not only be hard to support that plan B is an abortifacient on scientific grounds it would be downright impossible without changing the definition of pregnancy. It inhibits ovulation (those sperm cells stay around for a long time after intercourse) and prevents implantation in the endometrium (the first step in pregnancy).
My wife and I once had to use this (Plan B) due to a broken condom. While we want to have children one day, it would have been an utter disaster for us to have had a pregnancy at that time and we no doubt would have had to consider abortion if a pregnancy would have occured. I can’t say that we actually would have taken that option (and I doubt if we would have faced an unexpected pregnancy that we would have chosen it) but we were nonetheless very glad there was a Planned Parenthood in the neighborhood who facilitated our ability to utilize Plan B (and a CostCo pharmacy… Thank Goodness for CostCo!!).
Cartoon on the effect on concience clauses in other professions
There is a perfectly simple solution to this conflict.
If pharmacists have no ability to gauge the best interest of the patient, and if their individual conscience and moral choice should have no bearing on anything they do, then let’s cut out the middlemen, and replace them with cashiers. Do all pill preparation and compounding at central facilities and distribute the finished products to the dispensaries, where the clerks can simply give you whatever your prescription asks for. The trained pharmacists will work at the central facilities, where there will be plenty of replacements available for anyone who doesn’t wish to compound certain drugs or preparations.
So, because a few religious nuts have decided to abuse their role in order to punish women for having sex, we should rework an entire system that has been perfectly fine until now? Damn, and I thought you were “conservative”. A small regulation making it illegal to discriminate against customers due to their religious differences from the pharmacist (and clearly, a woman using the pills have a different opinion on contraception than the pharmacist) should be enacted and we can carry on our merry way.
And yes, the religious discrimination isn’t against the poor pharmacists asked to do their job nearly as much as the customers who are being told that their personal beliefs in the acceptability of contraception are being held against them, in so many words.
So, because a few religious nuts have decided to abuse their role in order to punish women for having sex, we should rework an entire system that has been perfectly fine until now?
No. We should rework a system because there appears to be an irreconciliable conflict between the legitimate rights of two different groups of people. Under the current system, one (and sometimes both) of those groups’ rights are being infringed. If a new system would eliminate that infringement, then why not embrace it, so that everyone can be happy?
The problem with Robert’s plan is that it doesn’t solve the problem; it merely moves it another step down the ladder. If we do what Robert suggests, we’ll just end up with clerks refusing to dispense birth-control pills to women, and Republicans passing laws to protect these clerks from being fired for refusing to do their jobs.
Also, we’ll have the same problem with owners. If the owner of CVS pharmacies decides that none of the CVSs he owns or controls will sell drug M, then having centralized pharmacist warehouses won’t fix that. Ditto, of course, for hospitals owned by the Catholic church.
I think the solution is to legally mandate that pharmacy owners agree to sell whatever drugs doctors can legally prescribe, or else they can’t have a license to operate a pharmacy. Robert would say that this contradicts with the “legitimate rights” of some people who would like to be pharmacists, but I disagree; no one has a right to a certain job if their religious beliefs prevent them from performing the job.
For example, what about a broadway singer or pro baseball player who is also an ultra-orthodox jew? They can’t get work, because you can’t be a pro ball player or a broadway actor if you’re not willing to work Friday nights and Saturdays. It’s not an infringement on religious freedom to say that only those people who can actually meet legitimate job requirements should be employed in those jobs.
Ampersand, who decides whether to hire the orthodox Jew for the Broadway show? The legislature, or the producer of the play?
Sorry, hit ‘submit’ too fast.
Who cares about a clerk’s right of conscience? A clerk is a functionary, not a person who is in a professional role. The skill of cashiering, while not negligible, is also easily acquired – meaning that nobody is going to be deprived of the ability to buy a drug because the clerk wouldn’t give it to them in their small, one-clerk town. Clerks are pretty much in the same position as the truck driver who brings supplies to the pharmacy.
Robert:
I don’t understand why unskilled/semi-skilled workers don’t get to have a conscience. Why does a pharmacist, arguably a less-skilled worker than a doctor (at least when it comes to making medical/treatment decisions), get to veto a doctor’s orders, while a clerk couldn’t do the same? If you live in a town with only one pharmacist and only one clerk working there, whether its the pharmacist or the clerk refusing to sell contraceptives, the end result is the same.
He’s got a point. Only if the oppression of women’s rights gets involved do people’s thinking gets all muddled–well, unlike every other belief, this one has to be respected, ’cause the womens and the sex and the religious right to take a job you refuse to do!
Robert:
Yes. Fire pharmacists who overrule a doctors medical advice. They’re the same as cashier clerks, as far as I’m concerned, and neither deserves to overrule a doctor.
Right on the money here. We’re talking about a moral qualm that is causing these pharmacists to not dispense drugs, not a health related qualm. Clerks, and even truck drivers may well have such qualms as well.
I think if we go so far as to enact a bill such as described, we should also make people wear public taggings that show whether they are pro or anti choice so when I get back into the work force I can exercise my right of moral objection to not provide any services to people that are anti-choice, or those that would proliferate anti-choice messages. Considering I’m going to school to be a teacher, all that would require is having all children of pro-choice folks in my classroom. Right?
Aren’t these pharmacists violating Jesus’ instructions not to judge lest you be judged yourself, anyway?
Only in your conception of their actions, Amanda. They aren’t going out and telling reporters that women should be punished for sex, or that sex without pregnancy is evil, or any of the other themes being promulgated here. They just don’t morally approve of a particular drug treatment, and they don’t want to be associated with its distribution. That’s pretty much exactly what Jesus would tell someone to do in their circumstance.
yes, but that’s not the issue, at least now, in post martin luther christianity. see, in catholicism, the preists interpret the bible, and the word of jesus, and spread it to the faithful. in the protestant denominations, each individual has their own bible, and is free to intrepret it, and the word of jesus, as they see fit. that way, they can pick and choose what words they like for themselves, what words are only for others, and what words to discard.
The producer of the play. And, in my proposed system, the owner of the pharmacy decides who to hire, as well. So what’s the problem?
Let’s put it anther way. Let’s say that the legislature requires all pyrotechnics set off inside a theater to be overseen at every performance by a licensed pyrotechnician. As it happens, I’m putting on a production of “The Phantom of Miss Saigon’s Cats,” which is famous for substituting explosions for a decent score.
Am I going to hire a frum Jewish pyrotechnician? Probably not, because I’ve got at least two and perhaps three performances a week she can’t attend, and it’s cheaper for me to hire a single pyrotechnician who can oversee all the shows.
Are the liscensing requirements for theater owners anti-Semitic? No, they aren’t. Is this a case of the legislature saying “theater owners can’t hire frum Jewish pryotechs?” No, it’s not.
* * *
By the way, I agree with everyone else here that there’s no logical reason to let a pharmacist follow his conscience but not a clerk. In either case, they’re middlemen. (Middlefolks?)
So Jesus would tell the pharmacist not to sell the drugs, but tell the clerk to shut up and do what they’re told because they’re only a functionary, and not acting in a professional role?
No, Jesus would tell the clerk the same thing – turn from this evil if it is evil to you. The state, of course, does not consider what Jesus’ position would be in formulating its policy.
If you believe pharmacists to be middlemen who can intelligently be classified, along with clerks and truck drivers, as simply part of the distribution network for a product whose decision characteristics are outside the distribution network, then I assume you now agree with libertarians that pharmacists should not be regulated as professionals by the state.
As a theater owner or producer, you decide not to hire the orthodox for economic reasons. That’s your privilege, of course. But you COULD hire the orthodox if you wanted to – and you might voluntarily bear the costs of that. For example, you might not have shows on Friday night and Saturday. Would that be your privilege as the business owner?
On Plan B and abortifacients:
Okay, let’s go over this one more time:
The reason people see Plan B as an abortifacient is that in some cases it prevents implantation rather than ovulation. A large number of people see fertilization, not implantation, as defining conception. And the snarky comment in an earlier post “They think pregnancy starts when you think about having sex” is of course ridiculous. (If that were the case, then the Religious Right would be telling people that once they think about sex they need to have it). You may disagree with that position, but there it is.
I’m uncomfortable with the idea of post-fertilization birth control myself, although I haven’t formed a definite opinion on it, and would not seek to ban it. Fortunately, I have managed to avoid worrying about the situation in my personal life by avoiding sex (I’m a 26-year-old male).
Actually, I’d really like to see a male pill (actually a patch would be better) come out, as any male-oriented birth control would avoid such concerns.
In any case, my main concern in terms of conscience clauses isn’t about secular pharmacies. My main concern is what if a religious group wants to start a religious hospital with its own pharmacy (say a Catholic hospital)? I don’t think it is right to force them to abandon their religious beliefs in order to do so. (Admittedly, I’m not certain of the policy in most Catholic hospitals today).
I do agree that if there are pharmacies who don’t fill certain prescriptions, they should be clearly identified so that people won’t be blindsided when they try to fill a prescription. But I don’t think it’s fair to essentially force Catholic hospitals to either close or abandon Catholicism.
Actually, I’d really like to see a male pill (actually a patch would be better) come out, as any male-oriented birth control would avoid such concerns.
Have you seen this ? It suggests writing to pharmacetical companies and telling them you would support continued development in these areas.
What if they developed a male pill, that mainly stops sperm production, as a secondary effect deforms them so they can’t penetrate the egg’s outer layer, and possibly deforms the fertilised egg so it cannot implant as easily (but is fine once it does implant). To make a complete parallel, suppose one side says that it is an abortifact because it harms fertilised eggs, and so phramacists are right not to give it to you, and are legistrating to make it more difficult for you to get it, but the other side claims the third effect simply does not happen.
Would you take it? Would you support allowing people to refuse to dispense it for religious reasons?
But I don’t think it’s fair to essentially force Catholic hospitals to either close or abandon Catholicism.
Agreed. Is it fair to allow these hospitals to impose their religious belief on others, by refusing to offer certain treatments, or by refusing to refer someone to another hospital for those treatments, or even to tell them those treatments exist?
(Admittedly, I’m not certain of the policy in most Catholic hospitals today)
No plan B.
(It’s as if they were Catholic or something!)
Doesn’t the US constitution have an explicit separation of the state and the church? Excuse my lack of understanding as to what this means but I can’t see why an institution that requires a state licence (hospital or pharmacist) is allowed to restrict legal services based on religious concepts?
(And it seems somewhat ironic that here in the UK where we have an official state religion that the church has an almost negligible impact on politics…)
What I don’t get is how can a pharmacist only have a problem with the person with the prescription and refuse to fill said prescription. Shouldn’t their protest also extend to the company that makes the contraceptive they are protesting against such that they refuse to fill prescriptions from that manufacturer? They are, after all, active participants and enablers in the moral decline of society these pharmacists believe they are trying to prevent.
Data on the availability of emergency contraception in a survey of Catholic and Non-Catholic hospitals:
Click on Study finds EC access limited at hospitals (pdf)
Seems not many have it, and even fewer without restrictions, but its not a universal no.
Glaivester:
I’ve heard that argument before but don’t understand it. Conception, in medical terms occurs when the blastocyst implants. It is not viable until implanted (hence the start of pregnancy). How do you make an argument that pregnancy begins at fertilization if the zygote is not viable (and frequently fails to implant)? Is the arguement solely on religious grounds? Not trying to be critical, just want to understand…
Spicy:
“Doesn’t the US constitution have an explicit separation of the state and the church? Excuse my lack of understanding as to what this means but I can’t see why an institution that requires a state licence (hospital or pharmacist) is allowed to restrict legal services based on religious concepts?”
Uh- the fact that the state licenses something doesn’t mean that the state owns it. Excuse my lack of understanding but how does allowiung a hospital to formulate its own policy vis a vis contraception violate the separation of church and state?
This is what I dislike about liberals. I thought separation of church and state means that the church does not impose its beliefs on people through the government, and the government leaves the church alone. Liberals think that separation of church and state means that the government has the power to restrict the church in whatever way it wants and the church can’t complain. In other words, they see separation of church and state and secular governemnt as meaning not that the government must not be neutral toward religion, but actively anti-religion.
VK:
“Would you take [male birth control]? Would you support allowing people to refuse to dispense it for religious reasons?”
I probably wouldn’t if it worked after fertilization. As for allowing people to refuse to dispense it, I believe that whoever owns the pharmacy has the right to determine what drugs his pharmacy caries and what drugs it doesn’t. This applies if it is cold medicine or if it is birth control. The pharmacist should have to dispense whatever the pharmacy tells him to or they can fire him.
Because part of state sanctioning is the public reassurance that said medical folks have met the standards required and are committed to upholding those standards to ensure good health care.
Dispensing moralistic or religious advice or judgement is NOT covered under this state sanctioning, and their asses should be on the line for dereliction of duty when such occurs. I go to my doctor with the full expectation that my health care is their first priority, and that moralizing on their part will not affect any information or decision making that comes my way.
The pharmacist as well has a medical role to fulfill. They are there to make sure that medications I might take congruently don’t have bad affects. They are there to make sure that past allergies are remembered when prescriptions occur to ensure my health won’t be at risk. What they aren’t there is to decide which medical care via prescription is moral for me to receive or not.
So, I came late, and don’t know if anyone’s still reading the thread…But what I want to know if: If one knows that one’s religious beliefs preclude filling a legal and relatively common prescription like BC pills, then why get a job at a regular pharmacy? I mean, why not go work at a Catholic hospital or something, where said beliefs are less likely to cause conflict.
That is, if the pharmacist’s actions are truly about her/his personal morality, and not about trying to control women’s access to birth control…
Are pharmacist’s refusing to perscribe the pill, if it’s being taken for non-contraceptive reasons (i.e. to stop painful periods, acne etc) ?
Pharmacists don’t prescribe medicine. They fill prescriptions given to patients by Doctors. By refusing to fill a legal prescription, regardless of why it was prescribed, a pharmacist is involving them self in a doctor-patient relationship.That is not their job or place. Their job is to fill legal prescriptions and inform the customer of possible drug interactions. It is not their job to pass moral judgement on medical treatment. And if they can’t or won’t do their job, they need to find another line of work.
Another latecomer with an idea I don’t believe has been addressed.
I think most of the readers here agree that a pharmacist who refuses to dispense Plan B, when company policy does not allow for such refusal, is failing to do their job and should either quit or be fired. This doesn’t address the question of company policies against selling Plan B.
People have argued both that it’s the obligation of a pharmacy to dispense any medicine a doctor prescribes, and that stores should not be forced to stock products their owners have moral objections to (with the analogy of the vegan supermarket). Both these ideas are valid, and I think I see a way to combine them.
Would it be possible to legislate so that a pharmacy that refused to dispense Plan B would be vulnerable to false-advertising charges, by legally defining a pharmacy as dispensing (either stocking or being willing to order) anything a doctor prescribes? Stores that wouldn’t sell Plan B (or any other medicine they objected to) would be allowed to operate – they just wouldn’t be allowed to call themselves pharmacies, and would have to advertise with something like “We provide limited pharmacuetical services” instead.
To tie into the ‘vegan supermarket’ analogy – the situation would be similar to a law saying “any supermarket that doesn’t sell meat must include the term ‘vegitarian’ in their name”. There are some obvious problems but I thitnk it could be workable.
What happens if the pharmacist’s moral convictions prevent prescribing other medications (other then birth control). This happened in my state (Idaho)earlier this year.
A pharmacist refused to prescribe a medication called Methergine with is used to control utrine bleeding after a birth or abortion.