Posted on 05/03/2005 5:33:17 AM PDT by wallcrawlr
Rebecca Polzin walked into a drugstore in Glencoe, Minn., last month to fill a prescription for birth control. A routine request. Or so she thought.
Minutes later, Polzin left furious and empty-handed. She said the pharmacist on duty refused to help her. "She kept repeating the same line: 'I won't fill it for moral reasons,' " Polzin said.
Earlier this year, Adriane Gilbert called a pharmacy in Richfield to ask if her birth-control prescription was ready. She said the person who answered told her to go elsewhere because he was opposed to contraception. "I was shocked," Gilbert said. "I had no idea what to do."
The two women have become part of an emotional debate emerging across the country: Should a pharmacist's moral views trump a woman's reproductive rights?
No one knows how many pharmacists in Minnesota or nationwide are declining to fill contraceptive prescriptions. But both sides in the debate say they are hearing more reports of such incidents -- and they predict that conflicts at drugstore counters are bound to increase.
"Five years ago, we didn't have evidence of this, and we would have been dumbfounded to see it," said Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. "We're not dumbfounded now. We're very concerned about what's happening."
But M. Casey Mattox of the Center for Law and Religious Freedom said it is far more disturbing to see pharmacists under fire for their religious beliefs than it is to have women inconvenienced by taking their prescription to another drugstore. He also said that laws have long shielded doctors opposed to abortion from having to take part in the procedure.
"The principle here is precisely the same," Mattox said.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
And I have to question the intelligence of a nurse who would heed that kind of advice.
I think the concern is that some want to impose their will and outlaw birth control or MA pills.
I agree that an individual has every right to refuse to dispense any drug. But he should had the prescription over to another druggist or back to the patient.
i never said the location was relevant. I just said that the removal of an ectopic pregnancy is not the type of procedure done at an abortion clinic.
And if it's medically necessary, by definition it isn't an elective abortion, it's a therapeutic abortion. However, the same procedures are used.
Yes, that's true.
So if you're asking what medical indications necessitate learning the skills (D&C or suction curettage), here are some: fetal demise, molar pregnancy, cardiac disease with decompensation, certain cancers. The same procedure would also be used for incomplete (spontaneous) abortion.
Any OB should know how to do these, for some of the reasons you outline. There is no reason to force medical students to perform elective abortions against their consciences. There are many women who miscarry or suffer fetal demise upon whom aspiring doctors can learn the procedures.
SD
That's got to be one of the dumber reasons I think I have heard on why not to be something. I get pressure all the time to try and compromise morals and ethics in my line of work. I'd rather have pissed off superiors and co workers and be able to look myself in the eye than to comprmise my beliefs.
How many is acceptable to you?
SD
I don't have a problem with the pill or the potential for very early abortions. Sorry, I know you disagree.
Do you have a problem with later abortions?
SD
Yes, I do.
SD
We don't agree, clearly. You aren't going to change my mind and I won't change yours.
I'm just trying to understand why you think like you do.
SD
Crackpot morality does no one any good.
If I want a moral opinion out of a pharmacist or any other professional I will ask for it. Free samples are not welcome. Do you want a Muslim pharmacists to start giving you his moral opinions rather than the prescription?
I accept the necessity for the Rule of Law and the means set up by our Founders to change that Law if inappropriate.
Stop putting words in my mouth.
There has been no inclination posted by my to change anyone's conscience merely a demand that people live up to their professional responsibilities. If one cannot do so because of their consciences change jobs.
Jesus treated people with love and dealt in mercy not sanctimony.
It is a LIE to claim I have encouraged killing anyone much less babies.
I never mentioned getting advice to "kill" someone so that red herring is irrelevant.
Medical ethics is NOT medical ADVICE but your confusion is understandable given the rage to destroy all concepts which make comprehension possible. How else can one claim a zygote is a "baby"?
No it is NOT the "right" of a pharmacist to refuse to do his job and expect to keep it. Why would I have to pay a price for his delusions?
I expect professional behavior from professionals. If they can't do the job don't take it and leave others to clean up their failures.
No that is an entirely different issue here since such a doctor would inform you before it ever came to such a point. Now if my wife came to such a one in an emergency and she died because of his inaction there would have been hell to pay.
What do you think it is?
SD
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