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 ...
I don't even know what your beliefs are. Other than at some point a "something" becomes a life worthy of protection. I don't know when you think that point is, what the entity is before it is a life, or why.
SD
Try your hardest. No doubt from what you've written, you'll have to.
You really have to work doubly hard to appear convincing when you already write with such dashing illiteracy.
By the way, exactly what is a "liscence" anyway?
Had much schooling? Yeah, didn't think so.
Bring it on, illiter-doc30.
You're no worse than I or any other sinner.
Sorry, you don't win the bag of M&M's for being first!
Your no worse than I or any other sinner. I don't want candy, I want you to know the glory of His presence in the next world.
I think most of us are arguing from a standpoint that there are few pharmacists who own the pharmacy. It's assumed that this situation would most often happen where an employee is making this decision, and what's uncertain for me is how many pharmacy owners have backed up that decision. It's my view that pharmacy owners should certainly be able to decide. In fact, if someone wants to open a Catholic drug store where Catholics could go and not even have to deal with ~looking~ at condoms, then more power to them. But I would doubt there would be very many of the chains who would want to make that decision.
That's nice, thank you. But candy in the meantime's okay too.
Such a minimal effort is hardly worth attempting. If we were outlawing all abortions except for a few exceptions (the rape, incest, life of the mother clause), I might go along with the reasoning of the necessity of politics.
Exactly the point. And this is the society we get when sexual pleasure, its pursuit and attainment, is the highest goal.
The thing to understand is that contraception makes abortion necessary.
I don't see how that can be true.
Again, exactly the point. Ask yourself this: Does Planned Parenthood give away contraception in order to suppress its abortion market?
Look at it another way. People living a contraceptive mentality become "entitled" to having sexual pleasure without any consequences. When the inevitable consequences occur, abortions are sought out to correct the mistakes, to catch the ones who fall through the cracks.
SD
Bring and Almond Joy(r) bar and we'll talk:)
My wife endured this sort of discomfort for years (she no longer does since having children). She didn't feel a need to poison herself and unborn children.
Your premise is flawed. Abortions are not inevitable for people who use contraception. The vast majority of women who use contraception never end up having an abortion.
On the other side of the coin, there are plenty of women who don't use contraception who end up having abortions.
You call it discomfort, I call it pain that can only be treated with morphine.
I wouldn't want the woman I love have to endure ANY pain.
I have a friend who is a really loonie lib. And, not surprisingly, she is on the board of local PP. She and I have had many chats about this and she honestly thinks she is helping women by providing birth control. Misguided, certainly, but she does not want more abortions and hopes that by using bc they will not have abortions. And, believe it or not, she teaches her 6 children not to have sex until marriage. She has more kids than me!
I really don't buy the idea that, outside of a small fringe (not unlike the fringe we have), PP types want more abortions.
See, I knew we had something in candy!
Maybe we can supply Bolten with cases of candy and he will be able to solve all the problems in the UN.
Okay, "candy"=common
SD
Well, we know what you're thinking about now! ;)
Well goodness knows I'm not thinking about sex after all this!
I meant pregnancies, not abortions. When contraceptives are used, they will fail. For far too many, this means a trip to the abortionist.
Without the contraceptive mentality, those not prepared for children would treat sexuality with more respect.
On the other side of the coin, there are plenty of women who don't use contraception who end up having abortions.
This is sadly true as well. But they do not live in a vacuum. They live in a culture suffused with the contraceptive mentality of "sex is good and free of responsibility."
SD
They do, actually. Their belief is that condoms and contraception reduce the number of abortions.
LOL. Tell me another one.
I suppose that since we've made access to contraception free and easy, the numbers of abortions have fallen dramatically. Right?
SD
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