Posted on 06/08/2005 10:26:40 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Abortion, gay rights and marriage, euthanasia, and the like are among today's most contentious political issues. They tend to inflame people's worst emotions.
Choosing sides often isn't easy. For instance, no one should feel comfortable about having the state rebuff a woman's desire for an abortion, but the procedure destroys a human life. The government should not discriminate against gays, but marriage plays a unique role in providing a framework for child-rearing and family life.
What should be a simple decision is allowing people to say no, irrespective of the government's stance. If abortion is legal, no doctor should have to perform it. If assisted suicide is permissible, no medical professional should have to participate.
If gay relationships are left untouched by the authorities, no apartment owner should have to rent to a same-sex couple. If contraceptives are available like other medicines, no doctor should have to write a prescription nor any pharmacist have to fill one.
In short, if "choice" is a virtue, it should be a virtue for everyone. Unfortunately, however, many liberal interest groups seem to believe that choice means allowing them to choose for everyone else.
THE LATEST CAUSE CELEBRE involves pharmacists who won't fill prescriptions for birth control or the "morning after" pill. Before that it was insurers who wouldn't provide contraceptive coverage and employers who wouldn't offer marital benefits to same-sex partners.
Earlier controversies surrounded doctors and hospitals who wouldn't perform abortions. Even before that were cases of religious property owners who didn't want to rent to unmarried couples.
The political battle has been joined, with many states approving "conscience clauses" allowing doctors and hospitals to opt out of abortions and pharmacists to refuse to dispense some drugs. But Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich prefers coercion over conscience, and has required pharmacies to fulfill birth control prescriptions. Three states are considering legislation to do the same.
Even the supposedly freedom-loving American Civil Liberties Union tends to favor forcing people to set aside their moral sensitivities to provide politically correct "reproductive" services. States the ACLU: "religious objections should not be allowed to stand in the way" of care in many cases.
THE REAL ISSUE APPARENTLY is fear of citizens acting on their beliefs. Worries columnist Ellen Goodman, "how much further do we want to expand the reach of individual conscience?" Apparently the primary social problem today is too many people caring too much about virtue. We'd all be better off if we dropped our silly moral inhibitions.
In this view one set of moral presumptions should trump all others. Someone engaging in an activity thought to be morally wrong, or at least suspect, has a right to aid and support from others. Do whatever you want while forcing everyone else to give you whatever you want.
What of someone who desires to, say, heal others, but believes that abortion or contraception contradicts that commitment? In Goodman's view, they are asking for "conscience without consequence."
There's no real moral conflict, she suggests, since they could just quit their jobs. Which in the case of doctors and pharmacists presumably means leaving their professions. Property owners should just sell off homes in which they aren't living. And so on.
If people don't follow Ms. Goodman's advice? Coerce them. Chris Taylor of the Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin demanded "a strong penalty" for pharmacist Neil Noesen who refused to fill a birth control prescription.
What is this but allowing people to ignore conscience without consequence? Protecting people from the impact of public disapproval eliminates one of the most important social tools for imparting and shaping morals.
Moreover, using government to impose a conscienceless amorality on everyone threatens a true culture war. Ms. Goodman gets it entirely wrong when she writes: "the plea to protect their conscience is a thinly veiled ploy for conquest."
A legal prohibition on abortion, or contraception, or homosexuality would be an attempt at "conquest." Simply saying "I opt out, but I won't stop others" seeks to resolve moral conflict without prohibiting or mandating conduct. It is the best strategy for promoting social harmony in a diverse and free society.
Otherwise, there is no middle ground for coexistence: whatever government decides determines everyone's behavior. Prohibiting something means penalizing those who provide the practice or product. Allowing something means penalizing those who do not offer the service or good. Everyone has an added incentive to seize power and impose their beliefs on others.
The best strategy is to leave government rule-making at a minimum, limited to important issues which only government can decide. Then, as Ms. Goodman suggests, "what holds us together is the other lowly virtue, minding your own business."
OPEN MARKETS ALLOW EVEN disagreeable people who disagree to live with a minimum of confrontation. A Chicago Planned Parenthood official argued: "A pharmacist's personal views cannot intrude on the relationship between a woman and her doctor." They don't. The woman can go elsewhere to fill a prescription.
The refusal of any one doctor, landlord, or pharmacist may be inconvenient to the customer involved. But in America today there are more than 16,000 hospitals and 51,000 retail pharmacies. Government could further increase access to contraceptives by relaxing prescription requirements.
In such a system everyone is able to choose. And everyone bears the cost of his or her choice.
A person desiring an abortion or contraceptive has to shop around. A hospital or pharmacy that refuses to offer certain services or products will lose business.
A doctor or pharmacist who won't abide by his or her employer's rules must look for another job. But life goes on, without constant legal and political battles.
Frances Kissling of Catholics for a Free Choice argues that "There is very little recognition that the conscience of the woman is as important, let alone more important, than the conscience of the provider." They are both important, and neither should a priori trump the other.
Are some choices simply illegitimate? Rachel Laser of the National Women's Law Center contends: refusing to fill a prescription is "outrageous. It's sex discrimination."
Actually, many of the pharmacists who say no to the abortion pill and contraceptives are women. Peggy Pace of Glen Carbon, Illinois, is one of two pharmacists suing Gov. Blagojevich over his order.
Judy Waxman of the National Women's Law Center argues that the refusal to fill prescriptions is "based on personal beliefs, not on legitimate medical or professional concerns." But the same could be said of a person desiring contraceptives or an abortion.
The belief that such products or procedures are legitimate is intrinsically no more valid than the belief that they are illegitimate. Surely the moral beliefs of medical professionals should be respected by people who emphasize the importance of "choice" and "controlling one's own body."
UNFORTUNATELY, THE ISSUE IS generating widespread political war. In most states doctors have no obligation to perform an abortion. But states split over hospital provision of the procedure. A dozen states allow health professionals to refuse to offer sterlizations.
Four states authorize pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives and a dozen more states are considering similar bills, while a few are threatening to go the other way. Senators Hillary Clinton (D-NY), Rick Santorum (R-PA), and John Kerry (D- MA) have introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would offer some federal protection for dissenting pharmacists.
Few agree on all of these issues: I oppose abortion but see no moral objection to contraception or sterilization. Some people support or oppose all three. Government should leave employers, employees, and consumers free to sort out who provides what service to whom.
Public officials should remember the virtues of neutrality. The best way to avoid social conflict is to respect everyone's conscience whenever possible. That's what free choice should mean in a liberal democracy like our own.
If they are, the pharmacist is in the position of a Mormon bartender who refuses to serve alcohol.
You need a presciption for birth control, but not for the morning after pill. How about we cut out the middle man all together.
If you do not want to fill certain prescriptions based upon your personal beliefs, don't become a pharmacist.
Why can't a pharmacist advertise that he doesn't sell certain meds? That way the consumer can choose another pharmacist. It's still a free country, at least the part I live in.
Now, I'm all for birth control pills. I have no problem with them. And I'd even say I'm liberal enough to also not have a problem with the morning after pill since conception takes two days after intercourse. But what if the pharmacist was asked to fill a prescription for an abortion pill? How is that different? Just posing a question.
As the article mentions, freedom of choice only applies when it's the looney left making our choices for us and our children.
Sounds vaguely familiar to me, as in the Soviet Union, Stalinism, Marxism, etcetera.
You can tell that conscience is a foreign concept to Ellen.
Do you believe that a mormon who works in a package store, yet refuses to sell alcohol, should be allowed to make that choice and keep his job?
Somewhere down this road there is a hospital with an emergency room which will treat victims of auto accidents, but because they are environmentally friendly, if you have the misfortune to be riding in an SUV when there is an accident, they will not treat you. You can go to another hospital 50 miles away.
Do you really want this kind of a world?
If I own a store and decide I don't want to sell something, who in the hell is the State to step in and force me at gunpoint to sell something I don't want to?
It's called 'freedom' Curly. Look into it.
L
That is a mighty long road ... the one between an anti-baby-murdering pharmacist and a tree-hugging-suv-hating emergency room surgeon! It's a road so long that I'm willing to do what's right today and worry about how far the liberal left will push it tomorrow. We've seen how far the liberals pushed our supreme court, now we're correcting that. If we ever find ourselves down the road you speak of, we'll correct it then in the same fashion. In the meantime, may our conscience be our guide and may our government not attempt to infringe on our right to follow it.
With the proposed legislation, the employer isn't going to be allowed to make that decision. They will be forced to retain an employee who will not do the job they were hired to do based on personal convictions. Now, if a pharmacist owns his own shop...or if a pharmacy chain chooses not to dispense certain drugs, so be it. That's not what this is really about.
I decided when I heard first heard this story that I did not like the idea of a pharmacist being able to pick and choose what they will or will not dispense. I do not believe the govt. should force them to, but their employer should have the right to dismiss them if he does not agree with the pharmacists position. As for me, I simply will not patronize a business that allows its employees to take that position. It will not make a differance in the bottom line of the place, but I will feel better.
Not necessarily true. The WRFA requires employers to "reasonably accommodate" the religious practices of employees insofar as doing so does not impose an "undue hardship" on the employer. The bill does not give employees an unlimited basis for demanding workplace accommodations in the name of religion.
I suspect that in the case of a pharmacy, having an employee who refused to sell a particular drug based on religious reasons, the employer could accomodate the employee by having someone else do the selling. However, there would certainly be situations where such an accomodation is not reasonable - such as a small rural pharamacy in which there is not a ready pool of other employees.
But the devil's in the details and certainly "reasonably accomodate" can cause major headaches for employers who don't want to take the time (and money!) for legal challenges to determine what is reasonable and let someone else (read judge) determine how and where they should accomodate a request. I suspect that an employer might even not be able to refuse to hire a pharmacist who would decline to sell birth control pills because such a refusal to hire would be grounds for a religious discrimination lawsuit.
So after initially thinking you were wrong, after doing some reading on my own, I think I'm more in agreement with you. While I think employees should not suffer from any governmental interference on their decision to refuse to sell certain drugs or devices nor should the government interfer with the employers right to fire them.
Let me also add that I doubt that Kerry and Clinton would argue that the WRFA applies to the pharmacist. They no doubt think that the "right" to abortion trumps everything else. In their minds the WRFA probably only applies to Catholics who want to take Christmas off and so forth.
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