Posted on 01/27/2006 12:56:47 PM PST by wagglebee
ST. LOUIS, Missouri, January 27, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A Target pharmacist has lost her job for refusing to dispense or refer for the abortifacient morning-after pill.
“For me, life begins with two cells,” said Heather Williams, explaining that the so-called emergency contraception pill, Plan B by Barr Pharmaceuticals, often prevents implantation of a newly formed human embryo within the uterine wall – which, of course, constitutes abortion. The same mechanism is responsible for the sometimes abortifacient effect of the regular birth-control-pill.
According to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report, Williams has refused to dispense or refer for the abortifacient for the past five years while working as a part-time Target pharmacy employee. She argues that to refer patients to a dispensary where they can find them is equally immoral. “I just can’t be a link in the chain at all,” Williams said.
Williams, who is a mother of three, lost her job over the issue as of January 1. She filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of Missouri. She says, however, that the blame for her dismissal belongs to Planned Parenthood, not the Target store. Planned Parenthood has spearheaded efforts across the US to mandate that pharmacists co-operate in chemical abortion.
Williams and attorney Ed Martin have appeared on television to argue that pharmacists are the scapegoats in the battle over Plan B. Martin is also the attorney for four Walgreens pharmacists from across the river in St. Louis, Illinois, who lost their jobs for the same reason. The four refused to abide by Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s decree mandating that pharmacists dispense the abortifacient.
Blagojevich warned Illinois pharmacists in April to dispense the abortifacient morning-after pill or face legal backlash – despite a state statute that exempts pharmacists from participating in practices contrary to their religious views.
Williams said that Target forced pharmacists state-wide to sign a “conscience clause” last fall agreeing to dispense the abortifacient or refer to another pharmacy that does. She wrote the chain a letter December 1 telling them she could not sign the clause. “We had to make sure it was in stock, and even give directions to the store,” she said. “I would be a participant.”
Williams is losing her job even though the Target store where she worked has never stocked Plan B.
See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
Walgreens Disciplines Four Pharmacists for Refusing Abortifacient Morning-After Pill Prescriptions
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2005/dec/05120102.html
That's about as silly as some of the replies on that web site.
The pharmacist's job is whatever the employer says it is, so long as it's not illegal.
"her best judgment given her qualifications to fulfill or refuse to fill an order."
She's is a pharmacist not a doctor. She isn't qualified to overrule a doctor's orders unless there is a provable problem of bad drug interaction. Her refusal isn't based on her qualifications, it's based on her feelings.
Which part of her training was she applying here? This wasn't a case where she declined to provide a drug to a specific patient for a sound medical reason - she issued a blanket refusal to sell a legal drug that her employer has elected to keep in stock. The employer offered to allow her to avoid selling the product so long as she was able to ensure that the customer was served by another pharmacy or pharmacist, and she declined. Apparently, she doesn't like the job requirements at this particular workplace, so she needs to find a more agreeable position.
IF she's a licensed pharamacist, she is required to apply certain degree of reasoning to how she fills or refuses to fill orders. She just cannot modify a doctor's order. She can, however, refuse to fill an order is she's (any pharmacist) has questions about who the order is for, about the person in relationship to the medication, and more. I don't regard her religious beliefs reasonings as being one of "feelings". And, again, refusing to fill an order is not modifying a physician's order.
It's impossible or just plain irreverant to address specific 'parts' of her job behavior without knowing more about the specific statements made by all involved. We cannot know from the articles here, for example, if but what someone requesting this medication asked for counselling, or behaved questionably, or what. Or even the specific words of the "pharmacist" (if she is one) involved.
Thus, I'm not, nor is anyone here, in any position to identify what "part of her training she (was) applying here". If for no other reason than her "training" hasn't even been identified nor described.
Her specific job requirements were modified after the inception of her employment, however, and this remains a cloudy area of question, in my view, particularly since she explained her reasons (moral grounds) to not signing the order requested of her after she was already employed.
The mere fact that she was employed and in good standing prior to this issue suggests that the interim order signage issue was a convenient means by which she was terminated. It raises other issues.
And, the article/s I've read don't in any area describe her as not "liking her job." She refused to fill an order for a medication based upon religious, moral grounds. That does not indicate to me that she was not happy in her work or exhibited any degree of dislike for it. Rather, it indicates to me greater conscientiousness than some.
Yes, but the employer has to have a prearranged understanding with an employee as to what 'the job' is. You can't hire a brain surgeon and then ask them to go sweep the floors, things like that. Jobs are defined, filled and fulfilled by recognized terms prior to the job itself.
"refuse to fill an order is she's (any pharmacist) has questions about who the order is for, about the person in relationship to the medication, and more."
But there in lies the rub, that logic can be applied to any medication not just the one in question. Personal ethics are one thing, professional ethics are something else and if I go to have a prescription filled I don't want a sermon to go with it. The insurance malarky is enough. The woman was out of line.
"Which part of her training was she applying here? This wasn't a case where she declined to provide a drug to a specific patient for a sound medical reason - she issued a blanket refusal to sell a legal drug that her employer has elected to keep in stock. The employer offered to allow her to avoid selling the product so long as she was able to ensure that the customer was served by another pharmacy or pharmacist, and she declined."
My point exactly.
The only leg she has to stand on is that fact that the product came long after she was hired - however, job conditions change for lots of people, and it's hardly reasonable to expect that one's responsibilities will be identical from hiring to retirement. Her employer dealt with this argument fairly and sufficiently by giving her the option to pass customers on to other pharmacists whenever possible.
You may admire her convictions, but that doesn't mean her employer has to bend over backwards for her. Sometimes standing on principle comes with a cost, and it's her decision to pay it or not.
By the way, I didn't say that she "didn't like her job", I said she "didn't like the job requirements", which is clearly true.
Yes, it does seem pretty clear cut. She may have the moral high ground, Target may be bowing to outside pressure, it may be true that members of other religious groups might receive more generous accomodation; we can't know if these things are true and none of them really matter, since she has a responsibility to do the job she was hired for and her employer has a right to expect that.
I do believe that drugs that are "abortion" medications are of noticable and obvious difference to most and it is not unreasonable to even anticipate or expect some persons to exercise moral and/or religious objections to even being involved in their proliferation and use.
These are a type of drug that even a non-religious and relatively immoral person can recognize (most seem to) as to being life affecting as to the life or death of either a human being, if you define conception as the beginning of human life (I do, some do not) or just reduce the idea to "tissue in the womb" (some do, I don't), it is still obvous that even if mere "tissue" that would result in a human being, and by aborting it, the possibility of human life is avoided, concluded.
The KNOWLEDGE of that result -- a human life will be born anew if a pregnancy reaches it's full term -- is the motivation for seeking 'abortion' drugs in the first place, so even an amoral person would be cognizant that the drugs were intended to terminate/prevent human life from being born.
There's little room for even the least intelligent, amoral person to argue that "abortion drugs" are similar to, say, an antibiotic or high blood pressure pill or a salve for a rash, similar.
The point here is that it is obvious to even the least observant, non morally motivated person to distinguish between the significance of "abortion drugs" and others.
Same, however, with chemotherapy. Most of it if used incorrrectly will end human life. Thus, they are administered -- most of them -- by supervision of licensed medical personnel but they still require a physician order, and some are alright for personal administration and they're dispensed at a pharmacy. If a pharmacist, aware that using those medications incorrectly, isn't clearly understood by whoever they're prescribed for, they can withhold to the point of delaying the fill of the order unless there's more conversation about them.
I mean by that that a pharmacist is expected to exercise a degree of both ethical and moral observation and deliberation in filling prescription orders. If they have questions, they wait for further advice. If they have serious questions, they refuse the order. And should.
I know in my own experience, I've even had physicians make life threatening errors in prescription orders and without a pharmacist questioning those orders on my behalf, I'd have lost my life by taking what was prescribed as it was prescribed by a physician. Thus, what I'm saying is that it's a PART OF THE JOB DESCRIPTION for a pharmacist to fill or not fill an order as written and to withhold filling it if they have reason to suspect or object, even, for an order in relationship to an individual.
They just cannot modify the order or change the order. They have to obtain a NEW order from a physician inorder to fill an alteration to the original prescription. But the ethics involved by pharmacists is an actual part of their "job description."
If they were mere cashiers, we'd all be in a lot of trouble.
But as to these particular drugs, the "abortion drugs," they're noticably in a class by themselves and even general public is aware of the import of their potency and why they are used. There's little to explore to my view in the argument that pharmacists "could do this with all drugs, then." They don't. They COULD but they'd lose their license and probably face jail time if they did.
I haven't set foot in a Target store because of the Salvation Army issue. The firing of this pharmacist seems so hostile and unnecessary.
"Since Plan B was not legal"
Women have always been able to triple up on regular birth control pills to get the same effect. I think you may be confusing Plan B with RU-486, which is an entirely different drug.
"When she started working there, the abortion pill wasn't available."
Another person who apparently has this confused with RU-486.
Yes, actually, it truly does. Not sure that I grasp the importance of firing an otherwise already acceptable and established employee, and, in effect, by the firing, generate far more damaging publicity. A lot of people will now not patronize the Target pharmacy or pharmacies or even the stores.
I know I don't use their pharmacies just because they're cursory, even rough with routine order issues. My local pharmacy is far nicer, remembers me, talks to me when/if/as needed, is just far more personable and reliable because of that. But I am now considering not even shopping at the store in general.
Good for and on her.
I pray the Lord raises up another employer for her immediately.
"From what I gather (and I am not sure about this) they seem to be akin to the famous RU-486. (They probably are massive doses of standard birth control pills.)"
"I don't know the first thing about this, but I see no need for that to stop me from commentary."
In fact, they are completely different drugs. RU-486 is mifepristone, which is an anti-progesterone. The morning-after pill is just a slightly larger dose of regular birth control pills (not 'massive', and not mifepristone). Hope that helps.
(If you don't remember what I'm referring to, or only heard the MSM misreporting: Vioxx was approved only as a painkiller of last resort, but doctors were writing millions of prescriptions for people whose ailments should have been treated with simply larger doses of Tylenol. Phen-Fen (sp?) was never sold at all. It was a combination of two different drugs misused as weight reduction. I have less sympathy for the makers of Vioxx, however; their advertisements created the demand. In contrast, the makers of Viagara knew they had such a hot product, they did it right. They were largely through the approval process for getting Viagara approved as a anti-hypertensive when they realized why their test subjects really, really, really liked getting their blood presssure medicine.)
I never called it that. It's a pill that causes an abortion.
From the title: Abortifacient Morning-After Pill ^
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