Mother is denied pill by Muslim pharmacist

Telegraph.co.uk ^ | 03 Oct 2008 | Paul Stokes

[forkinsocket]

A woman was refused the "morning-after pill" by a supermarket's duty pharmacist because it was against his religious beliefs.

Ruth Johnson, 33, who has two children, including a month-old baby, had not been using her usual method of contraception with her fiancée.

She went to the Tesco dispensary in Hewitts Circus, Cleethorpes, Lincs, and asked an as assistant for the pill Levanelle.

Miss Johnson was told it could only be dispensed by the locum pharmacist who was called to speak with her.

She said: "He came out from behind a screen and told me that he would not be allowing me to buy the pill from him because he had a right to refuse to sell it on the basis of his personal beliefs.

"The pharmacist was of Asian origin so I asked him if it was because of his religion and he replied 'Yes'."

Miss Johnson, from Cleethorpes, was left feeling ashamed and worried and complained to the store manager who told her they couldn't force the pharmacist to sell the product.

She said: "I asked him if a Jewish or Muslim checkout operator could refuse to sell pork or alcohol or if a Jehovah's Witness could refuse to sell birthday and Christmas cards."

Her concern is that the policy could deter teenage girls from seeking the morning-after pill.

[humblegunner]

‘We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life.’ —Ronald Reagan

Yes, Reagan was able to properly capitalize.

Your message, however, is lost among the blatant errors.

Hurts the eye, distracts from the content.

[Tax-chick]

It isn’t a pharmacist’s place to tell me whether or not I can or cannot take a medication which my family practice MD prescribed.

Nobody's telling the customer she can't take the pills. He's simply telling her he won't sell them to her. She can go elsewhere to have her prescription filled.

[ari-freedom]

oh gosh...I’m dealing with a real grammar vigilante.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/08/22/20080822grammarcops0822.html

Justice is served.

[MrEdd]

Damn right I get pissed when Hajis start telling me how to live.

And in jude24 world people having the perogative of not catering to all of jude24s whims is the same as telling jude24 how to live!

Oh! the outrage! they didn't do what he wanted - they did what they felt was most important. Only jude24 has that right.

/sarc.

You have failed to come up with any reason pharmacists are any different from any other professional - with the right to accept or reject a transaction based on their own judgment - whatever their reasoning may be. The same as with a Lawyer, a doctor, or an architect. Even if they work at a law firm or hospital.

[jude24]

You have failed to come up with any reason pharmacists are any different from any other professional - with the right to accept or reject a transaction based on their own judgment - whatever their reasoning may be. The same as with a Lawyer, a doctor, or an architect. Even if they work at a law firm or hospital.

Low-level lawyers have to take the cases their superiors assign. They don't get to choose or reject based on their religious beliefs.

[MrEdd]

Nobody's telling the customer she can't take the pills. He's simply telling her he won't sell them to her. She can go elsewhere to have her prescription filled.

Now now, if you don't let these people attempt to misrepresent the circumstance they'll get huffy with you Tax-chick. Do you really want that?

[Canticle_of_Deborah]

All I have said is that it's none of the pharmacist's business to decide whether or not to dispense the birth control pills.

You are wrong. Every healthcare worker has the moral right to refuse to participate in any action contrary to his or her belief system. That refusal must take place before care has begun. This pharmacist was within his personal rights. His employer should be aware of his beliefs and provide access to another pharmacist willing to dispense or post a sign stating certain drugs are not dispensed at the facility, or not hire the person in the first place. If the pharmacist is the owner of the facility, he should post a public statement that his facility does not dispense certain products.

To use another of your examples, if a Jehovah's Witness nurse will not administer transfusions due to her beliefs, the facility should be aware of her situation and provide access to another nurse who can administer as the need arises. If the facility requires all nurses to administer, the nurse would not be hired in the first place. If the Jehovah's Witness nurse owns the facility it is within her right to dictate the terms of her business.

You can't walk into a Muslim meat market and demand they sell pork, no matter how much you don't like them.

You are advocating a slippery slope where doctors and nurses would be forced to perform abortions, a concept which is already becoming reality.

[kcvl]

One day you may wish a pharmacist (Walgreens or otherwise) told you something you and/or your doctor didn’t know about a medication he/she prescribed. But it doesn’t surprise me that you wouldn’t know that.

I know people who used to think just like you until one day that pharmacist saved a life by refusing to fill a medication that would have killed them because of a medication interaction their doctor wasn’t aware of.

******

As MrEdd posted:

Any transaction between your wife and her Doctor - is just that - a transaction between her and her Doctor.

It is not in any way a transaction between her and the pharmacist - who is free to make, or not make whatever transaction he or she wishes with your wife.

Your lack of discernment and intellect is truly staggering.

Wanting to purchase something on your part does not in any way translate into a right to demand a business person stock and sell it to you - whether it is a brand of soft drink, performance tires of a certain size, or a medication.

Your wife may have a script making it legal for her to buy a certain pill, but that is all the Doctor has given her - a scrip that makes it legal to buy. Not some Imperial decree that requires subjects to obey a noble.

43 posted on Sunday, October 05, 2008 2:49:55 PM by MrEdd

[ari-freedom]

you’re comparing a human being to a dog? This is freerepublic, not a NARAL forum.

[MrEdd]

What? Oh I see - all this is about people having a religion to you. And it makes you apoplectic, evidently. You could have made it clear at the beginning that your problem is with people having an actual religion that guides their life and we would have realized that facts never get in the way of dogmatic anti-theists.

Well I live in a small town in Texas, and yes - lawyers here can indeed reject cases based on their beliefs, religious or otherwise.

A firm could, I suppose require lawyers to take every case period, and around here that would relegate them to bottom of their class type marginally competent lawyers.

Maybe you deal with bottom feeding Dilbert managed firms. I don't bother with those, you get what you pay for.

[ari-freedom]

Actually I was comparing a fetus to a dog, and none to favorably.

well that's not what FreeRepublic is for

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1103363/posts

[jude24]

You could have made it clear at the beginning that your problem is with people having an actual religion that guides their life and we would have realized that facts never get in the way of dogmatic anti-theists.

Considering how much religion kills, yeah, I have a problem with religious people imposing it on others. Especially one which teaches that its ok to kill people for God.

[BykrBayb]

It's none of his damned business as long as he doesn't participate. It's also none of his damned business whether or not she becomes pregnant in the first place, but whether or not he participates is very much his business.

[ari-freedom]

Atheists and agnostics claim they can be moral without religion. But then when it comes to killing the unborn, they have no problem with it. Disgusting.

[jude24]

If you don't like dispensing meds, than don't become a pharmacist.

Imagine how ticked you'd be if you went to Burger King, and the employee - not the franchise owner, the employee - refused to sell you the bacon cheeseburger because it wasn't halal.

Same idea.

[humblegunner]

oh gosh...I’m dealing with a real grammar vigilante.

That's right, blame the person who points out your apparent illiteracy.

That'll show 'em.

You failed to capitalize again, by the way.

[MarkL]

It sure is a shame that the only pharmacy in all of Great Britain has a muslim pharmacist, who won't dispense morning after pills. I guess she'll have to leave to country to try to find another pharmacy, maybe in France or Spain...

Mark