Posted on 04/01/2005 4:38:31 PM PST by traderrob6
CHICAGO - Gov. Rod Blagojevich approved an emergency rule Friday requiring pharmacies to fill birth control prescriptions quickly after a Chicago pharmacist refused to fill an order because of moral opposition to the drug.
The emergency rule takes effect immediately for 150 days while the administration seeks a permanent rule.
Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to," Blagojevich said. "No delays. No hassles. No lectures."
Under the new rule, if a pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist must be available to fill it without delay.
Given our judiciary's propendency to make law up out of foreign sources, it wouldn't surprise me if they make such a mandate for OB/GYNs out of such. I know from reading that South Africa (drafted under Mandela) already has such a law requiring all licensed OB/GYNs to perform abortions as requested, as do a few other countries...
I always thought it was because Republicans favor a strong military, as Hitler did for his nefarious purposes. The comparison stops there, as far as I am concerned.
Now it was required not so long ago by National Socialist and Communist authorities that doctors must, as a condition of their licensure and as a matter of law, execute ("euthanize") the weak and the infirm. You would have insisted the doctors do this because medicine in a government regulated industry, and we must do whatever the government demands.
Do I understand your position to be that if you are licensed by the gov't to conduct business, then you shouldn't object when they place some stricture on how you conduct your business?
The state pharmacy board disciplined him for his actions. He may want to be more careful when choosing his employer to avoid having to be asked to fill birth control prescriptions.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=20614
They make the guy pulling the "trigger" have to do it from afar. They don't see their evil up close and the guy doing the deeds can say he had no choice. Typical statist evil set in motion.
Your socialistic assumptions are simply wrong. Taxi cab drivers are also licensed by the government but they are not required to drive in neighborhoods they don't like. In the same way, law enforcement agents are not legally required to answer every call for help. This wasn't a case of discrimination against a racial group or some other protected class, it was a refusal to participate in an immoral action. No profession requires this kind of act of its members, including the military.
Furthermore, your desire to coerce a profession into engaging in behavior they object to is the realm of the legislature, not the governor or the judiciary.
Well, there is such a thing as civil disobedience (if a pharmacist wanted to continue refuses to take birth control perscriptions in defiance of the goverment), but under that tradition you have to accept legal penalties imposed in you. Unless you think--and I don't think you do--that our current establishment is so corrput we should openly rebel against it.
He refused to transfer her presciption from his employer, KMart, to Walmart, although the Walmart pharmacist requested it. He was disciplined by the Wisconsin Pharmacy Board. I would assume he's appealing their decision.
You can object, but if you break the law you have to accept the consequences. I see no injustice in this regulation, in recquires pharmacists to fill prescriptions by doctors.
No they haven't. The state Pharmacy Examining Board hasn't ruled yet.
What happened here is that the pharmacist refused to fill a prescription. After the fact, the governor then passed a decree that compels other pharmacists facing similar situations to act differently than this pharmacist did. So the question is not whether the pharmacist should have obeyed the governor's decree given that the decree did not exist when the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription. The question is whether what the governor has done in issuing the decree is the right thing to do. In my opinion it isn't. You think the opposite. It seems to me that that is the main issue, but you keep retreating to the argument that 'we must do what we are told if we are licensed by the gov't.' To me that argument just avoids the issue.
The judge has ruled. He haD 15 days to file an objection. The full board will rule later this month.
Next step: Forcing pharmacists to give out medicines to kill grandmom...
I was failed in my medical school OB rotation for not doing abortions...and when I worked in the Indian Health service, I was reprimanded for not getting up at 3 am to give a careless lady the morning after pill (not a rape case...she was drunk, but old enough to know better).
In both cases, I threatened lawsuit and got away with it, because I was known to be a Christian. My girlfriend, a Hindu, will not take animal life but was forced to do abortions...
So what else is new?
No, the judge merely made a recommendation.
I think there's another way to look at it. You say, the druggist should find another line of work, if he doesn't approve of dispensing birth control pills. You invoked a "lifestyle" issue, talking about Viagra, gays, etc. I think you missed the point altogether.
The pharmacist is pro-life, and views dispensing the pills as participating in murder. A moral stand.
Do you have any moral stands? And what is your line of work? What if you were requested to do what you do for someone you disapprove of, on strong moral grounds, and the government said No, you must do it? That's the issue: Can the government force you to do something against moral and/or religious beliefs.
As for this instance, it's not about the lifestyle. It's about life.
actually, a pharmacist, like a nurse in the hospital, is a professional. They can disobey orders if not appropriate...for example, if a druggie comes in with a large prescription of Lortab or dilaudid from a local quack, the druggist can refuse to fill it...
I once had a young patient dying of cancer, who required huge doses of morphine to relieve pain...one nurse refused to give it, so I sat there and pushed in 10 mg morphine every ten minutes until he was comfortable, then we kept him on a slow drip titrated to keep him asleep/pain free but respiratory rate over 10...he died the next day, of pneumonia, not of an overdose...
I think that pharmacists should be recquired fill out prescriptions given by doctors--at least under the system we have now, in which this is the way citizens obtain their prescribed medicine.
Uh oh, you're bringing sanity to the discussion. Get ready!
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