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 ...
"Pharmacists who can't give out pills they don't agree with need to get out of the profession of pharmacy. It's simply not their job."
Pharmacists are health professionals, not servants or slaves of the patient. They are NOT obligated to fill every prescription that comes their way. They may refuse to fill any prescription they wish, and they do not even have to explain specifically why. The Pharmacist would be wrong to enter into a discussion of the morality of the issue, in an attempt to "convert" the patient to a particular set of beliefs. He might just choose to say that he cannot prescribe that medication due to his moral beliefs. Similarly the patient is wrong to expect that someone who believes that the morning after pill is murder MUST dispense that medication, and thereby violate his conscience. the patient has every right to go elsewhere.
You do raise some important issues. A practicing Catholic or Christian may believe that dispensing a particular prescription is immoral, but the pharmacists is liscenced by the state and that incurrs certain obligations. A pharmacists may find birth control immoral, but if a doctor prescribes it, the pharmacists should review it from a medical and legal sense and not a moral sense. The last thing any patient wants is to be held in moral judgement and denied services from a professional in which they place their trust. If that is what the pharmacists wants to do, they need to inform the public before entering their store, assuming they are the owner/operator. If they work for a company, they must follow their employer's directions in the matter. If their terms of employment include dispensing such products, then they risk their jobs if they don't.
It's not a question of doing anything to make a buck, it is a question of whether the presription was validly issued by a physician and safe (i.e. will not negatively interact with other medications, etc.) for that particular patient. And to take the argument further, a truly Christian medical professional should prevent birth control perscriptions and abortion, even if it puts the woman's life and health at risk. That would mean not only refusing to refer the patient to someone else, but to discourage her from seeking the service in the first place. I've read the posts by people here with such strong convictions that they would prefer a woman die from a pregnancy complication than live if an abortion could save her, even after everything done to save the child was attempted.
My etch-a-sketch tag line refers to democrats that can look wonderfully moral, just like some pretty cool pictures can be drawn on an etch-a-sketch, but shake things up and the morality, like the picture on an etch-a-sketch, dissappear.
The term is "useful idiot." She may believe in what PP is selling, but that doesn't mean it works.
Also since she doesn't practice what she preaches with her own children, she is a hypocrit as well.
SD
On consideration I'll concede that. And if they work in a pharmacy that agrees with those principles, more power to them. But pharmacies ought to be able to fire or refuse to hire employees who will not dispense the drugs the pharmacy sells.
Morals aren't something you turn on and off. This is like "Bill Clinton is a great president. What he does in his private morality doesn't matter."
You are either moral or you aren't.
SD
If Terri Schiavo had been raped and impregnated in the hospice, and the only way to save the baby was to pull the feeding tube, who should have been saved?
"A pharmacist working for another party as appears to be the case here can fill the prescriptions presented of be subject to firing. One working for himself is not. A physician working for another has the same options.
Those employed by others do not have the freedoms those working for themselves do.
Interesting that you do care for the self-proclaimed "rights" of the patients but support those of this pharmacist. Looks like some "rights" are more equal than others."
The patient has the right to go to another Pharmacist. That is an important right, and she should freely exercise it. The patient does NOT have the right to demand a service that is in direct conflict with the moral beliefs of the Pharmacist. If the Pharmacist believes that "morning after pills" murders an unborn child, any attempt to compel him to violate that belief is monstrous. It is doubtful that the owner of a Pharmacy employing that Health Professional would act in any way to compel the Pharmacist to violate that belief. It is far more likely that the employer would likewise recognize that there are rules of decency in regards to treatment of people in your employ, and one of those rules would certainly be to refrain from a any vain attempt to force someone to violate their religious beliefs. But I suppose it might be conceivable, however unlikely, that an employer may issue an ultimatum to said Pharmacist threatening termination of employment over the issue. As in other posts, what a great test case this would be for Right to Life organizations to support! I can foresee even the ACLU [which I despise] showing interest in any issue of someone being terminated over their religion. I cannot believe that an employer would risk the publicity and expense of pushing the issue. No way.
My point stands. Though failure of contraception is inevitable, the majority of contraception users do not accidentally get pregnant.
That increase has to do with the fact that abortions and contraception were legalized at around the same time. Contraception didn't lead to an increase in abortions, the legalization of abortion did.
My point stands. The majority of contraceptive users will, eventually, experience a failure. Since the contraceptive mentality encourages pleasure without responsibility, some subset of these users will be unwilling to have a child. So abortion results.
Without the contraceptive mentality people would treat sexuality like an awesome gift and not a playtoy.
SD
The pharmacist also has the right to find another employer, or chose not to work for said employer, if they know this employer sells the products in question. If accomodations are to be made on the business end, then the business in question can have another pharmacist fill the order. The question I just though of involves the pharmacy itself. Does the pharmacy stock the drugs in question and does the pharmacist have to request the stock from distribution? If the pharmacist stocked it, then why not dispense it? Or if the company provides it through a computerized inventory system, then why not refuse delivery of the products? Or is this an attempt to get some media attention on an issue the pharmacists feels strongly about? It sounds like a pharmacist that wants to pontificate to patients.
And it was a coincidence that not long after contraception became legal, abortion did? Please.
Examine the situation and ask yourself if people would behave differently if they were not assured that contraception (and abortion) would keep them safe from consequences.
I base my theory on the fact that people will tend to, on the whole, act rationally. You seem to base it on the fact that people will have oodles of promicuous sex no matter what. I don't think that's a grounded opinion.
SD
The majority of contraceptive users do not have a failure. The failure rate is usually less than 1% to about 5%.
For the pill. Other devices are much higher, like 10% or even more.
And that is a per year failure rate, not a cumulative lifetime rate.
And that is if the contraceptive is always used properly.
The point is that many, many people have failures. And that many of them are not prepared to raise a child. So they turn to the backstop - abortion.
Contraceptive use fosters a mentality that sex has no consequences and that everyone should be doing it. This leads to abortion.
SD
Probably not. The Roe decision is an extension of the various SCOTUS decisions outlawing contraception bans. That being said, access to contraception does not lead to increases in abortion.
Examine the situation and ask yourself if people would behave differently if they were not assured that contraception (and abortion) would keep them safe from consequences.
Perhaps. However, there is an inalienable human right to control one's body. Contraception certainly falls under that right. The question of whether abortion does is more arguable.
Do you have any evidence for this claim?
Not so fast, Doc.
A good test for "rights" is thus: if no one else must be compelled to act for you to exercise a "right", then that "right" may exist. For example, you have a right to free speech because no one must be compelled to act for you to exercise your free speech right.
On the other hand, you do not have a "right to be heard", since in exercising a "right to be heard" someone else must be compelled to listen, perhaps against their will. So, a right to birth control from a particular pharmacy or pharmacist does not exist.
Then why 50 million abortions in the last 40 years? Without contraception we would have had 200 million?
You don't have any numbers to show. History shows that contraception came out and then abortion rose.
Examine the situation and ask yourself if people would behave differently if they were not assured that contraception (and abortion) would keep them safe from consequences.
Perhaps.
Perhaps. I guess that's the best I'm gonna get. Perhaps there is some validity to my idea that throwing birth control around and letting kids loose leads to an increase in sexual activity and abortion.
SD
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