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 ...
Novocaine cause the death of unborn children? Do you have a cite for that?
SD
Of course, open heart surgery without anesthesia would be a real pain, but then again you should probably just die of heart disease like God intended.
Start comparing apples to apples and we will be able to talk. Until then, you are speaking nonsense.
If curing my dental pain caused the death of another innocent life, I would live with the pain. This isn't a hard concept to understand.
SD
True, but there is a vast difference between the suffrage movement and the later "women's lib" movement. Particularly in terms of morals.
From what I've read most of the original suffragettes would be appalled at the idea that killing your own offspring is "liberating" for women.
SD
No, Hermann is speaking nonsense. Look at his #506. He includes no qualifier.
If curing my dental pain caused the death of another innocent life, I would live with the pain.
What right do you have to make any effort to avoid the pain which is, according to Hermann, man's lot in life?
You've summed up my feelings exactly. That's for saving my fingers!
This, and the general topic of discussion seem to offer a bit of qualification:
How strange that the relief of pain is a moral justification for chemical abortions!
What right do you have to make any effort to avoid the pain which is, according to Hermann, man's lot in life?
I think you do have Genesis in your Bible. Pain is a curse, especially for women. We can alleviate it, but it will never go away.
I think if you ask Herman he would tell you that he would approve of other pain killing methods that are not abortive.
He may have spoken with a bit of hyperbole, but he was answering hyperbole as well.
SD
I did post the link. You must have GRAVE reasons not to have more children. Not just because you don't want more. I leaving the house right now and do not have time to find the quotes from my catichism.
I have plenty of money, a stable marriage and reasonable mental health. I have no reason not to have anymore children other that I feel we have enough. But what I feel doesn't matter to God. I should be allowing Him to chose how many children I have. I am therefore against the teachings of the Church, even with NFP.
A woman's own body can cause miscarriages as well, many months on. Tell us that that is not "ending a human life."
Is there no room in your morality for volition, for will? If we go into action and cause something to happen, then we are responsible. It doesn't matter of the same thing happens sometimes spontaneously.
Many people will die today cause their heart will suddenly arrest. This is natural and it sure as heck is the end of a human life. Now, if you inject chemicals into someone and their heart stops, is this not something you are responsible for? Even though a body can do this all by itself sometimes?
SD
People were not facing sex with a grave attitude in the Middle Ages! Have you read Chaucer? People were not facing sex with a grave attitude in the Renaissance! Have you read Shakepeare? Prostitutes have been around since time immemorial. Folks were getting knocked up in the back of '57 Chevy's.
Our sex drive can make us act like animals, regardless of birth control. I'm not arguing that bc doesn't take away some of the risk, but the risk hadn't stopped people for generations.
"What the hell do you know about my moral convictions? See it's folks like you with your holier than thou attitude that gives the other side cause to label conservatives busy body kooks who want to control what happens in grown folks bedrooms. "
As a conservative, I used to rail againtts that stereotype whenever it was thrown at me...
Lately I am finding it much harder to justifiably do that.
Oh well. I can stand up for my convitions, that's all.
Surely there have always been those who took risks and lived outside the norms. But nowhere near the numbers that we have today. You know why? Because we have no norms. We have given up teaching that sexuality is for marriage and instead have taught that birth control means you can have all the sex you can get without any responsibility.
There's a huge difference between people rebelling against the norms, pushing the limits and society having no norms whatsoever. How many children are born out of wedlock? 70 per cent among blacks, 30 among whites. How many single parent families?
What is acceptable today was fringe behavior in the past. Girls used to be ashamed to get pregnant, now they hurry to sign up for welfare. Boys would know that if they screwed up, they would have to marry the girl.
Now we have birth control and, when that fails, abortion. And look what it's brought us.
SD
I think all this debate is missing the political point. There are different beliefs on our side. If we eat each other up we will achieve nothing.
I guarantee we will get no further restrictions on abortion, and indeed, will push non-involved folks futher away from us, with attitudes like some posted here. I know you seriously disagree with bc pills. But the vast majority of people don't.
I'd rather see all of us who want restrictions on abortion work together where there is common ground, and I believe there is more common than is different.
I also hope we all don't forget the lives of the children after they are born. Please be active in your community, teach children to read, show young women that they have a future so they don't chose to bring children into the world before they are ready to raise them. Give the young men a future so they can become stable husbands and fathers. Give all our young people a future so drugs won't destroy their lives.
There are many ways we can witness for Christ. Pro-life is one. But we need to care for life at all its stages.
Birth control pills ARE abortions. You can't ignore this and have a respectable and morally consistent argument.
By the way, I am a social worker. I do assist people after they are born. But let me make it clear that because I oppose someone killing a child does not mean that I assume responsibility for that child. This is a common pro-abortion argument that because we don't agree with child murder, that we should be giving women that don't abort luxuries that none of us can afford ourselves. That's ridiculous.
Novocaine does not kill unborn children, but yes, I have actually had such work done before.
You pass judgements on who should be doing what job based on your convictions (or lack thereof) Pot- meet kettle!
Furthermore, I am the poster child for health reasons to use the pill and I found alternatives- so don't give me that "health" crap. The point of the pill is to make your healthy child-bearing body unhealthy so that you can't concieve or chemically abort those you do conceive. Sometimes the side effects help certain symptoms, but the purpose of the drug is quite unhealthy.
I think I know a little bit more about this than you do.
Every drug on the market kills people. Even Aspirin kills a few people every year.
The sale of every drug involves a cost-benefit analysis: How many people are harmed by the drug versus how many are helped.
It's amazing how quick some religious folks turn to Taliban tactics and attack you in the most unholy fashion questioning your moral convictions when you disagree with their ordained positions.
Do you not understand the difference between a direct and tertiary boycott?
There is a distinct difference between not buying the immoral item and boycotting everyone associated with that item. One is possible, the other is not.
Your analogy is ridiculous, not my position.
Looks like the special at Terri's restaurant today is fried dove of peace with a side of sauteed anger.
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