Pro-Life/Pro-Baby ping!
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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
No physician should be required to perform an abortion, and no pharmacist should be required to dispense abortificents. If enough refused on professional, ethical, and moral grounds, Roe v. Wade would largely be a dead letter even if SCOTUS never overturned it.
At a minimum, abortion--even if legal--should not be easy to get. There should be moral, ethical, and professional hurdles in the way.
Thanks for that link. From what is written there, it seems her refusal to sign the required letter is the reason she was terminated. In which case, Target seems to have taken appropriate action as an employer -- although they might also have allowed her not to sign it, is the issue apparently to the attorney, based upon her religious beliefs. I can understand her perspective but as to an employer, it appears they exercised a privilege of employer as to who they opted to employ, or, in this case, not to. Her religious beliefs, however...I dunno, not an attorney but I can see how there'd be at least cause to sue as to the nature of this drug. And her exercising her conscience in refusing to sign the letter. It's understandable but I don't know to what degree it is to also not fire her for that.
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There's more and more evidence that Plan B and Preven only work before ovulation, when they work at all. The research is strong and well documented. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any effect on the post-ovulatory uterine lining at all, unless there is a change in one chemical that increases the chance of implantation!
The best way to refute the simplistic and morally bankrupt assertions of libertarians is to demonstrate the untenable consequences of their ideals. The poster I replied to happened to use the same failed argument of a convicted and executed mass murderer.
Thanks for those links. Shocking, to say the least. I had no idea, and Target's behavior is insupportable, in my view, in that regard (language issues).
"" because it is against their religion to support the corporation that makes those drugs.""
Silly extrapolation. The distinction is very clear: do not infringe on the right not to be killed.
If her father was selling "murder machines," like Kevorkian's or electric chairs, then, well, perhaps people might want to rethink where they're working, is perhaps more attuned a response to your argument IN THIS PARTICULAR CASE.
It's not a case as simple as some one employee "refusing to sell the employer's products." If it WAS that simple, then, yes, the employer should certainly find employees who would and wanted to do so well and let loose those who didn't or who failed to meet the criteria of the specific jobs involved.
But this case is more complex than that.
Target also contributes to the RNC. More to the RNC than they do the DNC, at least, last election.
You confuse two different examples. I believe that the distribution of an abortifaciant which is intended for the deliberate killing of innocent human beings is material participation in murder. Whether or not hormonal contraception is a abortifaciant of a primary or secondary effect is debatable and so, therefore, the degree of culpable homicide in that instance is also debatable.
Ah, but it is.
My assertions are simple, but not simplistic,
Actually they are both, but more of the latter.
not morally bankrupt
It doesn't surprise me that you would disagree about this. Based on what you've written on this thread, I sincerely doubt that you are capable of making such an objective distinction.
The job is the job, don't like the job get another job, it's really not that tough to understands.
Adolf Eichmann used the same flawed argument at his trial, but unfortunately for him, his judges disagreed.
Different situation, pure 100% hyperbole BS on your part.
Same identical argument, pure 100% hypocrisy on your part.
Everytime you go for that comparison you prove yourself wrong.
Don't blame me. You were the one who made the same argument used by a convicted mass murderer.
But it does involve refusal to do the legal job assigned.
Only a relativistic libertine would confuse legality with morality.
I have no problem with her refusing to dispense the pill or help people get the pill form someone else.
Sure you don't.
Target has their policy, if she doesn't agree with it she should leave,
Target changed their policy. Whether she actually needs to leave or is deserving of compensation if she does has yet to be decided.
SORRY, my earlier mistakes. I missed that significant definition of this woman of issue -- that she is a PHARMACISTS ASSISTANT and NOT A PHARMACIST. That changes everything here and renders much of what I earlier wrote completely moot.
Sorry for the many comments that now do not apply. My fault of missing that key issue in my reading of the article (she's a pharmacist assistant and not a pharmacist, in which case she's not licensed, nor is she licensed to be doling out counsel, advice as to medications unless specifically asked to do so by a pharmacist, supervised as such). Sorry, again.
LET'S CLARIFY: Was this woman, this story, a PHARMACIST or a Pharmacist's Assistant?
The first is a licensed profession. The second is not. The presence of a license makes a huge difference in the actions taken or not taken, versus those by an unlicensed employee.
I'm suggesting this be clarified because many here are discussing this situation as if she is one or the other.
If an organization has a business license, they're not entirely "private" in the sense that I believe you consider them to be.
Look, I agree that a business can hire and fire as per their own operational needs, desires and even whims.
However, if/when they're in the United States physically, everyone else who they employ is, too -- generally, I mean, but the point is that the Constitution governs ultimately and a U.S. organization with U.S. licensing employing U.S. citizens is under consideration of what the Constitution identifies.
Not to mention, also, state constitutions, codes that identify individual rights and wrongs.
The only 'free enterprise' and "private enterprise" that I am aware of that is, literally, answerable to no one is criminal activity. The rest of are governed by laws. This is a situation where there are gray areas governed by laws.
Ultimately, yes, I agree that business is 'free' to hire and fire whoever they want to do what. But how they do all that isn't as "private" and modifiable as some suggest.
I agree with you. The modifications after hiring are questionable as to then firing someone refusing the later modifications.
As I wrote, previously, by becoming licensed, a business/organization/individual agrees to laws, requirements, conditions and more. The only type of "business" that is "private" is criminal, or it's unlicensed otherwise.
Private in the sense of public or private, but "private" not in the sense that there's no responsibility to observe existing (and future) laws and regulations governing business/commerce.
I disagree with your assertion that to recognize these laws and regulations disavows one as "conservative," while I do encourage limited government throughout our land. At this point, I believe our growing population makes that impossible to a certain extent -- without regulations to a certain degree, there'll be dealers on every corner of many cities/towns, "privately" doing what they do.
Certian restrictions are necessary, unfortunately. The best is to limit unnecessary government controls that stifle free enterprise, however, in that I agree. I bet most here do, also.
She lost her job because she refused to perform it. I do not support abortion, but if you are paid to do a job you do it. If you cannot in good conscience do it-quit.
Yes, agreed, which is the point I've tried to repeatedly make here.
However, later in the thread, reading through it, someone referred to her as "a pharmacist's assistant" and not a pharmacist. In which case, if she was mere assistant, she was/is not affected by license requirements as are pharamacists, as she would be if she was a (licensed) pharmacist.
It's an important distinction and I am still not sure what the fact is there.
No it isn't a foolish reply. If she wishes to be a pharmacist that refuses to dispense certain medications then she is free to open her own pharmacy. When she accepted employment with Target, she was agreeing to do a job. She refused to do the job.
You are always free to refuse to do what your employer asks. Then you must accept the consequences.
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