I’d bet many rural areas lacking a good selection of pharmacies also lack Planned Parenthood clinics. Making contraception hard to get & expensive certainly encourages that last minute scrambling.
*Once again, Mississippi keeps Texas off the bottom of the list in social services. Texas has 86 Planned Parenthoods! Of course, we’re a bigger state. But, although our urban areas are well-served, some isolated areas remain.
I’m not surprised. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some people took Planned Parenthood’s handing out Plan B as more evidence of them promoting abortion.
Actually, what I was thinking if I lived in a small town with one pharmacy, what I’d do is pick up Plan B next time I made a run into the city. Having grown up in a small town where everyone knew everyone, I could see doing that even if the local pharmacy did stock Plan B out of embarassment or desire to protect my reputation.
Well, if being a pharmacist requires a license, which it does, there is a constitutional leg to stand on to require certain things to be done. I’m a little confused as to whether this is a prescription only thing or not - which makes a difference obviously. But constitutionally speaking, I don’t think there would be any problem in requiring a pharmacist to fill all legitimate prescriptions, and to order the product prescribed if it is not in stock, on pain of cancellation of license.
You might oppose such a policy, but I don’t think you could successfully claim it violated the constitution.
It’s not morality (which is an internal force) that I have a hard-on with. It’s when someone else tries to make others live under their own moral code that I get pissed off. There is nothing illegal about the medication. There is nothing immoral about it (unless you consider condoms immoral, too). There’s nothing dangerous about it.
I’m not sure about that. As doreen pointed out, licensing doesn’t necessarily require a person to perform job tasks that he or she does not wish to do…as she said, doctors don’t have to perform abortions, and lawyers don’t have to take on cases that they have moral opposition to. At least, not doctors or lawyers who are in private practice…the purpose of the licensing is that the doctor or lawyer has shown themselves capable of working in that field, and that’s all. If I want to have an abortion, and my OB-Gyn doesn’t do them, I have to find another doctor…it’s not my doctor’s responsibility to do it.
It’s funny…in my car today I actually thought of a situation where moral objections do come into play in my particular field (market research). Every company I have worked for up until the current one (4 different companies) has had a cigarette manufacturer as a client. There were always employees at these companies who wouldn’t work on those accounts, due to moral objections. I don’t remember there ever being a time when a person did not get hired, or was fired, over not wanting to work on those accounts (this is everyone from an hourly phone worker, up to the VP level). The only time it would have been perceived to be a big issue is if the hiring was being done just for that specific account. Managing the phone room, I handled it pretty much the way that I said I would in the hypothetical pharmacy…you can work on all the other projects, but if it becomes an issue with scheduling shifts, then people who were more flexible would be scheduled first.
I’m mentioning this because it is an actual real-life example of an area where I personally had no moral objections, but had to accept the fact that a lot of people do, and respect that POV.
The danger is now you’re requiring someone to dispense a product that they feel will cause the termination of a life. They’ve now assisted in an abortion, whether they’re morally or religiously opposed. You are basically saying that they should be forced to comply to your wishes by lowering their moral standards. Is that fair?
If you wish to seek the services of such a person you may want to plan your life so that your needs don’t burden someone elses moral fortitude. IOW, either have safer sex or plan ahead by obtaining the product ahead of time. You also have 120 hours to use the ECP, you have some time to find a place that will give it to you.
A pharmacist not selling Plan B isn’t necessarily trying to get someone else to live under his or her moral code. There are a LOT of people who don’t oppose abortion from a legal standpoint, but who would never have one, never perform one, never be a party to one in any way. The pharmacist may merely not want to be a party to someone using Plan B. That has nothing to do with the customer’s morals, and everything to do with his own.
I think that is true, but beside the point. It isn’t what they do require you to do as part of holding a license, but what they can require you to do. A person has a constitutionally protected right to hold the same views as Matt Hale, but he was denied a license to practice law. He was held to be unfit to be a lawyer, on the basis (IIRC) that he could not equally administer his services to all. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the denial.
Once “religion” comes in, things get a lot trickier, because of what is, in my view, a misinterpretation of the religion clauses in the first amendment. But with your example of doctors, I don’t think it would be unconstitutional if a psychiatrist who refused to prescribe medication based on religious grounds was denied a license, on the basis that it was determined that prescribing medication was a part of being capable of working in that field. Similarly, a determination that performing abortions was part of being capable of working as an OB/GYN would probably past constitutional muster, IMHO.
(I do admit to a lack of knowledge on medical licensing here - are doctors licensed as specialists or as just doctors, with the employer hiring based on skill sets and willingness to perform particular roles… It is less plausible obviously to claim that willingness to perform an abortion, for example, would be a part of the job for a doctor in general as opposed to a specialist in the field. I also really really don’t want to sidetrack this into some kind of abortion argument.)
Lawyers take on morally objectional cases all the time; sometimes they’re forced by the court to defend the most reprehensible of people. I believe there is some sort of professional “punishment”, if you will, if they don’t defend them to the best of their ability (can someone chime in on that?).
But I have to ask…why would it make a difference what another person is doing? If you are morally against something, doesn’t your obligation end at not committing that act yourself? I don’t see how enabling someone else’s choice has anything to do with your own moral code on the matter. “You” aren’t doing it; the other guy is. I fail to see how facilitating someone else can break one’s own moral code. It crosses the line between personal morality and “buttinskiism.”
I think I addressed this in my last post. You are not compromising your own standard by enabling someone to fulfill their own standard. Your moral code doesn’t (can’t) extend beyond yourself. I expect people to behave as their personal code allows, within the law. Those obnoxious cabbies in Minnesota are a perfect example. No one’s asking them to compromise their morals. By personally being free of alcohol, they are fulfilling their own moral standard. Controlling someone else’s behavior (by virtue of being the party in the position of control) is infringing on my ability to fulfill my moral standards.
An analogy. Let’s pretend I’m against the death penalty and the electric chair has a loose connection. Let’s also pretend that I’m the electrician on shift when the next electrocution is scheduled. Should I be obligated or forced to fix the chair so that they can electrocute the prisoner?
If I repair the chair I’m not throwing the switch per say, but I am facillitating the means by which to proceed with something I’m very strongly against.
I think if it makes a difference, it makes a difference, and that is that person’s perogative. I have no idea why someone wouldn’t want to sell Plan B. I have read about it, and I think that there is a theoretical chance that it could cause failure to implant. It is probably enough to give me, personally, a reason not to use it. But it’s NOT enough for me to be particularly concerned if anyone else wants to use it. I guess some people feel differently about it than I do. My point is, I believe that is their right. If the pharmacist is not doing anything to impede the person from getting it somewhere else (such as confiscating the prescription, or whatever), then as far as I’m concerned, it’s the pharmacist’s business, and a matter between him and his employer.
And it goes back and forth. You have two parties jousting that are standing on their own moral pedestals. Who wins? It isn’t clear cut, that’s why you have to allow lee-way in the pharmacy-employee relationship or let the free market resolve this issue on it’s own. You cerainly can’t legislate this sort of thing and make it “criminal” for the phamacist if they don’t hand over the pills.
Pharmacy school is 4 years long, so is Medical School. The diffrence comes in during the undergrad work. Pre-Pharmacy is a 2 year program, while Pre-Med is 4 years. The Pre-Pharmacy program is heavy in the sciences and maths. Chemistry, Biology, Calculus, Organic Chemistry, etc. Its not an easy program.
A Pharmacy Technician can not dispense drugs. Only a licenced pharmacist is allowed to dispence medications. A Pharmacy Technicians job is to count the pills and put the label on the vial. They are the pharmacist’s assistant, nothing more.
Uncommon Sense was able to refute this one, and did a good job of it.
Downside is that the local Muslim society has issued a fatwa saying that anyone who transports alcohol is not acting in accord with the Islamic faith. So their morals may or may not be compromised, but they have guidance from religious leaders specifically saying that they are forbidden from transporting alcohol.
Now, I think that this is ridiculous, and just as with the pharmacist, I think it would be in their best interests to look into a different way of making a living, but the cabbies actually have a leader saying “schlepping booze is bad”. Whereas the pharmacist doesn’t.
Doctors do indeed have specialties. You cannot perform cardiac surgery unless you are certified in that field. Other surgical residents are required to assist in cardiac cases, but that doesn’t mean that they’ll get a license in it.
Sure that could happen, but what if it’s a million square foot facitlity and you do thousands of other tasks and this one never came up before?
Should your experience and value as a worker be shot out the window over this particular issue?