By the way, weren’t there lawsuits involved? Anybody know the details, and how they turned out?
See, I’m not convinced that the pharmacist acts unethically by simply refusing to fill a particular prescription. I am not convinced that the customer has a right to assume that a particular drug will necessarily be available at a particular pharmacy. A pharmacy may not carry a drug for a lot of reasons…not enough demand to keep it in stock, or they have run out, or whatever. Is this different from a moral decision not to sell it?
What constitutes getting in the way of access? Not stocking or not selling a drug that is easily available somewhere else? Where does this end? Not allowing pharmacy owners to make any business decisions regarding which drugs they keep and which they don’t? Could a pharmacy even reasonably keep every possible drug someone might be subscribed on hand (maybe so, I’m not sure)?
O.K., thanks for the clarification. So a Doctor of Pharmacy has to be on duty at all times and approve every prescription filled by every Pharmacy Technician?
In relation to the question of pharmacists: pharmacists aren’t just the toadies of doctors, they are a profession in their own right which often has a lot more expertise than doctors do about the particulars and safety of various drugs. As to the OP though, I think that sort of pushes more towards the idea that, like doctors, they shouldn’t be substituting their own judgments ahead of those of the patients. If they don’t feel like they can perform certain things for moral reasons, then they cannot be forced to, but they also can’t really have much complaint if they are let go or criticized for being in the way of those who would.
In the case of the OP, it seems particularly silly that pharmacy stocked the drug in question, but this particular pharmacist decided that he’d specially go out of his way to deny this woman, instead of simply handing the job over to someone who would actually help her instead of pretending that they were acting as part of their duty, when really they were declining to do their duty.
Of course.
Nearly got it. A registered pharmacist (R.Ph.) has to be on duty at all times and approve every prescription filled by every pharmacy technician. I am registered in my state, meaning that I got the degree approved at the time (it was a 5-year bachelor’s degree then, OK, I’m old)…got my 1500 intern hours, took the licensure exam, and passed, and submitted the required continuing education and paid fees at regular intervals to keep my pharmacy license current. So I’m a registered pharmacist. I’m not a Doctor of Pharmacy, though, because I don’t have that particular degree.
I may know next to nothing about just about anything else, but I’m pretty up-to-date on my own career requirements! 
Of course. A pharmacy not carrying a product that doesn’t sell, or a pharmacy running out of a product is an inventory/business matter; there’s nothing to judge morally there. It’s absolutely not the same as preventing people from buying on entirely moral grounds something that is voluntarily stocked and available for purchase. It’s the same difference between, “I can’t sell you any Hubba Bubba because we’re all out,” and “I can’t sell you any Hubba Bubba because you shouldn’t chew gum.”
Ethically speaking, a customer has the right to be sold a product as long as the product is legal, the shop has elected to sell it, and there are no objective reasons as to why it shouldn’t be sold to him. As outlined by the OP and in previous threads, the only reason pharmacists have refused to sell Plan B is because they had personal moral objections to the product. There was nothing remotely professional about their objections. They weren’t doing it to look out for their customers’ health; they were doing it because they personally felt using the product was morally wrong. They did it without regard to the patient’s legitimate needs or wants. I am having great difficulty seeing that as proper ethical behavior.
Like I said, we need to distinguish between the moral and practical reasons a product can’t be bought. If a pharmacy usually sells a product but it’s sold out, or if they have opted to not sell it, of course they shouldn’t be judged harshly.
If someone has suggested removing these decisions from pharmacy owners, or that pharmacies are expected to supply every need of every customer, I missed it.
I guess I don’t see the difference between all the various reasons a person might not sell Plan B. There seems to be a lot of focus on this thread about the fact that this one guy wouldn’t sell the drug, when it was in stock in the pharmacy. So a decision not to stock it altogether is OK, but a personal decision made by one person not to personally be involved in selling it is not? What if the pharmacy didn’t stock it for moral reasons? There is no difference to the customer what the reason is…they still have to go somewhere else. Someone in the other thread on this subject compared it to convenience stores selling cigarettes. I think people have a reasonable expectation that they will be able to get cigarettes at convenience stores. If I own this type of store, is it ethical of me to decide that I don’t want to stock them, because I have a moral objection to the product? I think so. If I do stock the product, and one of my employees doesn’t want to ring up that sale, is it ethical for him to refuse based on moral grounds? As long as he & I have an agreement that this is ok, I think so.
Clicked submit too fast…my last comment is that I guess I don’t see why we need to distinguish between the moral and practical reasons a product can’t be bought. The bottom line is, whose rights are paramount…customer who wants the product, or the business owner who decides if he is going to sell it or not? And if the business owner has the right not to sell something (which I think he does), does it make a difference what his reason is? (I think it doesn’t).
They shouldn’t be different- that’s my point. Acting ethically for the other professions doesn’t mean that they must perform every service allowed by their license- an ob/gyn doesn’t risk loss of license, fines or arrest because s/he doesn’t perform elective abortions. (if they did there wouldn’t be any place lacking abortion providers which didn’t also lack ob/gyns). If the doctor refused to write the Plan B prescription, would the doctor face a loss of license,fines or jail? I’ve never heard about that happening. A plastic surgeon doesn’t lose a license for only performing reconstructive surgery because of moral qualms about elective plastic surgery. A lawyer doesn’t face a loss of license or arrest for refusing to represent the KKK in civil suit or child abuser in a custody case. (criminal defense attorneys may sometimes have to do this, but most places have public defenders, contracted agencies or a voluntary panel to handle indigent defense).
I think it was sort of implied. Because the reason the pharmacy doesn’t stock Plan B may very well be that the owner has moral objections to it. A position that “The owner may refuse to stock it because of moral objections, but once it’s stocked, the owner may not accomodate an employee’s objections” doesn’t make sense. If the owner is the one with the objection, the customer can’t get Plan B at this pharmacy at all, causing at least as much inconvenience to the customer as having a different employee handle the sale, and still based on someone’s moral objection. It would be " I can’t sell you Hubba-Bubba because we don’t stock it ( and the reason we don’t stock it is because the owner thinks you shouldn’t chew gum) If the problem is that the pharmacist is imposing his or morality ( and I don’t think he is, unless a prescription is not returned and the customer then can;t have it filled by someone else ) , then it’s just as wrong for the owner to impose his or her morality. And the only way to avoid that is to either require that all pharmacies keep it in stock or to require justification as to why it isn’t stocked
Sarahfeena, I was in market research for four years, and we never allowed any employee to take a categorical position against working a particular job. If six jobs happened to come in that night, that employee might wind up on the job they didn’t want to do, and the fact that they got that assignment was an indication that there was no room for bargaining. They could go home, and take a no-call frequency, but there was no way that the entire schedule was going to get rewritten for them.
If a store calls itself a Pharmacy, then I as a consumer have a reasonable expectation that I can fill my prescription there. The pharmacy I go to takes deliveries three times a week, so even if the drug is not in stock, it should be soon. If the drug is in stock, then the pharmacist certainly has no business denying it to me. His job is to make sure that I get what was prescribed. For that matter, the pharmacist has no business interfering at all unless I “have questions for the pharmacist.” Even if my doctor has written two prescriptions that shouldn’t be taken together, I don’t need the pharmacist to do anything more than call the doctor and verify the prescription.
My husband and I have requested drugs that weren’t “stocked” by our pharmacy and they ordered them for us. It took a day and a half to get it, but the obliged us. The fact that you don’t get a lot of requests for a particular drug shouldn’t prevent you from getting it for someone. But I must say, a good pharmacy should understand the repercussions of not stocking Plan B so that it is available when needed.
What if you live in the boonies and not stocking it means it is unavailable for all practical purposes? Is it ok for someone whose job is to provide medication to send someone on a wild goose chase through the countryside?
OK, that’s fine…maybe we have different management styles, or the companies we worked for had different attitudes towards that kind of thing. We often had trouble hiring enough phone room staff, so that forced us to try to be flexible. Nowhere have I said that it is some kind of law or Management 101 mandate that people who run businesses have to accomodate these types of requests. My point is that it does happen, depending on the situation, and there’s nothing wrong with running a business that way if it is in the best interests of the business.
Yes, it is ok, IMO. I see no reason that the customer’s right to purchase a certain product trumps the pharmacist’s right to not sell it if he or she doesn’t want to. There are lots of places to get Plan B, and as I said before, with a little planning ahead for emergencies, you don’t have to worry about whether or not you have access to buying it at the last minute.
Sure I do. Worded differently, the customer does not have the right to demand that I meet a need of hers that I find objectionable. She can get it from someone else. I see it as analogous to a doctor who refuses to perform abortions. “I have the right to an abortion”–even if you hold this to be true–is not the same as, “YOU have to perform my abortion.”
That said, I also agree that an employer would have the right to fire an employee who refused to provide said service. But if the pharmacist in question owned the place–too bad, get your service somewhere else.
Just to clarify, I think this is true of anything on sale in the pharmacy. If the pharmacist refuses to sell certain opiates or items containing alcohol because his religion prohibits it, that’s up to him. I expect if he has enough of these restrictions, he’ll go out of business. But I don’t believe the law should demand that he MUST sell anything a customer wants.
And I don’t see any weight to the “what if he’s the only pharmacist in the region argument?” What if there were NO pharmacies? Your “right” to a certain treatment does not mean we have to legally force the creation of the supply. Not in my opinion.
But isn’t there some expectation inherent in an occupation? Can a cop say, “I’m not coming to the aid of someone because I don’t cotton to their religion” or somesuch?
The job is to dispense medication! If you can’t do that, you shouldn’t be in that line of work.
The difference is that the cop is a government employee, so no, he or she is not in the same position of choosing how he wants to do his job as someone who is privately employed.
If a pharmacist worked for a county hospital, my answer to this entire thread would be very different.
What if he’s a Security Guard at the mall and sees his pastor ripping off a pair of shoes at Footlocker?
Yes, a cop can. And the force could choose to fire him if they decided this was a problem.
Then how do you react to the doctor analogy I provided? Should he be required to provide an abortion–one medical procedure out of many–if he is qualified to do so?
Good reason to fire him, I’d say.