That’s another possible objection, clairobscur, and one I hadn’t really thought about. But my post was aimed more at Antigen’s response to the snippet he quoted. The quoted pharmacist was talking about stopping a human life, and is the president of Pharmacists for Life International. In my experience, any time someone talks about stopping a human life and is part of an organization with “for Life” in the name, they’re talking about abortion.
Besides, it seems like someone with such a moral objection to artificial birth control that they won’t dispense the pill wouldn’t be willing to work in a place that sells condoms, either. I can’t think of any pharmacies that don’t carry condoms, at least not off the top of my head.
Bricker, the pharmacist is certainly free not to fill the prescription. I’m perfectly free to tell my boss that I’m not cleaning cages or reading fecals, because I object to dog poop. I’m no slave, after all. Of course, my boss is then free to fire me for refusing to do the job I agreed to do when they hired me. That’s pretty much how I see this situation. The pharmacy hired this person to fill valid prescriptions for legal medications, barring medical (not ideological, medical) contraindications. He refused to do the job he hired in for, which ought to make him fair game for disciplinary action or outright firing.
:rolleyes: They’re not his pills. Your first two examples, the artist and the painter, they are both selling nothing more and nothing less than their own services. The pills belong to the company, and the company has chosen to sell these pills, and he is merely an employee.
The accountant, if he is a private accountant, can turn down to do my taxes. But if he is employed by a firm, then the firm is dispensing services. And it is the firm’s choice, not his.
And since we’re in the Pit: Fuck all men, first of all, who think they can dictate a woman’s choice even though they can’t have akid and can never be in the position that women are. Never, never. And for women: it’s your personal choice. You choose not to have an abortion, and never to take birth control pills, and I choose to do so.
If the pharmacist is the owner/manager, he can just tell you that the pharmacy does not stock that drug and that you will have to go elsewhere. This happens all the time for a variety of reasons. Nobody can force the pharmacy to stock drugs that they do not want to carry.
If the pharmacist is also the owner of the business, then what you’ve said is true. But when the pharmacist is merely an employee of the pharmacy, he is not the same as the artist, painter or accountant you mention. It is the pharmacy owner who gets to decide whether or not the pharmacy sells birth control pills, not the employees. If the pharmacy owner has decided that his business will sell birth control pills and the pharmacist is turning away that business, the owner should have the right to fire the pharmacist. Any law that takes that says otherwise effectively takes control of a very important aspect of his business away from the owner, and IMO that’s wrong.
Unfortunately, there is not one shred of case law supporting this position. Is there?
Oh, absolutely. The pharmacist that won’t sell what his boss tells him to sell has no expectation of holding on to his job. If his boss is in favor of selling the pills, then he’s quite legitimately out on his ear.
Sure. Not to recap my response CrazyCatLady, but I agree completely with this. Just as the painter who works for a house painting company must either swallow his ire at painting my house and do it, or look for another job, so too must the pharmacist do it. My objection was at the idea that, by law or regulation, the pharmacist is obligated in some way – like the views below.
Oh, it’s not FAIR?
Well, I’d argue it’s not fair to force someone to act against his moral beliefs in this way, and that the harm done to him outweighs the harm done to her. And since the law is on my side of this debate (at least in this country), I’m happy that your view does not describe anything except your desire of how the world should be, not anything of practical significance.
Well, I am against murdering women on the street, even though that would never happen to me and I would thus never be in the position that those murdered women are. Never, never. Nor do I believe it’s a murderer’s personal choice to do whatever he wishes with his own body, if those wishes include going up to women on the street and bashing thier heads in. His right to do things he wants with his body end where they begin to injure other people. Protecting people from murder is a proper role of the law.
And, of course, unborn babies are people.
So, fuckity-fuckity-fuck fuck double fuck on you. How’s that for a cogent argument?
Meh. I’d rather be right and just than on the side of the law.
Babbling about “harm done” is retarded if you’re talking about the possibility of bringing a 100% unwanted child into a world rife with abuse, neglect and crap foster parents.
This, I’m afraid, is where the law is not on your side.
Bricker,
I suspect that you and I would disagree about many things but I am always impressed with your ability to put your point across, and the above posts do nothing to change that opinion. I would like to ask a personal question, if I may. Do you support the pharmacist’s right to refuse to fill the prescription simply because anyone has the right to refuse to do a particular piece of work, or because this case involved birth control pills?
Small flaw here: A more equivalent situation is if you provided a painter with the paint to paint your house and he stole it. Or if you gave an artist a picture to paint from and he stole it. They don’t have to do the job but that doesn’t mean its OK to steal from you.
I wonder how people would react if he refused to fill a prescription because he knew the patient had AIDS and he’s against immoral behavior.
Or if he refused to fill someone’s diet pill prescription because he believes they should get off their ass and exercise.
Or if he refused to fill someone’s anxiety medicine because he believes its all in your head.
His refusal is predicated by his belief, however misdirected or disliked, that using oral contraceptives is a violation of penal statutes (murder) not a moral transgression. i.e…The pharmacist denies the prescription on his belief that contraception is murder, not immoral because the constituents may not be married (In many, many cases they are married). So, by this thinking, however skewed, it is ok to give Viagra but not ON 7/7/7, becasue Viagra does not commit “murder”; ON 7/7/7 does. There would be no logical double standard based on the pharmacists philosophy.
The case of the OP is just some bozo taking his personal policy too far.
It is if you think it is. Most of the pharmacists who refuse to fill oral contraceptive prescriptions think it is. Thusly, to them, it is. Fortunately, no one person speaks on behalf of everyone else.
Hormonal birth control pills are metered to prevent conception, not to terminate an implanted fetus. It can happen; the chances are infitesimally small.
So in Brickerworld, any poor woman who needs birth control pills for medical reasons, but lives in a town where the only pharmacy is Catholic fanatic-owned can just curl up and die.
A pharmacist will fill the perscriptions for a ton of stuff that either causes birth defects or miscarriage. Generally, unless these are required to maintain the life of the mother, they are discountinued as soon as pregnancy is planned. But there are a lot of cases where pregnancy isn’t planned and the medication is hopefully stopped before damage or miscarriage occurs - but often not.
A pharmacist who has an issue with this may be in the wrong line of work.
(My favorite ad “pregnant women or women who suspect they may be pregnant should not touch Propecia.” …but bald guys should ingest this crap to grow hair?!).
