Try reading for context as well as content, eh? I was speaking specifically of the hypothetical owner of a small pharmacy in direct response to your assertion that if his store was the only one serving a small town or rural area that it would be immoral for him to choose not to stock and dispense the MAP. :rolleyes:
So you’ve repeatedly asserted. Some of us disagree. Care to repeat it one more time just in case someone is unclear of your opinion?
Look, I am not a doctor but it is my understanding that there is an important medical difference between an emergency contraception drug and an abortion drug. Based on your public profile, you are not a doctor either, so I can understand that you may think differently. It may be that you know something about this that I do not. If so, I am willing to read any reputable scientific cite that you wish to provide that will dispel this conception of mine. Otherwise, I will assume that you are engaging in inflammatory debating tactics and trying to equate the two in an effort to cloud the issue.
I assume, and again will be happy to be proven wrong, that this pharmacist chose to work in an establishment that carried emergency contraception drugs. I would further assume that in doing so, the notion that he would be required by his employer to sell this drug to people with a legitimate prescription must have entered his head. He made that choice, and should live with it.
On the other hand, I doubt very much that the woman with the prescription chose to be raped and be in a position that she would need this drug. The two situations are light-years apart, so yes; in this specific case I would say that the woman’s needs eclipse the pharmacists choice.
Moreover, there is the question of the unequal power dynamic in this situation. The pharmacist was in a position of power in that the customer depended on him to dispense this drug. He abused his power and attempted to impose his morality on her. It is all well and good to say that he should be free to choose to do so, but in the end it is still coercion and a reprehensible thing to do. I am not arguing that he should be fired just because he has moral objections to specific drugs. I am a pretty live and let live sort of guy, and do believe that he should be free to choose this path. However, if that is the case he should find an employer that shares this belief, or make some sort of arraignment to have this belief accommodated by his current employer. This should have been done before this situation came up. I do contend that he should be fired because he chose not to do this, and chose instead to be derelict in his duty and to abuse the power entrusted to him. In a way, the whole abortion thing is a red herring, as I would feel the same way about him if the drug in question was a painkiller.
You’ve actually just stated my exact position on abortion which is also why I firmly, committedly, and unabashedly pro-choice. I agree, actually, that the pharmacist was certainly acting morally within his rights when he refused to dispense the MAP, although refusing to do so on the grounds that it’s an abortifacient strikes me as factually weak. There are people who believe using birth control is immoral, although I would not recommend that they take jobs in pharmacies which dispense such medication.
Here’s where the pharmacist stepped over the line into blatantly immoral behaviour in my opinion as I understood the events (it’s been several days since I read the story). It’s when he called her “immoral.” To me, that was cruel, and that cruelty is only tangentially related to his stance on abortion. He could have quietly refused to dispense the MAP and referred her to another pharmacy, and I suspect this flap would not have resulted. Personally, I would have been disappointed, but not outraged. He didn’t choose to do that. Instead, he deliberately and self-righteously added to another human being’s pain.
It also bothers me that, within the time frame the MAP is to be administered, as far as I know, there is simply no way to know if a woman is pregnant, even if you define pregnant as “an egg having been fertilized by a sperm”. It’s been a bunch of years since my high school health class, but I could have sworn I heard it took a couple of days for the sperm to even make it to the egg. I’m reasonably sure it takes time for the egg to travel from the ovaries to the uterus, and there’s no guarantee that a fertilized egg will implant successfully in the uterus. Ectopic pregnancies could be defined as abortions if one defines abortion as removing a fertilized egg/fetus from a woman’s body, yet they’re seen as tragic not controversial. Depending on how regular this woman’s cycles were, she may even have had no idea if an egg was available to be fertilized. In short, the woman was accused of committing an immoral act which she may not, in fact, have been committing.
All of us have our hot buttons. For some, it’s abortion; for others, homosexuality; for me, it’s cruelty. I’ve never had to face the possibility that I’d need an abortion; I have known the effects of cruelty and felt its lash on my soul. I also know that there are times when there is no right choice, only less wrong ones. To me, this pharmacist put his pride and his righteousness above another human being’s suffering and, instead of alleviating the situation, he made it worse. That is what’s Pit worthy to me.
Respectfully,
CJ
As an ex-Wal-Mart Pharmacist, I wouldn’t be too concerned by WM’s statement of refusing to stock the MAP. When RU486 was being approved, they also said they woudn’t carry it, either. RU486 is not a drug that is designed to be dispensed at a retail pharmacy. I was the only one in my locale who called my higherups and told them that. Response - “[pharmacy division] didn’t make that statement , PR did. [pharmacy division] told them that RU486 wouldn’t be a retail drug when they asked us about it but they decided to say it anyway.” Conclusion - wait until/if it’s available OTC and see what they do then.
To those who would see the MAP pill available OTC, I would say that I’m against it. OTC drugs, IMNSHO, should carry greatly reduced risks. I don’t like the risk/reward tradeoff of having hormones available OTC. Hormones are extremely potent drugs and have vast potential for harm.
I had a real diatribe here about the law and my duties - but I decided to distill it to this - I know what the law is, it’s my job to know. I’m not going to let my license and my family’s livelihood be endangered. If I choose not to fill a script, and you had better believe I have that choice, I’ll give it back to you and tell you why I’m not going to fill it, right to your face, in no uncertain terms.
To those who don’t see me as a health care professional, you’re certainly entitled to your opinion. Without me backstopping and watchdogging the prescription process, there would be some very dead folks out there. I am needed now more than ever when the script pad is not always wielded by a doctor.
Colin Powell said - “Sometimes being responsible means pissing people off.” Doing right by you doesn’t always mean blindly following orders, no matter who gives them.
And sometimes being responsible and doing right by someone means doing stuff you don’t like. The pharmacist in question was NOT doing right by his patient.
They all three got canned.
Synopsis: He didn’t know the store policy existed. He prayed and called his pastor before he refused to fill the prescription. The other two apparently had nothing to say.
To my complete lakc of surprise, you miss the point. The customer is not making the pharmacist have an abortion, nor is she forcing the pharmacist to perform an abortion. He is only being required to do his job. In effect (usiung your logic), you are advocating theft, since you believe it is right for the pharmacist to be paid while shirking his duty.
UPDATE
According to CNN, the pharmacist has been fired for refusing to fill the prescription. And I found this bit amusing:
There’s a reason why Christians are called “sheep”; “baaa, tell me what to think, baaaa!”
Oh goody…gobear is back to his broad brush strokes. :rolleyes:
I’ll ask the same question I asked you awhile back…the one that you danced and danced around when it came to Christians and “gullibility”.
Are all Christians sheep?
Is Polycarp a sheep?
tomndebb?
Bricker?
Me?
Jodi?
(feel free to add other dopers to the list…)
So we’re clear here…I mean “Are All Christians sheep in the perjorative ‘baaa, tell me what to think, baaaa!’ sense.”
From the linked article:
Since the pharmacist was told this was the policy up front, it was dishonest for him to take the job if he had no intentioning abiding by his terms of employment. It’s great that he was fired and those other two bitches with him.
I can’t express how offensive I find it that some fucking pastor was making decisions about whether a rape victim should receive emergency contraception, a rape victim who he did not know and who had not solicited his opinion in any way. How arrogant and misogynist does a person have to be to think he has the right to that. What a fucking scumbag.
That is the vital piece of news that I was missing, and now I think that I can conclude that the whole "shouldn’t the pharmacist be free to choose to follow his own morality? "argument that has been bubbling around this thread is 100% moot. Looks like he went in to the job with the full knowledge that what he did was against policy, and chose to take the job anyway.
Did I say “each and every Christian without exception”? No, I didn’t, did I? So you can shove that broad brush right up your wise ass! So what if there are 5 pro-gay Christians here at the Dope? We’re not going to play Abraham and God haggling over the number of righteous men necessary to spare Sodom. Sure, there are some cool, intelligent, nonprejudiced Christians, but they’re vastly, immensely outnumbered by the terrified sheep currently agitating against my right to marry and demanding to rewrite the Constitution to make it conform more closely to the worldview of Bronze Age shepherds.
You want to know what most Christians think? Toddle down to Raptureready.com. Christianforums.com, or BaptistBoard.com and see exactly how accepting most Christians are of the modern world.
Ahh, cute.
There’s a reason why gays are called “promiscuous”
There’s a reason why Republicans are called “uncompassionate”
There’s a reason why democrats are called “bleeding heart idiots”
There’s a reason why atheists are called “humorless lunatics” (Hello Ms O’Hara!)
This is a fun game…since I don’t use the word “all” or “each and every”, I get an out…since I can surely find enough folks in each of those categories to paint the picture.
What fun!
The CNN.com article says that the pharmacist was not aware of this policy, but I’m finding that to be a little disingenuous. Just because you don’t know the manual chapter and verse doesn’t mean you can’t reference that manual if you have a question later. Most companies have one on the premises just for this reason.
Company policy aside, there is the issue of professional behavior. In consulting with his pastor, he stepped outside the boundaries of professionalism. You do not consult with an outside third party in deciding whether to fill a prescription. He had no concerns about the patient’s health or other medications. There was no reason for him not to fill that script except his own conscience and morals. His professionalism was sacrificed for the sake of those morals, and that is inexcusable.
Robin
Nope, I got the point. The only trouble is that the point is wrong.
The woman is, in fact, attempting to force the pharmacist into assisting her to obtain an abortion. He, feeling that abortion is immoral, refused. And lost his job.
That is, the choice offered is not at all free. You can choose to support abortion, in which case you suffer no adverse effect at all. Or you can choose not to, and get fired. This is a choice?
:rolleyes:
IOW, you are perfectly free to choose whether or not to engage in homosex (to choose an example dear to your heart). If you choose not to, no problem. You are perfectly free to choose to do so; if you do, you are fired.
Free choice, right? Leaving the personal, private decision entirely up to the individual, right?
:shrugs:
As I said, anti-choice is not confined to the anti-abortion side.
I don’t disagree with any of this.
Which is why I am firmly, commitedly, and unabashedly pro-choice.
Just pro-choice for those that disagree with me as well.
Regards,
Shodan
beagledave, not to stir the pot here but I do have a question for you. While I think that it is obvious that all Christians are not one way or another (they are, after all humans with all of the differences that this implies), I wonder if you would consider the following statement debatable:
Resolved: when you look at the interaction of Christianity as a group upon progressive social issues (for example Gay rights, Women’s rights, advancement of scientific research for its own sake to name a few), the overall trend seems to be one of attempting to block, if not turn back advances made in these areas for the groups involved.
Again, this is not to say that as an individual Christian that someone can not be socially progressive and an all around swell guy, but that when you look at the trend of what many, many self-proclaimed Christian individuals and groups are doing that the picture is much more dark.
Holy Christ. Please tell me you didn’t just suggest that the yahoos on those boards are your definition of “most Christians”.
[QUOTE=beagledave]
Ahh, cute.
A lot are, I’ve always said so.
Because they are–aren;t you paying attention to Bush slashing social programs?
Some are.
Some are, but by and large, that’s unfounded. It’ds your lot who lack humor. Look at the fuss they made over a bare boob at the Super Bowl.
The trouble with you is that you don’t have the honesty to admit what American Christianity has become. Sure, there are some nice Christians, but primarily it’s nothing more than a reactionary lobbying group. Christians, by and large, are far more concerned with hating gay people and keeping science out of schools than they are with clothing the poor and feeding the hungry. In fact, given how many Christians are allied with the GOP, Jesus’ injunctions to charity don’t really fit in with their agenda.
Do you honestly, genuinely not know who is lobbying against gay rights in this country? Do you not know who attempts to ban science books in schools? Do you not know who opposes every sign of social progress in this country?
Hint: It’s not atheists.
When your co-religionists stop shouting “God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” and stop trying to foist “creation science” onto innocent students, and generally stop trying to turn this country into a theocracy, then I might calm down. Right now, I’m angry.
Wrong. The MAP does not cause an abortion. It is a contraceptive, it prevents conception. It has no effect after pregancy has begun. The “abortion pill” canard is really getting old. It’s a red herring. It’s bullshit.
Emergency contraception != Abortion
or do you have some secret information that the rest of us don’t, and if so (as we are, after all, here to fight ignorance) won’t you be so kind as to share these no-doubt reputable scientific cites with the rest of us.
Thanks ever so much in advance.