# Pharmacists and refusals **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 8, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713 "2011-04-08T20:18:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/441 "2011-04-13T21:55:59Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > A pharmacist needs to fill a legally written prescription. > > What happens with it is not their concern. So if a doctor performs abortions for women who will die if they carry a pregnancy to term. Should he also be forced to perform elective abortions? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/442 "2011-04-13T21:57:33Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And would you feel the same if he raped her because his religion demanded it? Because there’s no moral difference between what he is doing and rape; he is asserting that he, not she owns her body and has the right to use it as he desires. That is not what he is asserting at all. To conflate refusal to perform an abortion with rape is fucking weird. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/443 "2011-04-13T21:59:01Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > If she needs an emergency abortion to save her life then there should be no argument about it. Tell her the deal, let her make the decision and that is the end of it. The doctors should abide by her choice. The doctor’s religious beliefs have no place in that decision. We are not talking about something that is medically necessary. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/444 "2011-04-13T22:00:11Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > We’ve already identified what you mean by “absurd”:“Absurd hypothetical” evidently means “What the law actually says and explicitly allows, but I’d rather handwave away, if at all possible.” > “Fearmongering” evidently means: “The behaviors explicitly allowed by the law that I would prefer to claim are impossible.” > > Likewise, your numerous errors have been pointed out to you [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13679148&postcount=296) and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13683453&postcount=373) and [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13683955&postcount=387) (and IIRC a few other places as well). Feel free to correct your mistakes. > Or feel free to claim that what the law doesn’t say is really what it meant to say or does say if you have a secret decoder ring, and what the law does say is something that it really doesn’t mean to say, if you only are Free of Fear and Absurd Hypotheticals. > > I do admit, however, I really enjoyed your claims that if a patient’s request for a prescription to be filled is denied by a pharmacist, that it hasn’t actually been denied if another pharmacist accepts it. Although, not quite as much as I enjoyed your claim that while the law doesn’t define “care and treatment” and explicitly sets up a situation where the denied prescription doesn’t have to be part of that care and treatment, that the Free Online Dictionary will show what their conduct will be. > However, your claim that women aren’t the ones being discriminated against is not quite up to snuff. I mean, sure, it’s obviously false but is it comedic? Unfortunately I’m afraid it’s just moderately silly. You can bump it up a notch if you’d like to argue that men are also being refused their morning-after pills. Look. I’ve clearly stated the applicable law. Apparently, you’re the only one who isn’t accepting the fact that it does cover the patient in your worst case scenario. You wanted to nitpick over some imaginary wiggle room in the phrase “care and treatment.” I declined because the error in understanding was on your side, not mine. I’d rather let you build your argument on what I see as clearly an irrational fear. My claim is that women are not being discriminated against as you’re stating. I’ve yet to see a case of a 80 year old woman not receiving her blood pressure medication due to a CC law. Do you know of one? I asked you for a single example of harm in any way related to your absurd fears ands you’ve failed to provide one. I’m assuming that is because there are none. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/445 "2011-04-13T22:00:48Z")
> [@Morgenstern](#): > > Please show me where anyone is discriminating against women, or is this another example of you promoting absurd and irrational fears to make a point? Refusing to give women such drugs IS discrimination against them. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Right, so this hypothetical pharmacist (who must be the only pharmcist within miles if their regfusal to dispense a drug has that sort of dangerous effect) should close up shop and now the diabetic can’t get their insulin and the caner patient can’t get his anti cancer drugs, etc. Thats better in your opinion? :rolleyes: By that logic a pharmacist should be allowed to hold entire regions hostage. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > The same can be said of a 1 month baby. Nonsense, it has a far more complex and active brain. > [@Jackmannii](#): > > Slightly off topic, but in light of an earlier post I think we should consider an adjunct to Godwin’s Law. > > Call it **Der Trihs** ’ Law: the first person to bring up the Tuskeegee Experiment in an Internet discussion automatically loses the argument. Like Godwin’s Law, a foolish rule that lets people who are genuinely bigoted or murderous off the hook. Part of how we are supposed to pretend that the Right is nicer than it is by never mentioning what its ideals have led to in the past. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/446 "2011-04-13T22:02:41Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > Slightly off topic, but in light of an earlier post I think we should consider an adjunct to Godwin’s Law. > > Call it **Der Trihs** ’ Law: the first person to bring up the Tuskeegee Experiment in an Internet discussion automatically loses the argument. Personally, I’d support this only if it was paired with another Law that stated anybody confusing the Tuskegee syphilis study with the Tuskegee Airmen would permanently be banned from the internet. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/447 "2011-04-13T22:04:57Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > What do you think of this case? > > Imagine it was your wife or GF. Imagine it was a baby you wanted. Imagine the hospital you ran her to in a crisis told you they have a “conscientious objection” to terminating the pregnancy. There is no time to get to another hospital. Your wife/GF and baby die as a result of their refusal of service. > > Explain to me how that is ok and I’ll be swayed to your side. Medically necessary is different than elective. The Catholic Church is simply wrong on this. They only permit you to kill a fetus as a “side effect” of performing life saving procedures. But how do you do that when it is the preganncy that is killing the mother. ---
**Author:** ![doreen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/858c86/32.png) [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/448 "2011-04-13T22:06:55Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t understand why plan B is OTC while the pill is not. In other countries a month’s supply of the pill is less than $5, here its like $2/day or something. I suspect the pill is not OTC because most women who use it do so on a daily basis for years. And there’s no point to substituting multiple doses of plan B for a prescription since plan B is around $40 for two pills. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/449 "2011-04-13T22:12:24Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > I am not denying the reality. I am saying the legal reality is wrongheaded. > > Once upon a time we allowed slavery in this country. I would say with great conviction that it is wrong as well even if it was still legal. This is not a difficult concept. That’s funny, because this is the same argument that pro-lifers bring up about the legality of abortion generally. that one sday we will look back with shame that we allowed this to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/450 "2011-04-13T22:14:25Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Refusing to give women such drugs IS discrimination against them. You forgot your equally ridiculous “because they hate all women” qualifier. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/451 "2011-04-13T22:20:14Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I think a law that prohibited discrimination of dispensation of a drug you have in stock (abortion pill) based on race or sexual orientation would be bad. A law that required you to dispense the abortion pill is bad. I meant I think a law that prohibited discrimination of dispensation of a drug you have in stock (abortion pill) based on race or sexual orientation would be good. A law that required you to dispense the abortion pill is bad ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/452 "2011-04-13T22:21:50Z")
> [@Cumberdale](#): > > But the government doesn’t force people to become pharmacists. The person in question sought it out and put him/herself in that position. The pharmacist put themselves in that position and is the only one who deserves any blame. Yeah and the government doesn’t force priests to marry gay couples or doctors who perform medically necessary abortions to also perform elective abortions. Aren’t these things “their job” as well? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/453 "2011-04-13T22:23:11Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > That’s funny-all the cases I’ve heard of so far involved women being refused medicine. Do you have different examples on hand to show us that it isn’t about women and their needs? That’s funny-all the cases I’ve heard of so far involved pharmacists refusing to dispense drugs based on their conscience. Do you have different examples on hand to show us that it isn’t about pharmacist’s exercise of their conscience? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/454 "2011-04-13T22:26:51Z")
> [@crowmanyclouds](#): > > So, um if “the ability to refuse service is ALSO well-established in law” why do we need conscience clause laws? Because the laws codify, specifically and unequivocally, the rights of pharmacists. In Illinois, the governor tried to institute an administrative rule to force pharmacists to serve regardless of their conscience; the existence of a law to the contrary saved the situation. > [@](#): > > Why are they called conscience clause laws? Isn’t that just pharmacists using their half-baked claims about morality to get the result they want? I don’t agree with “half-baked.” But yes, they are called conscience clauses because they protect the pharmacists’ right to not violate their conscience, and I’m sure the title was chosen to remind people of that goal. > [@](#): > > Can they, and you, just switch nimbly back and forth between the law and your self-serving, amorphous and ill-defined concepts of “morality,” as pleases you? Of course not, because the two are not in conflict. Both the law and the concepts of morality compel the same result. I’m happy to focus on whichever you prefer. > [@](#): > > I won’t be holding my breath waiting for these or any of my other questions to get answered. ☹ That wasn’t a very good prediction, was it? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/455 "2011-04-13T22:27:23Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > The stakes aren’t equal. The woman is trying to maintain or preserve her health, her wellbeing and the full status of her life and her family. The pharmacist is trying to maintain some opaque moral standard without regard to the impact that doing so has on others. I don’t subscribe tot he theory that life (or at least “rights”) begins at conception but these pharmacists do. The stakes for them is knowing that they participated in the murder of a baby. The woman can go to the pharmacy down the street. > [@](#): > > Which conscience, conveniently, only comes into play when the act in question involves serving women with drugs that only women need. If men could get pregnant, it would come into play there as well. > [@](#): > > The racial purity of my lunchcounter isn’t about negros, it’s about my right to act according to my conscience as a lunchcounter owner! race is a protected class. Despite all of Der Trih’s assurances, refusal to provide abortion pills are not rooted in race, theya re rooted in the belief that the embryo is a human being. I guess it makes his argument a lot eaiser to simply state that noone actually believes this. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/456 "2011-04-13T22:28:43Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Because that is bigotry and malpractice. No its not. No matter how much you want to rpetend taht people cannot honestly believe that life begins at birth, they can and do. > [@](#): > > No, it is about the hatred of women, and about pharmacists who are sadistic bigots who lack a conscience. You’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/457 "2011-04-13T22:29:53Z")
> [@tumbleddown](#): > > The stakes aren’t equal. The woman is trying to maintain or preserve her health, her wellbeing and the full status of her life and her family. The pharmacist is trying to maintain some opaque moral standard without regard to the impact that doing so has on others. No. The woman is trying to avoid walking a few blocks. > [@](#): > > The racial purity of my lunchcounter isn’t about negros, it’s about my right to act according to my conscience as a lunchcounter owner! And that’s a very valid point. You DO have freedoms as the owner of a lunch counter. But the harm you do by racially segregating your lunchcounter is sufficient to overcome that important freedom. The harm in making someone go to another pharmacy is not enough to upset a pharmacist’s freedom. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/458 "2011-04-13T22:30:57Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, you can’t. Defining it that way goes against the standards we use everywhere else in our life. That’s what they believe. Not me. > [@](#): > > For most of my life. All my adulthood, certainly. You must live in Texas or something cuz thats not the case around here. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/459 "2011-04-13T22:31:51Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I think I’d like a second opinion. > **Bricker**? I have no idea what percentage of revenue Planned Parenthood derives from abortion. Why would you think I do? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713/460 "2011-04-13T22:32:03Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Health Center revenue is a [bit over a third](http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/Chart-shows-Planned-Parenthood-services-provided-and-sources-revenue/photo//110212/480/urn_publicid_ap_org77cbe7cd9de842889a4e52d0cc96e74f//s:/ap/20110213/ap_on_re_us/us_planned_parenthood) of their income. The health centers do a lot more than providing abortions so it cannot be said that abortions are a third of their revenue especially considering abortions only account for 3% of services provided. > > ETA: Ahh thanks. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-and-refusals/577713.md?page=24)