This thread is full of helpful suggestions, but as I did above with another poster’s, I will decline your invitation to further refine the rules of GD to your peculiar liking.
But when you’re a moderator or an administrator, and wish to revisit this discussion, I assure you I’ll be all ears.
The point of a debate is to debate. I realize that seems a bit tautological, but there it is. My beliefs are not relevant in any particular sense – indeed, if I wanted to share unsupported opinions, I personally would post in IMHO.
But you’re free, of course, to post wherever you wish, subject to the approval of the board’s administration.
You’re the one who posted a link and said see some voters and the court agree with me so this is true, I win!
I’m sorry but you are the one who needs to prove that the pharmacists freedoms outweigh the patients. You have not. So tell me why does the beliefs of a pharmacist deserve a higher postition just because it is allegedly based on a religious belief than a person who saw a medical doctory who prescribed a specific medication to help make them better?
I think you understand that people have been saying, over and over, that it outweighs a pharmacist’s feelings because medical decisions have to do with the health and well-being of patients. A pharmacists decision to delay or stop a patient from receiving prescribed medicine, however, does not impact the pharmacist’s health and the degree of mental well-being gained is miniscule compared to a patient who needs legally prescribed medicine.
No. Because there is no objective measure for this kind of question. What kind of form would this “proof” take? What source of authority do we both agree is supreme in these discussions?
There’s really only one, though you wriggle desperately to avoid recognizing it. We may debate frutilessly, and endlessly, on what should happen. But we have already agreed on a system to craft rules for the society when not all members may agree on what’s wisest: we elect leaders, and grant them the authority to weigh the competing freedoms and reach a solution. If we don’t like the sum of their decisions, we may remove them and install others.
THIS is the only objective measure. Others require me to accept your strange notion that some people are no better than slaves in their professions, required to serve without concern for their own beliefs, or you to accept my strange notion that there is a supernatural being that judges us and controls our world. I resist your weird basis for determining our rules and you resist weird basis for determining our rules. That’s not an argument that can ever be resolved.
Fortunately, we have already agreed on a way to craft the rules. And so my “prrof” is merely pointing at the rules, already crafted.
Sure, and if you can point out where I’ve defined or attempted to define the rules of GD, you’d have a point. For all I know dropping off an OP that you have no real interest in actually supporting is perfectly allowable. That doesn’t make it a good idea.
What you think about the case/precedent/principle that the case you are discussing is rather central to the debate over it. Otherwise, what’s the debate? What do you intend for the debate to be?
That might be a bit more compelling if it weren’t a false dilemma. A given pharmacist’s refusal does not prevent a patient from receiving prescribed medicine, though, so the real weighing is between the pharmacist’s conscience and the right of the patient not to travel four more blocks.
It might be a great idea, but since that’s not what happened here, it’s also a completely irrelevant observation. I have every interest in supporting this OP.
It’s not necessary to support it by discussing my personal feelings, though, any more than an OP declaring table salt to be sodium chloride would be improved by my revealing my feelings about salt.
And this is where I get confused by Illinois. I agree that under current interpretations of the religion clauses, a state may (in certain circumstances) choose to grant a religious based exemption to generally applicable laws. I personally think those interpretations are incorrect, but we’ve been around on that one before.
But where I think the Illinois Supreme Court is in error is to suggest (and I am basing this on your OP, so I might be completely wrong here) that the First Amendment required its ruling. Yes they can allow pharmacists this out clause, but I fail to see how the First Amendment in light of Smithrequires it.
It’s not the Illinois Supreme Court (yet). But FWIW, I agree with you that the court’s reasoning on the constitutional question was shaky. But their reasoning on the statutory claim was solid (indeed, how could it not be, since the plain text of the law clearly compels this result?) So the result is the same. If the Illinois Supremes take a crack at this, I’d like to see them come back and say, “Yes, but only because of the law; the constitution is silent on this point.”
[QUOTE=Bricker;13678305Fortunately, we have already agreed on a way to craft the rules. And so my “prrof” is merely pointing at the rules, already crafted.[/QUOTE]
Because the voters and court system have never approved or supported an unjust law.
It’s not a false dilemma. You have, explicitly, set up a situation where any pharmacist can refuse to complete a doctor’s prescription. Just as easily, then, every pharmacist in a city can (the likelihood is not at issue, we’re discussing the principle). As such, do you support that situation or not?
Or would you, as your response seems to suggest, only support the legal decision if it had some sort of caveat included that said “Pharmacists can refuse to dispense legally prescribed drugs, as long as there’s another pharmacist a few blocks away who they know will fill the prescription?”
It’s pretty clear that you understand that if any pharmacist can invoke the conscience clause, then every pharmacist can. And once you’ve accepted that, you have no control over whether or not they will. Your disagreement is also somewhat spurious since, obviously, not everybody lives in a major metropolitan center. Or has the time to drive a few extra hours to the next pharmacy. Or what have you.
Then please do so.
Is the legal decision that allows pharmacists to send away a woman to potentially bleed out from uterine bleeding, due to conscience, a good thing or a bad thing? To deny emergency contraception? How about any other legally prescribed medicine? Why or why not?
We all get the fact that a court found that was the correct interpretation of the law. We get it. We understand that’s what the legal decision was. That isn’t confusing anybody, at all.
The question then becomes should that be the legal decision? If the laws it was based on were interpreted correctly, should they be changed? This is a bit like a debate over women’s suffrage and someone pointing out “well, that’s not the law so they can’t vote.”
We all get that. The debate is normative not empirical.
Otherwise what, exactly, do you intend to debate?
Which is also why “Table salt is NaCl” would make a thread that was pretty similar to “This was the verdict”. Okay, that was the verdict… now what?
It’s like starting a thread: “People were discussing whether or not you should salt your eggs and whether or not a high-sodium diet really does always lead to hypertension. I just noticed that there’s a paper here that defines table salt as NaCl, not that my personal feelings on how it should be used are at all relevant here.”
It does. The first Pharmacology School I checked (U Maryland) has it in its first term (pdf).
Of course, if you get to define what morals and ethics are, then obviuosly not.
It is the proponent the one who has to prove. You say over and over and over and over and over again the whole “hatred of women”, “punish the sin”, and “kill the bitch” as the main reason for all (not some, not many, not the majority; all) pro-lifers and the only proof you’ve given (ever) is that only people who hate women could be against abortion therefore all (100%) the people who are agaisnt abortion do so because they hate women. I’m sure there is a latin phrase for that kind or reasoning.
You’re right, my bad calling you crazy; I’ll stick with “one-trick pony”. (or one trick-pony?).
True, if they find the law itself is constitutional.
I’d rather see them come back and say that such a law violates the establishment clause. I don’t see it happening, but I can dream. From a disinterested legal point of view, I’d kind of agree with you, because then at least the ruling would be correctly founded.
Follow the law.
However, even as a hypothetical it doesn’t work. It’s like all pork rind places being staffed by ultra-orthodox Jews or seven-foot bees. It’s too far away from reality.
How could they do business?
Even a hypothetuical has to be related to actual things.
Nothing I said had anything to do with whether or not anybody should follow the law, but whether it was a good, reasonable, fair situation to be in because of the law and as such whether they would support the law.
Surely you understand this?
Of course it does, because we’re discussing the principle inherent in the situation. If your response is “Well… that’s unlikely to happen.” then you’re pretty much conceding that the principle is, at the very least, flawed… but that those flaws would be less likely to have much effect due to real world conditions.
It’s not moral to torment and sacrifice women for your religion. If that’s what they are teaching then they are teaching bigotry, not morality.
Of course. They demonstrate that over and over by their behavior. By their relentless efforts to hurt women, by their opposition to things like contraception which actually would reduce abortions, and the fact that they use moral “principles” that are narrowly tailored for the purpose of oppressing women, so-called principles that aren’t applied for any other purpose. A cell is only a “human life” when that definition can be used to hurt a woman.
Everything they do is consistent with them being women haters. They condemn women to suffering and death, they show no concern for the fetus beyond using it as a club to beat women down, they have inconsistent principles tailored for oppressing women. You are basically doing the equivalent of insisting that the Ku Klux Klan doesn’t actually hate black people and it’s all an elaborate charade that just happens to look like they hate black people.
You appear to base your arguments on fear, and an underlying belief that state legislatures are motivated to pass Conscious Clause laws due to a hated for women. I don’t think anyone else here is buying that rhetoric. Have you read a single Conscious Clause Law? Are you aware of the exceptions to refusing to fill render 99% of your fears moot?
Sure, why not. Kind of like a “conscientious objector” status. If you want to file as a conscientious objector, you have to do it ahead of time and show justification, you don’t just get to say “oh yeah, no, I’m CO, not gonna go” when they draft you.
If you want to be a licensed pharmacist and refuse to fill prescriptions for certain people, then you have to state up front EXACTLY what prescriptions you will refuse to fill and/or persons for whom you will refuse prescriptions, and why. The state can keep a database and publish it. If the prescription/person isn’t on the list, then you are legally obligated to fill it. You are free to update your listings as needed, as new drugs come onto the market or you change your mind about what your “morals” require.
And you must post that information publicly and prominently in your pharmacy, along with information of an available pharmacy that will fill those prescriptions.
That way, everyone will know not to waste their time at your shop when they need those items. Also, people have the option of choosing not to patronize your store due to your CO status. That whole “free market” thing only works when information is available to customers, y’know.
I don’t see the connect here - unless you are assuming that what makes someone a bad person is only enacting objectively unjust laws. An unwise social policy can be the sign of a bad person, if the motivation behind it is a morally reprehensible one.
And on this issue (amongst others, but this is the one before us) many conservatives simply do think many liberals are bad people. The abortion debate is a very very bad one to try to use this (generally erroneous) quote for - unless of course you think it is commonplace to refer to people with bad ideas as child murderers. For me, child murderers are pretty much up there in the pantheon of bad people.