Pharmacists and refusals

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Der_Trihs

Because that is bigotry and malpractice.

No, it is about the hatred of women, and about pharmacists who are sadistic bigots who lack a conscience.

The pony, ladies and gentlemen. It has one trick.

@Der_Trihs

No, because the only reason outside of some all-male enclave they wouldn’t carry such drugs is bigotry.

The pony, ladies and gentlemen. It has one trick.

@Der_Trihs

Refusing to give women such drugs IS discrimination against them.

The pony, ladies and gentlemen. It has one trick. I now it’s getting boring

:rolleyes: By that logic a pharmacist should be allowed to hold entire regions hostage.

(It works better with Don Lafontaine’s voice)
“One pharmacist, one region, millions of people can only buy there and HE will deny them access to certain pills. The people will decide to break the shackles and deny themselves all access to all pills. Nobody else can perform the difficult task of opening a pharmacy”
Rated PG-14.6

Nonsense, it has a far more complex and active brain.

Yeah, and he can give fully informed consent.

[Bricker]

@Whack-a-Mole

Health Center revenue is a bit over a third 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:

In fact, abortion services make up less than 15 percent of Planned Parenthood’s annual revenue.

SOURCE: http://mediamatters.org/research/201102180003

There you go. Less than 15%.

[Der_Trihs]

@Aji_de_Gallina

The pony, ladies and gentlemen. It has one trick.

@Aji_de_Gallina

The pony, ladies and gentlemen. It has one trick.

@Aji_de_Gallina

The pony, ladies and gentlemen. It has one trick. I now it’s getting boring

No, that would be you. It’s your method of avoiding actually having to address what is said.

[Carmady]

Just to try and get a little common ground here:

Can we all agree that the law should be changed so that it is illegal to refuse to fill a legitimate prescription for “Methergine, a medicine used to prevent or control bleeding of the uterus following childbirth or an abortion”?

It is not sufficient to say “oh well, they can probably get it somewhere else” when every pharmacist has the right to refuse, and when it is possible that time could be a factor.

While I would still disagree strongly, if you are going to allow pharmacists to refuse prescriptions, at the very least you need to put some strict limits on that ability.

First, list exactly the types of prescriptions they are allowed to refuse. Presumably contraceptives and abortion pills.

Second, make a law that they are not allowed to refuse based on WHO wants the medication, but only on what it is. There should be no right to ask “has the patient ever had an abortion?” and then deny them whatever it was they were asking for.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@Der_Trihs

No, that would be you. It’s your method of avoiding actually having to address what is said.

Now, don’t tell me…you actually said something???
I mean something valuable in the terms of a debate thread and not your deeply-held, unscientific and irrational position.
These adjectives, by the way are ones you normally would use to describe religion.

[VarlosZ]

@Der_Trihs

No, it is about the hatred of women, and about pharmacists who are sadistic bigots who lack a conscience.

Point of clarification: is it your position that the above is mostly a subconscious motivation? That the anti-abortion folks think they care about the fetus and that abortion is murder, but in fact those are just artificial constructs driven by an unrecognized hatred of women? Or, OTOH, are you saying that they know it’s bullshit when they talk about the sanctity of life, and that they’re consciously trying to fool people by putting a socially acceptable mask on the pleasure they take in punishing women?

[Czarcasm]

@Bricker

There you go. Less than 15%.

And that’s why I asked you-when it comes to cold figures you usually don’t guess.

[doreen]

@Carmady

Just to try and get a little common ground here:

Can we all agree that the law should be changed so that it is illegal to refuse to fill a legitimate prescription for “Methergine, a medicine used to prevent or control bleeding of the uterus following childbirth or an abortion”?

It is not sufficient to say “oh well, they can probably get it somewhere else” when every pharmacist has the right to refuse, and when it is possible that time could be a factor.

While I would still disagree strongly, if you are going to allow pharmacists to refuse prescriptions, at the very least you need to put some strict limits on that ability.

First, list exactly the types of prescriptions they are allowed to refuse. Presumably contraceptives and abortion pills.

Second, make a law that they are not allowed to refuse based on WHO wants the medication, but only on what it is. There should be no right to ask “has the patient ever had an abortion?” and then deny them whatever it was they were asking for.

The law absolutely shouldn’t permit them to refuse based on who wants the medication or why. There is no medical reason why a pharmacist needs to know if that methergine was prescribed after an abortion or after childbirth. There *might *be a reason to ask a general question such as "This drug is normally prescribed after an abortion, miscarriage or childbirth. Is one of those the reason for the prescription? " but nothing more specific than that.
The law should also require that the pharmacist document which drugs he or she has an objection to and that a pharmacist/owner not stock any of the drugs that he or she objects to. You have an objection to methergine- fine. Don’t stock it. And that means you have to go to a competitor when you or your wife need it after giving birth. And finally, the law should require that a non-owner pharmacist comply with the owner’s policy. If Walgreen’s want to fire a pharmacist who refuses to sell plan B, they should have every right to. Religious scruples are religious scruples, and if Mc Donald’s doesn’t need to accommodate the conscience of someone who doesn’t want to to sell caffeine for religious reasons, I don’t see why Walgreen’s should be treated differently.

[Aji_de_Gallina]

@doreen

The law absolutely shouldn’t permit them to refuse based on who wants the medication or why. There is no medical reason why a pharmacist needs to know if that methergine was prescribed after an abortion or after childbirth. There *might *be a reason to ask a general question such as "This drug is normally prescribed after an abortion, miscarriage or childbirth. Is one of those the reason for the prescription? " but nothing more specific than that.
The law should also require that the pharmacist document which drugs he or she has an objection to and that a pharmacist/owner not stock any of the drugs that he or she objects to. You have an objection to methergine- fine. Don’t stock it. And that means you have to go to a competitor when you or your wife need it after giving birth. And finally, the law should require that a non-owner pharmacist comply with the owner’s policy. If Walgreen’s want to fire a pharmacist who refuses to sell plan B, they should have every right to. Religious scruples are religious scruples, and if Mc Donald’s doesn’t need to accommodate the conscience of someone who doesn’t want to to sell caffeine for religious reasons, I don’t see why Walgreen’s should be treated differently.

I agree.
I’m sure there’s some fine print we might wrangle about, but, yeah, I agree.

[crowmanyclouds]

@doreen

The law absolutely shouldn’t permit them to refuse based on who wants the medication or why. There is no medical reason why a pharmacist needs to know if that methergine was prescribed after an abortion or after childbirth. There *might *be a reason to ask a general question such as "This drug is normally prescribed after an abortion, miscarriage or childbirth. Is one of those the reason for the prescription? " but nothing more specific than that.
The law should also require that the pharmacist document which drugs he or she has an objection to and that a pharmacist/owner not stock any of the drugs that he or she objects to. You have an objection to methergine- fine. Don’t stock it. And that means you have to go to a competitor when you or your wife need it after giving birth. And finally, the law should require that a non-owner pharmacist comply with the owner’s policy. If Walgreen’s want to fire a pharmacist who refuses to sell plan B, they should have every right to. Religious scruples are religious scruples, and if Mc Donald’s doesn’t need to accommodate the conscience of someone who doesn’t want to to sell caffeine for religious reasons, I don’t see why Walgreen’s should be treated differently.

@Aji_de_Gallina

I agree.
I’m sure there’s some fine print we might wrangle about, but, yeah, I agree.

So you no longer believe the following?
Or what exactly, 'cause I’m feeling terribly confused.

@Aji_de_Gallina

… Reality is that the Planned Parenthood Nurse (not the patient) went to the pharmacy to request a medication commonly used in abortions to stop or prevent bleeding (which wasn’t happening).
If you have a moral objection to abortion and the law allows you excercise it and a nurse from a known abortion provider asks for a drug directly used in abortions (among other things) it is exactly the kind of situations that the consicence clause is for.

CMC fnord!

[Cumberdale]

@Damuri_Ajashi

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?

Ummm no. You really have no clue, do you? Religion does not fall under governmental oversight and they are under no requirement to perform marriage ceremonies on anyone they don’t want to or recognize. And we are not talking about abortions, we are talking about medication legally prescribed by a physician.

[Cumberdale]

@Bricker

But the issue of how far away another pharmacy is is key to answering that question.

Why? Because the patients’ needs can be easily met at another pharmacy. By framing the question this way, to invite the reader to conclude that by honoring the pharmacist’s beliefs, we refuse the patients’ needs. But that’s not true; the patient can go down the street. If it were truly a case of the patients having needs that are not met, then perhaps the calculus would be different.

It shouldn’t matter if the patient can get the prescription filled elsewhere. Why should the patient carry the burden in what could be a very stressful time for him or her. If I am ill and need a certain drug and go into my closest pharmacy, I’d be pissed if they told me to go to the one two miles down the road. If I wanted to go to that one, I would have gone there in the first place. For me it’s the pharmacist who needs to make the concession. Either fill it reluctantly or find another job.

In my opinion, which is really not relevant, I would not protect the right of the pharmacist to keep his job. The pharmacy owner should be able to say, “If you want to work in my pharmacy, you must fill all prescriptions; that’s the job. Don’t like it? There’s the door.”

And in my opinion a pharmacist not willing to do the job needs to do something else.

So in my irrelevant opinion, the law goes too far.

But to take your examples: the vegan should be able to open his own store and not sell meat in it. The Muslim worker should be able to open his own restaurant and not sell alcohol. And the pharmacist should be able to open his own pharmacy and not sell whatever medicines he wishes to avoid.

In an ideal world this would work, but in the real one, most of the people on the front lines do not have the ability or interest in opening their own shop so they can avoid tough situations. For these people they either need to conform to the practices of where they work or again, go elsewhere.

And I’ll add, dispensing medication ranks a good deal higher than keeping a beer display fully stocked and because of that the pharmacist should be held to a higher standard.

[tumbleddown]

@Damuri_Ajashi

I thought this whole debate was about teh abortion pill.

Okay stop. You’ve now used this phrase repeatedly in this thread, muddying the waters unacceptably.

There is no such thing as an “abortion pill.”

There are pills, plural, that one can take, which medically induce an abortion. (Commonly known as RU-486 but sold under the name Mifeprex.) Those drugs are NOT prescribed to be filled at a local pharmacy and taken at home. Those pills are distributed only within medical facilities, taken at the facilities. No retail pharmacist in the U.S. ever has any interaction with a patient using Mifeprex.

The drugs in question with regard to these conscience clause laws are contraceptives. They prevent pregnancy, not cause abortion. Even Plan B, the so called “morning after” pill does not cause an abortion. If you’re already pregnant when you take Plan B, it doesn’t do anything.

We keep phrasing this as being about pharmacists who are opposed to abortion, which is true. But it’s more than that. They are opposed to hormonal contraceptives. It could be because they agree with the teachings of the Catholic church on the topic, it could be because they believe the false contention that hormonal contraceptives are abortifacients, it could be because they believe the false contention that hormonal contraceptives cause cancer. The whys and wherefores are irrelevant, really, because it’s not their abortion views that underlie a refusal to provide drugs that prevent unwanted pregnancy and therefore allow women to AVOID having abortions.

@Bricker

No. The woman is trying to avoid walking a few blocks.

How many times are you going to repeat this lie? There is no walking a few blocks where I live in Pittsburgh, which is a fairly sizable city. There is definitely no “walking a few blocks” for a woman in Emporium, PA. Or Daniels, WV, where I spend time every year. Or Stanley, ID.

And you know what, so what if a woman IS trying to avoid walking a few blocks? If I walk to a pharmacy, in pain from the two chronic gynecological conditions I have (not to mention my arthritis) to get the medication that enables me to walk at all, rather than being bedridden two weeks out of every month, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be able to get that medication, or should have to go somewhere else because someone’s decided that their morality is more important than my ability to function. I shouldn’t have to expend extra energy which I may not really have to spare to run around trying to find a pharmacist who understands that working retail involves handling some of the most common drugs purchased by retail pharmacy customers.

When my partner walks to a pharmacy to get the medication that she has to take within the same 30-minute or so window every day or she loses the day to a crippling migraine, there’s no reason why she shouldn’t be able to get that medication, or should have to walk two more blocks and wait in another line and wait for another “yes or no” on getting her medical all during her 45 minute lunch break, and possibly have to go back after work and so on and so on.

There are millions of women who rely upon hormonal contraceptives at any given time. There is no excuse for holding our health or our TIME hostage to the unknown and unpredictable whim of who’s behind the pharmacy counter when we drop off or call in our scripts.

If being a retail pharmacist entails something so desperately repugnant to people then there are a plethora of other jobs within the pharmaceutical family that someone with a PharmD could do without having to compromise their morals OR patient care. Why are women the ones who are supposed to just suck it up and deal and be inconvenienced (at best) or have our wellness jeopardized? Why aren’t pharmacists told to suck it and deal or go elsewhere? The power in this dynamic is skewed. Women cannot get their needed medications anywhere but a pharmacy, but a pharmacist can work in a number of locations other than the local CVS, Walgreens or John Smith’s House O"Meds.

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.

And here’s the crux. You don’t believe that discriminating against women by refusing to serve our medical needs is harmful at all, let alone important.

I invite you to have several days each month of uncontrollable internal bleeding from painful lesions spread like buckshot and intertwining around your abdominal organs and two more weeks of wrenching pain from the growth and swelling of those lesions then you can decide if it’s “important” for me to be able to rely upon being able to get the medication I need to control that without being given a runaround because of someone else’s problem.

[phantom_lamb]

So it’s basically either the philosophy of “Client should just find another pharmacy” or “Pharmacist should just find another job”.

I see it infinitely more reasonable to expect someone to do their damn job instead of expecting a client to endure inconvenience or health consequences because the pharmacist is so devoted to the sky fairy.

I could just as well become a priest but refuse to give sermons and all that other “religiousy stuff” cause I’m an athiest and it just doesn’t feel right, you know.

[Morgenstern]

@phantom_lamb

So it’s basically either the philosophy of “Client should just find another pharmacy” or “Pharmacist should just find another job”.

Finding another pharmacy is really not that hard. Many pharmacies even use the US mail to deliver, so the extent of the inconvenience is what, another phone call? Are we going to label this “denying” too?

@phantom_lamb

I see it infinitely more reasonable to expect someone to do their damn job instead of expecting a client to endure inconvenience or health consequences because the pharmacist is so devoted to the sky fairy.

You’re entitled to your view of morality, but a pharmacist isn’t?

@phantom_lamb

I could just as well become a priest but refuse to give sermons and all that other “religiousy stuff” cause I’m an athiest and it just doesn’t feel right, you know.

That’s not that the first time someone has raised a similar argument. Show me a pharmacist who ever refused to dispense ALL medications due to a CC law. We’ve been there, done that, and left that point bleeding beside the road while we look for a non-CC health care provide to breath some life into it.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@tumbleddown

The drugs in question with regard to these conscience clause laws are contraceptives. They prevent pregnancy, not cause abortion. Even Plan B, the so called “morning after” pill does not cause an abortion. If you’re already pregnant when you take Plan B, it doesn’t do anything.

I am pretty sure hormonal contraceptives work via a few mechanisms. They make fertilization less likely but do not absolutely prevent it.

If fertilization occurs hormonal contraceptives inhibit implantation.

As such some religious types object to hormonal contraceptives since it is possible (although no one would know in any given case) for a fertilized egg to be expelled which they view as a defacto abortion.

[Whack-a-Mole]

@Morgenstern

Finding another pharmacy is really not that hard.

Finding another place to have lunch because you were denied a seat in one place for being black is really not that hard.

[Bricker]

@Whack-a-Mole

Finding another place to have lunch because you were denied a seat in one place for being black is really not that hard.

Irrelevant, because those two things are not comparable.

No one, apart from you and your ilk, claims they are. As a matter of law, they’re not. Claiming they are in an unsupported, gratuitous assertion, and thus in debate it may be equally gratuitously denied.

[phantom_lamb]

@Morgenstern

Finding another pharmacy is really not that hard. Many pharmacies even use the US mail to deliver, so the extent of the inconvenience is what, another phone call? Are we going to label this “denying” too?

I’d rather call it what it is and yes, if someone who’s supposed to provide me with something tells me they won’t, that’s pretty much what “denying” is.

You’re entitled to your view of morality, but a pharmacist isn’t?

They’re entitled to believe whatever they want as long as it doesn’t interfere with the obligations of their job. If they deny me emergency contraceptives, they are making their beliefs my business - I don’t see why it should be my business.

That’s not that the first time someone has raised a similar argument. Show me a pharmacist who ever refused to dispense ALL medications due to a CC law. We’ve been there, done that, and left that point bleeding beside the road while we look for a non-CC health care provide to breath some life into it.

If they can refuse to perform certain elements of their job, why can’t they refuse to perform other elements of it with the same excuse?

Would you be okay if a geology or biology teacher refused to teach students about certain scientific studies because it conflicts with “facts” that the Bible teaches? My view is that such a person should find another job and not teach geology/biology. Same for the pharmacist. They’d be doing society a huge favor by finding a more suitable job for themselves.

[Bricker]

@Cumberdale

It shouldn’t matter if the patient can get the prescription filled elsewhere. Why should the patient carry the burden in what could be a very stressful time for him or her. If I am ill and need a certain drug and go into my closest pharmacy, I’d be pissed if they told me to go to the one two miles down the road. If I wanted to go to that one, I would have gone there in the first place. For me it’s the pharmacist who needs to make the concession. Either fill it reluctantly or find another job.

Yes, “for you,” that’s the way to resolve the conflict.

Not for others.

So we can agree that if you were King, the rules would be different.

But you’re not.

Neither am I. Instead, we have a system to craft rules that doesn’t rely on any one person’s legislative fiat. And that system has (in many states) crafted a rule that says… drum roll… the pharmacist doesn’t need to make the concession.

I appreciate your willingness to acknowledge that this is your opinion, and I appreciate the fact that you’re doing something else our system permits and values: arguing that the rules should be changed.

But don’t you think we’ve reached an “agree to disagree” moment here? You’ve highlighted the key disagreement: when balancing the pharmacist’s refusal against the customer’s desire to use that store, and not another, you’d resolve the dispute in favor of the customer, and I in favor of the pharmacist.

In New Jersey, the legislature agrees your argument is the best. In other states, my argument has convinced the lawmakers.

It’s as simple as that.