I have not read the details of the decision nor the rules and regulations in the other laws you referenced.
But it appears that we have a classic conflict between two or more well-established rights and the court decided to tilt the scale more towards one than the other because they both cannot have equal weight and still exist. Often that tilt comes down to prejudice and personal feelings, and those are sometimes motivated by religious beliefs. Judges are not immune to such.
I think you might be confusing cultural practices with religious beliefs here. There is a big difference.
No I am not.
The culture may well be a part but the culture got that way due to their interpretation of their religion. Their religion is absolutely, by their own reckoning, the basis for this stuff.
I did not say the court made an error in law, (I don’t know enough about the law to say one way or another) I’m saying the court is wrong. And I’m not going to get involved in your usual “it depends on what the definition of is is” twisting of words nonsense.
If I get a prescription by my doctor and the pharmacist does not fill it because of some primitive belief then he/she needs to find a new career. I don’t care if another pharmacy next door does supply said medication.
Not to mention there are places where the “pharmacy next door” is 20 miles away.
From the OP…
*
The Court decided that the rule violated the Illinois Healthcare Right of Conscience Act, the Illinois Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the Free Exercise Clause of the US Constitution. *
Ironic isn’t it. The court held personal religious beliefs significant enough to excuse mandatory participation in an activity. I find this hard to argue with given it’son point with the 1st amendment prohibition against …impeding the free exercise of religion….
I see nothing that paints allpharmacist, who refuse to participate on moral/religious grounds as antiabortionist, women hating, radicals.
A pharmacist that subscribes to his views limiting the medicines he dispenses, should have to put a large sign on his window indicating that. That way people would not waste their time going to a pharmacy that might refuse to fill his prescription.
Perhaps
I reserve the right to determine if your prescription should be filled due to my religious beliefs.
The use of the Free Exercise Clause disturbs me (don’t know the other laws well enough to comment on them) in that this seems to undercut all civil rights legislation.
If a pharmacist can decide not to provide medication to a group based upon his (undoubtedly sincerely held) religious beliefs regarding abortion, is he permitted to do the same based on his (undoubtedly sincerely held) religious beliefs concerning the sinful nature of white people interacting with black people? If that is not permitted, then we are in the business of having government determine which religious beliefs are to be protected and which are not.
Now I am aware this is a business we are already in - schools lose tax exemptions if they discriminate on race, for example. Prisoners are not granted the same accommodations for all religious beliefs, though prisoners pose a somewhat different case.
I won’t deny I think there are major faults in the entire canon of First Amendment religious jurisprudence. But I am not seeing how this fits in with Smith - that allows the government to pass generally applicable laws as long as they are not specifically targeting religious belief. Violating the two Illinois laws may well be a legitimate decision, but how is it a federal violation? This administrative regulation applies to everyone, and it doesn’t seem to be a deliberate attack on religion in the way the rules against ritual slaughter were aimed against Santeria. To me, Smith stands for the principle (which I don’t endorse) that the government can choose to give exemptions to generally applicable laws based on religious exemptions, but the First Amendment does not require it to do so. Illinois seems to be removing the last clause there.
This business of “conscience” pharmacists trying to thrust themselves into patient care in order to thwart elements of it that they personally abhor, reminds me of a recent Geico ad.
It’s the one where a couple is doing the tango, and another guy is attempting to join in with much resulting awkwardness and mis-steps. That guy is the “conscience” pharmacist.
And I concur. No one should be forced to be a pharmacist. 
Why? Are any other retail businesses required to stock all products in their category?
Sure. Why not?
Get a grip. As long as they’re not preventing you from transacting your business elsewhere, they’re not imposing on you in any way at all.
Now that is an entirely different proposition, and I agree.
No, that shouldn’t be necessary. The key is whether the pharmacy stocks the medicine. A pharmacist who objects to the medicine shouldn’t be working at that pharmacy, just like people who object to liquor shouldn’t work at bars and liquor stores. That’s fine. But if one does work at a liquor store, refusing service to a legal customer for some personal reason is just discrimination.
Let me ask you this. If a bill allowing euthanasia, under a doctors supervision, was passed, and a group of doctors refused to participate in the process for “religious” reasons, would you criticize the doctors who refused to provide end of life services to their patients? Patient rights vs. doctors individual rights, who should win?
Perhaps there isn’t hate in operation, I’ll grant that in individual cases there may not be a hate-based motivation.
But when you hold the power of health and life over others, and you use that power to impose your morality in direct opposition to their needs or to prioritize your morality over their needs, you are oppressing them. You are worsening their condition, however temporary or limited in scope that worsening is, in a fashion that runs entirely counter to the purpose of the profession you entered and remain in.
This is especially important because the vast majority of pharmacists working today entered the profession after oral contraceptives became available. In the course of their pharmacy studies, they must have learned that oral contraceptives are amongst the most commonly prescribed medications, that the majority of women will use them at some point in their childbearing years, and that they are prescribed for reasons beyond contraception and in those cases are vitally important to women’s health. (Not that controlling fertility isn’t also vitally important to health as well.)
To have that knowledge and still choose to become a phamacist at a retail outlet where there will be women who present prescriptions for oral contraceptives daily when you feel a moral obligation to not fill such prescriptions is ridiculous and arrogant. It says that you have no problem harming people to cling to your all-so-important beliefs. That is oppression in a nutshell.
A pharmacist has a legitimate reason and right to withhold a medication for medical reasons. They are trained medical professionals, they have knowledge.
Beyond that, their priorities are completely backwards. If it’s important to you to not dispense contraceptives do not be a retail pharmacist in a pharmacy that sells contraceptives.
If a court said that the First Amendment required Doctors to be given a religious based exemption I would make the same criticism.
I don’t see anything in my post which you quoted suggesting anything about criticizing the pharmacists for their decision.
Do you feel that a pharmacist should be permitted to deny drugs to a person who he believes is evil because of that person’s skin color, when they base that on religious belief a la Christian Identity? If so, how about based on political beliefs?
What if their religious dogma, to which they honestly subscribe, involves hating and consciously oppressing women. I’m not stating any particular religion, but a hypothetical one for now. One that holds as a tenet that women have no souls, are evil, and should be treated badly.
Seriously, we’re talking about apples and oranges here. I’m referencing a situation involving an honest belief, on behalf of a pharmacist, that his/her participating in such therapy is contrary to his core beliefs. IF that is the case, and the pharmacist chooses to opt out of participating, I find it a real stretch to label this individual an antiabortion, woman hating activists. This has been my point in this discussion.
So would you extend the same courtesy to Christian Identity pharmacists who might want to refuse to provide any medication to ‘mud people,’ based on their “honest belief[s]”?
What are ‘mud people,’ and what belief are you referencing?
I am referring to the racist Christian Identity movement, that refers to black people as ‘mud people,’ basing their beliefs on an interpretation of the Bible, and preaching to their members that interaction with such people is dangerous to one’s soul.
Yes, because a deep hatred of women is the motive for opposing abortion. Hatred of women is the “deeply held personal belief” in question.
:rolleyes: That’s silly, considering how brutally misogynist Christianity and many other religions have been throughout its history. Regarding women as subhuman or even as the source of all the evil in the world (“Daughter of Eve!”) isn’t an uncommon religious belief.
And a belief being religious in nature simply demonstrates that it is at best worthless and more likely than not outright evil. Calling something a religious belief is a condemnation, not a defense.
Are other businesses the legally mandated only supplier? No.
Of course they are, since the next pharmacy could be extremely far away. This is much the same thing that has been done with abortion clinics; they’ve been made harder and harder for women to get to.
A pharmacist who opposes abortion is by definition anti-abortion. And opposition to abortion is about the hatred of women, nothing more.
I have no knowledge of that movement, what they believe or whether their beliefs are sincere.