Some people around here seem to think that a pharmacist should be allowed to refuse to dispense legally prescribed drugs because of their morals. They don’t think the law should be able to force a medical professional to do something that goes against their beliefs.
So I’m sure all these same people will agree with me that doctors should be allowed to ignore the new Indiana law that states that abortion doctors have to tell their patients demonstrably false information, like that life begins at fertilization and that a fetus can feel pain. After all, if informing a patient of these things violates a doctor’s beliefs, the doctor should be free to decline to give out that information, just like the pharmacist is free to decline to fill prescriptions, right?
Indiana resident here. I’m fairly ashamed to admit that after this legislation passed.
Doctors and pharmacists should be allowed to make any decision to offer or not offer a service based on their own discretion. I think it keeps them honest and accountable. I don’t know if they are allowed to ignore the law if they choose to perform a procedure though. For instance, I don’t HAVE to follow Speed Limits if I don’t choose to drive a car. Now, they certainly should be allowed to scope the information they are giving as “State required gobbledy gook” and that, although required to state it, doesn’t make it true.
I think pharmacists should be allowed to refuse to fill any prescription that violates thier beliefs.
As long as the pharmacy has someone on site, at all times, that will fill any legal prescription. It should be mandated that to be a licensed pharmacy, they have to be able to fill prescriptions.
I’m one of those people who thinks the pharmacist should be legally free to refuse to provide abortifacients. It’s been a while since I’ve taken a biology class, but is it demonstrably false that life begins at conception? I mean those little cells start dividing pretty quickly. If it matters, I’m certainly pro-choice. I would advise the doctor to follow the law. Explain to the patient that “life” is just a cluster of cells (depending on how far along the pregnancy is). I don’t know about the pain thing though. Any way, it sounds like a bad piece of legislation to me.
You’ve got the analogy wrong. If it violates the doctor’s belief to tell the woman that life begins at concept, he can refuse to perform the abortion and thus free himself from the need to violate his “beliefs”.
However, as already noted, it is not “demonstrably false” that life begins at conception. If you think it is, please demonstrate it to be false.
I think it’s a bad law, but if a doctor doesn’t want to give out that information, he doesn’t have to do abortions. If a pharmacist doesn’t want to sell birth control, he (or she) shouldn’t have to do that either. I don’t see a “gotcha!” here.
The ‘gotcha’ is the desired result - that doctors who do not share such beliefs will not be willing to repeat the falsehoods. And since they are required to do so to perform abortions, the hoped-for result would be that fewer doctors will provide abortions. No need to worry about changing hearts and minds if they can restrict access by reducing the number of medical professionals willing to do the procedure.
classyladyhp, if you’re quoting another poster, do not alter the text inside the quote boxes. It’s misleading and we don’t allow it on the SDMB. I’ve edited your post to take out the text you attributed to Don’t Call Me Shirley.
I concur with what seems to be the consensus here. The OP commits a fallacy of equivocation. The fetal description law is mandating how an action (in this case providing an abortion) must be done if one chooses to engage in it. The pharmacists refusing to give birth control are simply refusing to take part in a certain action. The two actions are not of the same type.
As with doctors the law states how pharmacists must dispense drugs if they choose to do so. An analagous situation therefore may be the pharmacists agreeing to fill a prescription but giving the patient sugar pills instead of birth control. If someone wanted to allow pharmacists to do that based on conscience then presumably one could also refuse to give fetal information based on conscience. However no-one thinks that giving sugar pills instead of actual drugs is an acceptable thing for pharmacists to do, so the analogy does not work in favour of the OP.
I disagree , but if he does not want to sell some prescriptions he should be mandated to put a large sign of his front window stating which drugs he will decide you can have.
Why should you go to the pharmacist hand him prescriptions and he will leaf through them and say’ I will fill this one, not this one and no not this one either."
I think that if a pharmacist refuses to dispense birth control pills, he should not be allowed to dispense viagra (and their ilk). Obviously his belief is that sex is for procreation and viagra is generally prescribed to older men who shouldn’t be having children. YMMV
That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve read on this MB this week.
Being anti-abortion is NOT the same as being anti-birth control. And the idea that Viagra is is just for old men and that old men shouldn’t procreate is idiotic.
Just because lots of conservatives have stupid ideas doesn’t mean that liberals should have equally stupid ideas. Or, this case, even more stupid.
It depends wholly on what one defines as “life”. Under some definitions, a lone sperm is already alive - it’s organized, homeostatic, processes its own energy, moves on its own etc…
So perhaps the phrase should be “life propagates at conception”. Either that, or wanking is murder and if you thought prisons were overcrowded you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet
All that matters is whether the doctor believes it’s demonstrably false. Objective reality is clearly irrelevant since it’s objectively false that emergency contraception causes abortion. This legislation is purely malcious and sadistic. It’s only intent is to allow misogynists to hurt women.
Of course it is. Life began billions of years ago. Sperm and eggs are just as alive as a fertilized egg.
So basically he has no choice but to violate his professional ethics either way. Either lie to her, or abandon her to her fate.
The point - obviously - is that laws like this and the so-called “conscience” laws for pharmacists are nothing more than attempts to persecute women. As soon as the subject of men being subject to the same persecution comes up, suddenly it’s “one of the stupidest things I’ve read”.
