# Pharmacist's conscience and new Indiana abortion law **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 14, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850 "2011-05-14T00:04:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Naxos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/50afbb/32.png) [@Naxos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Naxos)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/81 "2011-05-15T03:41:48Z")
> [@Don\_t\_Call\_Me\_Shirley](#): > > 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? All I can say is… vote Republican! ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/82 "2011-05-15T03:42:21Z")
> [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](#): > > Which is fine if your city happens to have 3 CVSs 8 Walgreens and two Walmarts, but if you’re a frightened 16yo kid with no car living in Podunk IA and the next pharmacy is 100 miles down the road, then you’re SOL. We do this every thread. Please find this mythical pharmacy that does not have another pharmacy within 100 miles? I don’t think that this is dispositive of whether you can force a pharmacist to dispense birth control pills but its about a mythical as folks losing the family farm because of estate taxes. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/83 "2011-05-15T03:42:43Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > You don’t sign away your conscience when you adopt a profession. This is about malignance, not conscience. Would you also defend a pharmacist who refused medicine to to black people because he thinks God hates blacks? Or is it only women who are the expendable ones? And it’s rather hypocritical to defend the right of pharmacists to indulge their “conscience” on one hand, and insist that doctors have no right to theirs - or to their professional ethics. > [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yes and he can suffer the commercial consequences of having that belief. And if women suffer and die in the process, it’s not like women are _people_ after all, right? ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/84 "2011-05-15T03:44:09Z")
> [@River\_Hippie](#): > > Indiana resident here. > > 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. Some towns don’t have but one pharmacy. And have any of these guys ever refused to fill a presciption for Viagra? It’s mostly men refusing to fill womens’ prescriptions for either birth control or emergency birth control. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/85 "2011-05-15T03:45:14Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > I’m saying that the government shouldn’t address morality in the law. The government is also the arbiters of the laws they make, and if a law is based on morality, the government becomes the arbiter of morality as well. Laws are frequently based on morality. The criminal codes are replete with moral judgments. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/86 "2011-05-15T03:47:11Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > OK, I found the law (or at least the Senate version of the law). There is just one line that says a physician must tell the patient, orally, that “human physical life” begins at conception. I see no reason that the physician can say what I proposed, above, and both be in compliance with the law and not violate his or her own personal beliefs. > > That is not to say I think this is a good law. I think it is a terrible law. But it doesn’t make anyone do anything that violates his or her own belief system (other than the belief system that the state shouldn’t make you do “x”, and that’s not relevant). > > [Link.](http://media.courierpress.com/media/static/IN0457.1.pdf) Warning: PDF. Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/87 "2011-05-15T03:47:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > 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’s only a blatant double standard where women are punished for fucking while men getting to fuck women must be facilitated at all costs. Typical Republican moralizing—boys will be boys and those sluts shouldn’t open their legs. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/88 "2011-05-15T03:54:47Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Forcing someone to do “x” and allowing someone to opt out of “y” are completely different things. And don’t you think that forcing a doctor to say “human physical life begins at conception” is forcing someone to do something? I don’t think you can force a doctor to say something that is as controversial as this on a subject that people hold very strong beliefs. If a doctor vigorously supports first and second trimester abortions based on the fact that he DOES NOT believe that human life does not begin until at least the third trimester. I don’t think you can force a doctor to say that any more than you can force ME to say that. I think you need a pretty high level of proof before you can force someone to say something like that. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/89 "2011-05-15T03:56:43Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I can infer exactly that when they they show that they don’t give a shit about the baby after it’s born. Most pro-life people I know are pretty compassionate. They end up hanging out with a lot of libertarians but they are not themselves libertarians. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/90 "2011-05-15T04:00:35Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > That’s a religious belief. It doesn’t matter how strongly they believe it. If they want to legislate it, then they are trying to force women to adhere to their own personal religious beliefs. That’s theocratic and regressive, not progressive. Why does that have to be a religious belief. My opinion on this matter is informed by John Rawls original position. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/91 "2011-05-15T04:05:17Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Yes and he can suffer the commercial consequences of having that belief. > > I think most people agreed that you should be able to fire someone for refusing to do their job based on religious beliefs or whatever. Do you understand that the entire point of “pharmacist conscience” laws are to shield them from punishment for their choices, not only from customers who sue them, but also from an employers who might fire or otherwise discipline them? They never could be “forced” to dispense contraception, except perhaps at gunpoint. They could always quit, or they could refuse and face being fired or sued or both. Now they have laws which protect them from any and all consequences. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/92 "2011-05-15T04:05:24Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > By that logic, I’m not alive now since most of the cells of my body are also incapable of being anything but what they are. None of your cells, a life make, but you are alive. > [@](#): > > :rolleyes: When the “info” in question is a lie, then that is forcing them to lie. Well, I had not seena cite at this point. I still don’t think its a lie but I don’t think you can force someone to say what the law requires them to say but as I was shown in the first one of these threads I participated in, the states can in fact force you to do things that go against your beliefs. At the time (as one pro-choice poster was rubbing it in), I warned that this was a two edged sword and you can either choose the professional’s right to follow their conscience or you open yourself up to states mandating other things that professionals must do. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/93 "2011-05-15T04:08:51Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Most pro-life people I know are pretty compassionate. They end up hanging out with a lot of libertarians but they are not themselves libertarians. Yeah, that explains why pro lifers vote against anything that would make it possible to get prenatal care, daycare, medical care for the kid once it’s born, education, etc., etc., A few anti choicers here and there who cough up the dough for some diapers does not equal compassion. Compassionate conservatism, except for the compassionate part. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/94 "2011-05-15T04:09:15Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > This is about malignance, not conscience. Would you also defend a pharmacist who refused medicine to to black people because he thinks God hates blacks? Or is it only women who are the expendable ones? If the pharmacist refused to serve women because they were women, I would agree with you but I suspect that they are happy to sell women heart medication. > [@](#): > > And it’s rather hypocritical to defend the right of pharmacists to indulge their “conscience” on one hand, and insist that doctors have no right to theirs - or to their professional ethics. I think doctors can also exercise their conscience. > [@](#): > > And if women suffer and die in the process, it’s not like women are _people_ after all, right? cite please. Show me one woman who has died as a result of a pharmacist’s refusal to dispense a drug for reasons of conscience. Surely, there must be loads of them. ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/95 "2011-05-15T04:13:32Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > If the pharmacist refused to serve women because they were women, I would agree with you but I suspect that they are happy to sell women heart medication. > > I think doctors can also exercise their conscience. > > cite please. > > Show me one woman who has died as a result of a pharmacist’s refusal to dispense a drug for reasons of conscience. Surely, there must be loads of them. So a woman has to die before you give a shit. Good to know. And if a pharmacist gives her an aspirin but won’t give her BC , it’s totes okay and it means he’s a good guy! Even though he decided she wasn’t raped _enough_ or the fetus matter more than her stupid little female life, that’s okay, because he’ll give her anything but medication that enables her to control her fertility. Maybe you should tell her to keep her legs closed, too. You think pregnancy doesn’t kill women? Google Angela Carder. Pregnancy is not the walk in the park that the anti-choicers like to disiss it as. Either way, you know what? Don’t wanna dispense meds? Drive a truck instead. Why is it that complicated? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/96 "2011-05-15T04:15:07Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > Laws are frequently based on morality. The criminal codes are replete with moral judgments. There are laws based on moral judgements, without regard to fairness and rights, and those laws cause innumerable problems. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/97 "2011-05-15T04:18:12Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Do you understand that the entire point of “pharmacist conscience” laws are to shield them from punishment for their choices, not only from customers who sue them, but also from an employers who might fire or otherwise discipline them? > > They never could be “forced” to dispense contraception, except perhaps at gunpoint. They could always quit, or they could refuse and face being fired or sued or both. Now they have laws which protect them from any and all consequences. I agree with and disagree with pharmacist conscience laws depending on the particulars. I disagree with most pharmacist conscience laws because it creates an unreasonable and unnecessary burden on employers. In previous threads, much of the debate revolved around whether a guy who owned his own pharmacy should be able to refuse to stock and sell birth control pills and the argument seemed to be that states can force pharmacists to do this. I disagreed and I was shown some precedent that implies that states can do this. The same principal applies to doctors who have a principled objection to following this law, if he owns his own practice then he shouldn’t be forced to do things like this. Aren’t there laws that would force a pharmacist that owned their own pharmacy to stock and sell birth control pills on pain of losing their license? ---
**Author:** ![margin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/65b543/32.png) [@margin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/margin)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/98 "2011-05-15T04:23:44Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I agree with and disagree with pharmacist conscience laws depending on the particulars. I disagree with most pharmacist conscience laws because it creates an unreasonable and unnecessary burden on employers. > > In previous threads, much of the debate revolved around whether a guy who owned his own pharmacy should be able to refuse to stock and sell birth control pills and the argument seemed to be that states can force pharmacists to do this. I disagreed and I was shown some precedent that implies that states can do this. The same principal applies to doctors who have a principled objection to following this law, if he owns his own practice then he shouldn’t be forced to do things like this. > > Aren’t there laws that would force a pharmacist that owned their own pharmacy to stock and sell birth control pills on pain of losing their license? It’s amazing the amount of effort people will put into ignoring the obvious. These guys, these pharmacists, want to deny medication pretty much to women alone. There might be AIDs victims as well, but these pharmacists apparently only have conscience issues when it comes to treating outcasts as human beings who should be able to live their lives. Women are the primary victims of these scumbags, and they’re women seeking medication for reproductive issues. Justify \* that.\* ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [May 15, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/99 "2011-05-15T04:24:19Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I don’t get all of this “pro-life=anti-woman” comparisons. Look at an anti-abortion rally. Most of the people there are women. Do they hate themselves? I just discussed this in another thread on the topic.’ They don’t hate themselves, because they don’t divide the world into men vs. women. They divide the world between immoral people and moral people. They, by virtue of their unflinching anti-abortion beliefs, are moral. Pro-choice people, with our obvious hatred for the unborn :rolleyes: are immoral. From there, everything else flows; they don’t see themselves as affected by laws which position women as incapable of making their own medical and life decisions without outside interference. Those laws, and those problems only accrue to immoral women, and thus there’s no self-hatred involved. Just your garden variety us vs. them. The holy and redeemed against the heathens. And heathens get what’s coming to them. ---
**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:** [May 15, 2011, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850/100 "2011-05-15T04:24:31Z")
> [@margin](#): > > Yeah, that explains why pro lifers vote against anything that would make it possible to get prenatal care, daycare, medical care for the kid once it’s born, education, etc., etc., A few anti choicers here and there who cough up the dough for some diapers does not equal compassion. > > Compassionate conservatism, except for the compassionate part. Well, a lot of them have become more libertarian from hanging out with them for so long but back in 1980, they were not natural allies. They started adopting each other’s principles but I still know a lot of single issue voters who will vote for a pro-life socialist democrat over a pro-choice libertarian republican. The republican party can’t survive without the abortion issue, the democratic party can’t get anything else done because of the abortion issue. Whenever the Republicans start losing ground they start talking about abortion, between abortion and tax cuts, Republicans have nothing else to offer. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pharmacists-conscience-and-new-indiana-abortion-law/581850.md?page=6)