If it’s a job, it’s up to the employer to decide what are the requirements. If CVS is OK with it, they should have the final decision.
If it’s a licensing requirement then it’s not so much a part of the job, but a legal protection. If so, there should be enforcement written into law.
We’re discussion where those lines should be drawn, and IMO reasonable people can disagree. But you’re already making the decision that dispensing contraception to everyone is a requirement of the job, and that has not been established yet.
Then there’s a golden financial opportunity for someone in the southwest to start a pharmacy that will sweep its competition to its knees, or a chance for a state-run pharmacy to be that rare government agency that turns a profit.
You have missed the point entirely - though deliberately. The issue here is that the market does not always or even usually take care of things that the government would otherwise need to compel.
That said, you may color me astonished that a conservative just proposed what amounts to a government takeover of a heretofore private industry.
Takeover? What takeover? As long as the government is not permitted to operate at a loss, or ensure its “profitability” through regulation of prices, I have no heartburn with the government entering private industry in circumstances like these.
But it is NOT remote, is it? Pharmacies carry birth control, rubbers, morning after pills, lots of stuff. How could someone NOT know that? I don’t believe it for one second.
To borrow from a Monty Python routine:
I want to quit the Army. It’s dangerous. There are people with guns.
They were making fun of it, you seem to buy into it instead.
It’s still a simple binary condition. You like the job, stay. You don’t like the job, quit. Whatever religious idea you have or don’t have, should not keep me from getting whatever I want/need (and which my religion might be OK with).
If I go to pharmacy school, get licensed, move to a one-stoplight town, set up my own business, and decide to sell nothing but aspirin and wart remover, there should be no laws against that. Go ahead and let me go out of business.
The pharmacist in question is not discriminating against anyone (unlike so many of the analogies proffered here). If the pharma refused to sell condoms to black people or some other protected class, that would be different. But just refusing to carry a type of product in one’s own business is pretty fundamental.
If there’s only one dentist in town but he refuses to do root canals, should the law force him to? Or is it up to market forces to drive him out of business or bring in a competing dentist?
Aspirin and wart remover are available over the counter, so you wouldn’t need a license (other than a general retail license) to offer them.
Pharmacies, like it or not, are considered to operate in the public interest, even if they are profit-making enterprises. That factor comes with certain obligations.
State bar associations require lawyers to perform some pro bono work. Is that unfair?
Again, let’s not merge two ideas. I agree with your sentiment if you mean, “Someone else owns the pharmacy and tells me to sell the stuff or be fired, but I want the law to protect me in my job even though I don’t wish to follow my boss’ orders and sell the stuff.”
But if you mean, “As a condition of being in business, the state will require all pharmacists to sell the stuff…” then I don’t agree. If I open Brickers 24 Hour Pharmacy and Legal Clinic, then I’ll sell what I wish to sell, and if you don’t want to patronize my store, go somewhere else.
And luckily, the state of Virginia agrees with me on this last point.
The wiser choice? In what possible sense is it “wiser” except in that it fits better with your personal world view?
I wouldn’t have much of a problem with such a requirement, in principle.
Dunno about other states, but the Florida Bar requires active members to perform at least 20 hours of pro bono work or donate $350 to a legal aid organization (I’m sure you can guess which option is more popular). Failure to do one or the other results in license suspension.
The problem is, some of the laws do protect people for refusing to sell the stuff, even if the store wants to sell it.
I’m still confused as to why you find some restrictions on the freedom of conscience of pharmacists acceptable and not others, though. I don’t think the argument I got the feeling you were making regarding racial discrimination (we have a general policy against racial discrimination, but not on supplying contraceptives) holds up. After all, isn’t passing a law requiring pharmacists to supply contraceptives as part of their licensing requirement making such a public policy?
If I have misunderstood your argument, I apologize, obviously.
Where I am in agreement with you (and even suggested it pages ago) is that the possibility of a central, government run, prescription-by-mail business seems like it would get rid of a whole lot of the problems here. I don’t know how one could replace the drug interaction warning function, but I am sure that isn’t insurmountable.
A prescription-by-mail business might be practicable for regularly refilled prescriptions, but for immediate-need stuff (pain medications, blood thinners, emergency contraception, etc.) it wouldn’t be much good.
I know that selling contraception is by no means a remote condition.
I want to quit the Army, they make me do a lot of paperwork instead of training.
That is a more apt comparison.
I agree with Bricker. John-at-the-counter serves at pleasure of his employer. If John cannot get around (legally, practically) his moral issues, then he should get fired.
Sue-the-owner can stock what she damn pleases and the law allows. Her own moral views are more important to her than yours or mine.
Still, nobody answers the key question: Better to have a pharmacy with no condoms or no pharmacy at all?
