Perhaps, but I cannot find a legal precedent. These are for-profit pharmacies. What if the pharmacist is opposed to selling Plan-B not because of moral reasons but because HE LOSES MONEY? Should he have to take a loss on a particular product???
And how does being able to buy online work for plan b? You need to take it within a certain amount of time … 72 hours after unprotected sex. Say it happens friday night, you have to take it by monday night. If you order overnight it might get there monday, most likely it will get there tuesday as the shipping department gets the order on monday morning. Great lot of use, unless you propose that people order it and keep it on hand just in case. :rolleyes:
The details aren’t important?
What happens if I fuck my girlfriend while on a date in remote Alaska and it will take me three days to get to the nearest pharmacy? Holy fuck the government better airlift her Plan-B because she might get pregnant. What if it happens and she goes to jail the next day? Well it’s gonna be three years before she gets out and that’s not soon enough for Plan-B!!!
The bottom line is that if you wish to use Plan-B then the burden is on you to ensure that you will be able to get Plan-B. If your pharmacy doesn’t sell it, sorry. My pharmacy doesn’t sell sterile needles but I can order them online? And what happens if I wait too long and now I am going through horrific withdrawal? I believe that was my fault for not planning it out.
I can buy the reasoning, but not the application. Unless the pharmacists in question are in their seventies, or perhaps their twenties, they have always had the obligation to dispense birth control.
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The bottom line is that if you wish to use Plan-B then the burden is on you to ensure that you will be able to get Plan-B. If your pharmacy doesn’t sell it, sorry. My pharmacy doesn’t sell sterile needles but I can order them online? And what happens if I wait too long and now I am going through horrific withdrawal? I believe that was my fault for not planning it out.
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Be sure to tell girls who are sexually assaulted that they ought to have planned for rape.
Oh really? Can you quote me pre-Roe v. Wade pharmacy licensure regulations which granted pharmacists the right to be guided by their consciences in deciding which legal prescriptions to fill (a right that Evil Gummint now seeks to trample upon)? It strikes me that the “liberty” that is now being restricted (with the acquiescence or connivance of the state) is that of the patient.
Going back to the court clerk analogy (which I previously acknowledged could not be an exact parallel to that of the Conscience Pharmacists), do you not recognize that being a government employee does not always oblige one to follow the government’s stated mission? For instance, even in the volunteer armed services soldiers can be granted conscientious objector status.
If we’re going to change the rules and permit pharmacists to game the system, why not allow court clerks to conscientiously object to civil case filings that they find morally abhorrent? Surely the sanctity of their consciences outweighs any inconveniences to you and your colleagues.
This is an entirely different situation. Entirely different. The woman was sexually assaulted, and therefore the government may or may not have an obligation to provide this to the woman. In the same way that they will do a criminal investigation and collect a rape kit. By your logic pharmacies would be required to supply rape kits as well.
Nice try, but “the government” doesn’t collect rape kits. Hospitals do.
And no, it’s not entirely different. Even skipping over the moral implications, as you have (apparently to avoid admitting you said something dumb) it’s not different, because on a purely practical basis you can’t distinguish between women who have been raped and women who haven’t until it’s too late for Plan B.
No. Would you say that car dealers have a monopoly on selling cars? They do, of course – only car dealers sell cars. But if someone wishes to become a car dealer, he can. A monopoly only has meaning when the barriers for entry into a business are so high as to be effectively insurmountable – the higher the barriers, the more of a monopoly it is.
Pharmacists do indeed have high barriers of entry to their industry, primarily the educational requirements needed. But this is not the same as being “granted” a monopoly. Anyone who wishes to study can become a pharmacist. It’s not that the government bestows the license upon a lucky few, in the manner of an NYC taxi medallion or a wireless carrier.
Okay, it’s really not all that different. Unfortunately it is not a pharmacists obligation to take care of rape victims. That is left to the government, and you’re right, to a hospital. I disagree that if a rape victim happens to be broke, they should go in to a pharmacy and demand that they receive free Plan-B.
I’m sure a pharmacist who denied Plan-B to rape victims would feel like a total dick, but it’s absolutely not an obligation any more than my corner store needs to serve pepper spray in case I think I am being followed.
I can think of analogies. Utilities, for example, are considered “natural monopolies,” and regulated accordingly. One aspect of that regulation may be the requirement to provide electrical power or telephone wiring to a rural customer at a loss, given the high cost of extending wires to the location.
However these companies receive government subsidies for doing so.
If the government mandated subsidies for Plan-B to be sold in pharmacies, then it would be a different story. For now they don’t receive public funds do they.
I can sell my Subaru on Craigslist. I cannot sell Xanax on Craigslist. Pharmacists are granted exclusive, legal privilege that allows them to control the distribution of medicine.
Besides, it is quite obviously:
It’s a monopoly.
You said “the government may or may not have an obligation to provide [Plan B to rape victims].” If the government has an obligation to dispense Plan B, then pharmacists won’t need to, and this whole conversation is meaningless.
No, they generally only receive state enforced monopolies. Pharmacists enjoy a similar privilege.
No.. Xanax is a controlled substance, it has nothing to do with whether it is a prescription drug or not. I can sell non-controlled pharmaceuticals online given that they come with instructions and are clearly labeled.
That means I could sell Zoloft online, pharmacies do NOT have a monopoly on pharmaceuticals, ONLY a quasi monopoly on controlled substances.
Plan-B is not controlled. Heroin, Oxycodone, Marijuana, Xanax, Codeine, LSD, Cocaine, Methamphetamine are controlled
Well, there was the Connecticut law about selling contraceptives that Grriswold addressed. but you’ve put the shoe on the other foot: in this country, the default position is that people may do what they please. Why are you asking me for laws that explicitly grant pharmacists the right to refuse to sell something? Absent a law compelling them to do so, pharmacists have always had that right.
Really? I didn’t know that. I know you can still claim conscientious objector with respect to your selective Service registration, but was unaware you could volunteer for the armed forces but demand conscientious objector status. Cite?
In the case at hand, the fact that rules were changed was itself the challenged item. that is, the Washington Board released a rule allowing pharmacists to object, consistent with Washington law and not changing any previous law or rule. The governor’s demand for change produced the law at issue. So the “change” to the system was to deny the ability, not to grant it.
And the answer to your court clerk question is already given: they are employees. They are free to object; the court system is free to fire them. Similarly, if Walgreen’s says, “Fill Plan B orders,” and a pharmacist says know, Walgreens should absolutely be free to fire him.
Still very much yes.
And if you think you can start dispensing antidepressants, antibiotics or any other prescription drug without a license online, all I have to say is “good luck”.
I said may or may not, meaning that the government may or not have an obligation to take care of rape victims. Right now I think the general consensus is that in a legal sense, yes, in a medical sense, no.
Right now it is up to the rape victim to seek out help, it does not land on her or his doorstep.
Remember that for power companies that they receive a state enforced monopoly, since they are the only company that provides the service for a large area.
Pharmacies are NOT NOT monopolies. If you don’t like the prices or options of a pharmacy, you can go to the next one, they aren’t all owned by the same corporation. In fact there is some competition, and some local small name pharmacies.
When you are board certified to provide a public service, and instead, use your power to attempt to further your political agenda or bully others into following your morality, you have jumped the shark and deserve to lose your certification.
Any of the ‘conscience’ objecting pharmacists could have simply said, ‘We don’t stock that item.’ But they didn’t, they made a big stink about their superior morality. They want to play politics they risk the body that certifies them saying, no thanks, you’re giving us all a bad name and you’re being a bully, you’re not pharmacist material, certification withdrawn. You want to play politics you deserve to pay the price, in my opinion.
Its an exxageration but the point remains. Why is it permissible for other professions to refuse to provide their services based on conscience but pharrmacists are not?
I’ll ask this question for seomthing like the fifth time. Does your statement apply to doctors that will perform D&C procedures for miscarriages but not for abortions. Does your statement apply to lawyers who refuse to represent rapists. Does your statement apply to priests who refuse to marry homosexuals.