You are better than Batman.
Er, I’m not Bricker.
So far as we were taught in pharmacy law in school, conversations with corporate, and my own reading of the law, yes, if you are practicing in Ohio, with caveats.
You can’t legally lie and say you don’t have it on hand (you can illegally lie and probably get away with it, but be prepared for at least the possibility that the guy in line behind said patient is a Board of Pharmacy agent ready to whip his badge out and ask to inspect your pharmacy, which you can’t legally refuse in Ohio). You can’t do so for reasons of discrimination against race, religion, sex or other protected classes. And, unless your employer has stated otherwise, if you do so, be prepared for the possibility that you can be disciplined or fired.
All of my statements, btw, are not intended as legal advice in any specific person’s situation. I am not a lawyer, you are not my client. I am (likely) not your pharmacist, you are not my patient, yada yada yada.
I mean, this seems to be the rub. It’s beyond obvious that those who oppose contraception do so out of discrimination towards a particular sex. I’m sympathetic, to a point, to arguments that people SHOULD be allowed to discriminate with their own privately owned property/businesses, but those who are not really need to contort themselves to explain why exclusion of a medication that is only used by women, for reasons that always boil down to “hatred of women,” does not create a government interest in rectifying the situation given the laws as they currently exist.
This is a statement which in my opinion, de-legitimizes the argument for not permitting pharmacists to claim a religious exemption for refusing to sell Plan-B. This isn’t about “hatred of women”, and if you want to discuss whether the recent push to prevent coverage of contraception is evidence of that, go ahead. But this just throws rhetoric into the discussion that the opposition can latch onto and call you crazy. I mean, we can have a discussion about the relevance of public health and the government’s role in protecting that, whether you should be able to extend your own religious beliefs about what Plan-B does and impose those beliefs on another person, about whether the government can and should revoke licensing for health care providers who refuse to provide an FDA-approved medication to patients, but this whole “they hate women” is such a distracting and weak argument.
I don’t think we can discuss the issue without addressing the reason that people oppose contraception, unless you want to reduce it to a purely abstract “do property rights give you carte blanche to discriminate in your business clientele” question.
There’s a way to discuss the rationale for opposing contraception that doesn’t immediately cast you into having the argument “Republicans: Stupid, or just Evil?” though. Such reasons include: an erroneous understanding of the science behind how Plan-B works, a view that life begins at conception and that anything which prevents implantation of a fertilized egg is technically abortion, a Catholic-church doctrine view that all contraception is a sin. None of these are “they hate women”, and all of these can further the discussion about the weight of imposing those beliefs on non-believers by restricting access to the medication.
I am on your side, and I’m bringing this up because we always devolve into the mud-slinging without actually accomplishing the debate. Which it’s possible to have without coming to the conclusion that Pharmacists are refusing to stock/supply Plan-B because they hate women.
No, I don’t think progress can be made by granting assent to bullshit. Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum have come out and said it in so many words: women who use birth control are “sluts” and “prostitutes” who must be punished by men for their sins. That is the “conscientious objection” that Christians have to birth control. Ignoring it is like ignoring the one and only “state’s right” at issue during the Civil War. Why do I have to agree to transparent bullshit put forth by black-hearted people in order to participate in the debate?
Because when you take the opinions of two blowhards and apply them to everyone on the other side, you’re no longer debating. From the images that I’ve seen, a good portion (and probably a majority) of abortion protesters are women. I take it that in your opinion, they must all be self-loathing.
And when you refuse to admit that the other side is dominated by opinions like that, then you aren’t debating either; you’re just deluding yourself and setting yourself up to be trampled by the Right yet again. The American Left (such as it is) and middle have this bizarre fetish about not admitting how bad the Right is no matter how blatant they are.
Quite likely, given that they are generally raised in religions that teach them to hate themselves and women in general. Throughout history, women have been some of the most enthusiastic oppressors of other women. For that matter, most of the most enthusiastic oppressors of men have been men. Gender loyalty is pretty close to nonexistent.
And it’s not like they’d actually refrain from getting an abortion for themselves.
You’re right. That is a basic problem with individual liberty – like free speech, it’s most contentious use is paradoxically when it most needs to be protected. And you’re right that it often creates outcomes that are not good for others.
Yes. But you did it with your move into the doorway and your effort to stop there, not your general passive existence.
Who cares what I’d do? The question is what do I have the right to do. And the answer is, I have the right to tell him to suck it up.
Yes, they can. You make this blanket statement, but in fact, there are plenty of circumstances under which a doctor can refuse to accept a patient, and “lawsuit happy” is one of them.
What you mean to say is you wish the doc can’t refuse to perform a legitimate medical procedure, or in your opinion it would be better if the doc can’t refuse to perform a legitimate medical procedure.
But insofar as actual rules go, that’s not the blanket rule, and thank God for the fact that our rules are made by people with a stronger grip on personal liberty than you have.
I think he meant, “Thank you, JayRx1981. Brricker, based on the information JayRx1981 provides, I withdraw my objection to your public policy argument.”
He also probably meant to say how impressed he was with my general perspicacity and derring-do.
Uh-huh. And the objectors of conscience ‘moved into the doorway’ of state licensure, where they conveniently stop, and remain, passive - aggressively blocking access to drugs by people legally entitled to receive them.
Did they? Do any states hand out only a fixed number of pharmacy licenses, like hte cab medallion system in New York City?
If not, I don’t see how in the world they have moved into the doorway. Other pharmacists may serve that clientele.
If they exist within the proximity of the patient and the patient is physically able to get to another pharmacy, who doesn’t also “conscientiously object” to providing plan B. It’s not a fixed number, but it’s certainly got significant barriers to being able to obtain one. So it’s not a straight business analogy, if one pharmacy is not fulfilling the needs of the public, any random person cannot simply open another pharmacy in order to satisfy that need. When you are the only provider in the area, yes, you are standing in the doorway.
OK, let’s talk about that “only provider in the area.”
Now let’s imagine that, fed up with your demands, he closes his business.
Should he legally be allowed to do that? Why or why not?
Or perhaps the pharmacist is concerned about the meth problem and doesn’t want to have to deal with the hassle of selling Sudafed over the counter anymore. Should he be allowed to stop selling it?
Uh, yeah.
So if there’s one thing we’re supposed to learn here, it’s apparently that when conservatives act exactly as people who despise women would, and when you ask them why they are doing so, they tell you it’s because they despise women, the one thing you absolutely should not do when forming a response is proceed from the premise that conservatives hate women. Because, apparently, this is all a rhetorical Internet game and has no real-world consequences so there’s no particular need to address reality when participating.