In violation of what? Not the law. Perhaps of the APhA’s code of ethics, which might be binding on their members but certainly no one else. Just like the Pharmacists for Life International code of ethics might be binding on their members, but no one else.
A judge. And you certainly haven’t cited judges’ opinions form all states.
I said that your statement is true only in some states, and not true in others. You are claiming its national applicability. So, yes, you are the one that has to withdraw your statement.
How about the states that are silent on the issue? In those states, pharmacists are free to refuse Plan B, but didn’t take any steps to persuade anyone. What’s your basis for saying it’s unethical there?
Again: how can you lay claim to being the only one here to define ethical behaviot?
Huh. None of those explicitly say that a pharmacist must dispense all legal medicines, though.
You know why? I do.
I guess you didn’t want to mention that the American Pharmacists Association also has an explicit conscience clause:
I bet now the position of the APhA will be much less important than it was a minute ago.
I’m not arguing that the law states that it should be applicable nationwide. Clearly that isn’t the case. I’m arguing that the practice itself is unethical regardless of what the law states.
Again, legal is not ethical. They are free to do so, and in many states they are protected by the law, and I am still free to believe as many do that the practice is still unethical, even if it is not illegal. You wanted a cite demonstrating that someone felt the practice was unethical, so I provided a case where a pharmacist’s license was suspended because the judge ruled the behavior was contrary to the ethical code of pharmacists. My entire argument is not based on the legality of the behavior, I fully understand that conscience clauses have been enacted in many states. I don’t really care, because the ethical nature of the behavior it not determined by the legality. A pharmacist’s job is to provide care. If you’re refusing to dispense plan-b, you’re denying care to a patient at worst, or making it more difficult for her to obtain care at the least. That is unethical as far as how I view the responsibilities of the people working in my industry to be.
We are here to debate these beliefs, so naturally I consider my position to be the correct one but in no way have I stated that I’m the only one to define ethical behavior. I believe it to be unethical and I have explained why. Because people in the health care industry have a higher obligation to provide care for patients. It’s not just a business decision, and we recognize that in other areas of the field (such as the hospital example given earlier). Because their objection is not grounded in scientific fact about what the medication actually does. Your response has been, “But, it’s not illegal”. We’re talking past eachother here. Tell me why you don’t think providers have an obligation to provide care. Or, why the personal moral considerations of the pharmacist should trump the patient’s autonomy or desire to obtain care. Anything besides “But, it’s not illegal”.
No, it is still relevant. Because the huge and overriding goal of that document is “PATIENT CARE IS PARAMOUNT”. It’s the case within the entire industry. Sometimes you work in industries where you have to do things that don’t jibe with your outlook on the world, or not what you would choose to do in a given set of circumstances. When you are providing medical care, and are aware that a certain aspect of your job would require you to provide a certain type of care (Plan-B, contraception) you are now voluntarily associating with an industry whose standards of practice expect for you to provide that care. If you aren’t interested in filling prescriptions, don’t be a pharmacist.
Really? So if a doctor refused to perform an abortion, it would be unethical?
Take it a step further and the doctor DOES have the training and equipment to perform an abortion but only does so in the case of miscarriages? Can we make him perform abortions then?
I feel that “conscience clauses” are a problem for women who live in remote areas with timely access to only one pharmacy.
However, I’m even more worried that these clauses may become common in more states, and more pharmacists may choose to invoke those clauses and refuse to dispense Plan B, or oral contraceptives, or any other medicine that they decide they think is against their individual moral beliefs (remember, these conscience clauses are vague and could potentially be applied to more than just Plan B).
So these arguments of “oh, come one, how many raped and impregnated women have no transportation and only live within 50 miles of one pharmacist” arguments are not very persuasive for me. I think that if conscience clauses are accepted, then potentially women in more conservative areas might find that they can’t just go down the street from CVS to Walgreens - what if the pharmacists at multiple locations in town refuse to dispense?
I don’t think the “they can get it someone else” argument holds water.
It really doesn’t matter if a lady has to walk 5 steps or 500 miles to the next pharmacy.
All other things being equal, (as availability of stock etc etc) a pharmacy should be expected to dispense any legally provided prescription. period.
A pharmacy is different from a grocery store or a restaurant.
I don’t think a doctor analogy works. Doctors are specialized creatures. You go to specific doctors for specific conditions. You wouldn’t go to a non abortion providing doctor for an abortion.
Says you.
I disagree.
Yes, as you’ve said. But my point is: you don’t get to define “ethical.”
I disagree with your conclusion that the practice itself is unethical. How can we resolve this disagreement? It would be nice if there were a Big Book of Ethics, one which we both agree was authoritative. But there isn’t.
So how do you propose to support your claim that the practice is unethical when I disagree? And of course my disagreement is merely here on the boards, and of no practical significance… but many like-minded persons also disagree, and some of them are in charge of making laws in states like Georgia, where they have crafted 480-5-.03 Code of Professional Conduct:
But Georgia is in the South. They’re backwards, right?
Well, such opinions are also in sufficient majority in the north: Maine Rev. Stat. §1903(4):
“Regardless of the law, it’s unethical,” you claim. But since I disagree with your conclusion that it’s unethical, what gives you the right to simply assert it as fact? I regard your effort to use the law to violate personal freedom of pharmacists as unethical. Can I simply assert this as uncontroversial fact?
Being able to provide abortions is a specialized skill which requires training in order to perform. Not all doctors are able to provide abortions. All pharmacists are able to provide Plan-B.
Judges are bound by law, not the American Pharmacists Association’s code of ethics. The judge ruled that refusing to provide or transfer the prescription was illegal, not simply refusing to provide the prescription. You don’t appear to want to understand the difference. No-one is saying that a pharmacist should be allowed to **actively prevent **anyone from obtaining a prescription, which is what the pharmacist in your example did. Your example fully supports the right of pharmacists to step aside. Why do you claim it doesn’t?
Right. I’m sure it is difficult for you to get off of the legal mentality and explain things that don’t come in a big book, but I would like for you to try.
I really don’t know why you keep claiming that I am simply stating something as fact without any support. I’ve given you many reasons why I believe the practice to be unethical, but you continue to ignore them in favor of this idea that I am simply stating things as fact without giving a reason behind why I believe that to be true.
You could assert it as fact if you wanted to, but tell me the reasoning behind why you think that to be the case. Not the fact that it’s legal, but why. I think that pharmacists using their position of power to violate the personal freedoms of women to determine the course of their own healthcare to be unethical because of the reasons I have listed earlier, and will list again. They are in a position of power in which patient care is supposed to be paramount to their practice. Their objections are not based on science. And they are acting as a barrier to care, which is unethical if the goal of the profession is to provide for the health care needs of the public.
I posted this earlier:
I know you’re looking to point to statutes to justify why you can demonstrate that some states don’t feel it should be illegal. But maybe you could try discussing the broader points of the question of ethics that go beyond just the fact that it is legal.
Actually, yes I believe that to be what is being argued here. Let’s say a pharmacist is the only provider in the area, which means refusal to provide the medication constitutes actively preventing the patient from obtaining the prescription. Is it therefore acceptable to force that pharmacist to dispense the medication because they are the only provider, and therefore by the portion quoted above, in the same boat as the pharmacist in the case I linked to? They’re both denying care. You’re saying that the pharmacist was only behaving unethically because they actively prevented the woman from obtaining the prescription. If under both circumstances it is acceptable to require the pharmacist to dispense the medication, or at least censure them for failing to do so, why is it acceptable only if the pharmacist is the only provider? I don’t think it’s acceptable to have standards of practice which only apply if you’re the only provider, I think they should be universal. If it’s okay to censure a pharmacist for refusing to provide care and prevent the patient from obtaining the prescription when they are the only provider, it is acceptable to do it whenever they refuse to provide care and prevent a patient from obtaining a prescription.
It’s still passive. In order to completely prevent the possibility that a pharmacists might impose his ethics, by refusing to fill a prescription and being the only pharmacist around, you want to impose your ethics on all pharmacists everywhere. Can you not see the hypocrisy in that?
I am talking about doctors that are fully capable of performing an abortion but for religious reasons refuses to do so. Just as every doctor is not capable of performing an abortion, every pharmacist does not dispense drugs at your local pharmacy. We are talking about people who are in a position to refuse to do something.
So why all the hatred towards pharmacists who refuse to dispense Plan B but not so much for the doctor who refuses to perform an abortion?
Why no hatred for priests that refuse to perform gay marriages?
What should pharmacists check their conscience at the door while doctors and priests do not.
The gay marriage thing is utterly irrelevant; nobody needs to be married.
Getting back to the doctor/pharmacist distinction, which is a reasonable comparison, doctors specialize; pharmacists do not. Other than veterinary pharmacists, there is a general expectation that dispensing pharmacists fill all commonly available prescriptions. There is no such expectation that doctors perform all commonly performed procedures.
Doctors frequently refer patients to other doctors. When was the last time a pharmacist referred you to another pharmacist?
The problem here is that when discussing almost anything, from math to ethics, we must first establish some unquestioned first principles, or postulates.
If we agree, without proof, that any two points determine exactly one line, and any three non-colinear points determine exactly one plane, and if two parallel lines are intersected by a transversal, then the corresponding angles are congruent, then we can build a highly complex system of geometry. but we cannot unless we begin by agreeing on those basic definitions, axioms, postulates – statements without proof.
You have skipped that step. You’d like me to agree to your ethical conclusion, but I won’t, since I don’t agree to accept your unstated axioms.
The goal of the profession is not public service. Like any profession, the goal is to provide a service that people will pay for. Pharmacists are not public servants. They are business people, and are in the business to make money.
They don’t violate anyone’s freedom. This is the worst sticking point. Violating freedom requires that they impede a course of action to which you have a right. YOU DO NOT HAVE A RIGHT TO BUY PLAN B MEDICATION. That is, you certainly have a right to purchase it from a willing seller. But you don’t have a right to HAVE it, no matter what. A poor woman cannot demand that the pharmacist provide it at no cost, can she? No. She has no more right to buy it than she does to buy anything else: namely, her right ends at a consensual transaction.
The underlying axiom you appear t be relying on is that the pharmacist is a public servant, required to place his business and personal needs below the needs of his customers. This is bull. Pharmacists are professional business people, and are generally entitled to run their business as they wish.
THAT is my axiom.
When I asked for low-dose narcotic cough medicine, I was told “Yes, that is legal without a prescription, but we do not sell it without a prescription.” (paraphrased) I wasn’t happy about it but I didn’t freak out about the store’s policy and demand a fascist law mandating that they sell that legal product.
Enacted by pharmacists who hate and want to punish women, no doubt.