What's the world coming to? We now have drug stores exercising their right of conscience not to sell tobacco and porn! And to think: the drive to force pharmacists to violate their conscience and sell contraceptives and abortifacients started it all.
Several months ago we heard the story of pharmacist John Lane in Broadus, Montana. Radical liberals filed complaints against him because he refused to (gasp) sell a product he found morally objectionable. The Montana Board of Pharmacy eventually cleared him of all complaint charges.
Lane's issue kicked off a firestorm of debate on this and other blogs in South Dakota, and ended up spawning a bill in the South Dakota legislature which attempted to remove an existing protection for pharmacists to exercise their right of conscience. Ironically, language in the bill called the pharmacist's exercise of conscience "unreasonable government intrusion" rather than the government's attempt to intrude into the moral conscience of the pharmacist. This very bad bill was defeated.
Other states like Wisconsin have also moved to impose the state version of morality (or lack thereof) on pharmacists.
Now "pro-life" pharmacies are starting to spring up, perhaps in response to this government heavy-handedness.
The Washington Post describes one of them:
When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.
Feminists, of course, have a big problem with someone actually exercising their own freedom. Tolerance, the watchword of the Left, only applies when it means you bending to their way.
"I'm very, very troubled by this," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. "Contraception is essential for women's health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women's health."
Certainly some women are prescribed oral contraceptives, not so much to act as birth control, but to help regulate other health issues. But is this the exception, or the rule?
Also, what if the pharmacy didn't exist in the first place? There is no law (yet) that requires we grab someone of the street and say, "Hey, you! We must have a pharmacy in this town. You open one!" What would the woman supposedly "endangered" by this lack of access to contraceptives do if there was no pharmacy in the town at all?
I suppose she'd have to do what women all over South Dakota and the rest of the country already have to do when there is no pharmacy nearby--go to another town, or order their medicine through the mail. Oh, such hardships! If only the answer to all of our needs would just fall into our laps!
As Americans we enjoy more freedom than any people in the world. We even have the freedom to pursue many things that are immoral.
At the same time, other people who believe some of these things are immoral have a right not to supply those things to other people. Imagine that: everyone having freedom!
If we were talking about emergency medical care, something urgent and imminent that threatened loss of life or serious bodily harm, that would be one thing. But that is almost certainly never the case in this issue. Even if it were, most doctors have drug samples on hand in their practice; if the only pharmacist in the area wouldn't dispense contraception, and it was a matter of life and death that the woman have the contraception right now, the doctor could likely give her enough samples to hold her over until she could order her prescription through the mail or get to another town--just as she'd have to do if there was no pharmacy in the area at all.
Several pharmacies around the country have already signed on with Pharmacists for Life International to follow pro-life guidelines.
Some pro-life pharmacies are identical to typical drugstores except that they do not stock some or all forms of contraception. Others also refuse to sell tobacco, rolling papers or pornography. Many offer "alternative" products, including individually compounded prescription drugs, as well as vitamins and homeopathic and herbal remedies.
The article mentions criticism that some pharmacies will stock Viagra for men but not contraceptives for women.
While I understand the perception of inequity, and acknowledge that Viagra and other similar products have been abused by some men, there remain a couple of critical differences. Viagra simply makes sex possible for some men; it doesn't interfere with conception, which some people consider wrong. Viagra also doesn't end the life of a human being after it has been conceived as abortifacients do. Plan B "Emergency Contraceptives" can do this, and so can some regular oral contraceptives.
One pharmacist, John Bruchalski, says he and others like him don't want to "leave their faith at the door." This means that he and others like him take their faith seriously, as it should be.
Any religious faith worth holding in the first place should inform and affect every area of a person's life--even their vocation and how they do their work.
And the government shouldn't force them to violate their conscience in order to do their work. Would we rather have pharmacists (and cops, firemen, stock brokers, doctors, government officials, et al) with no moral conscience? Think about that for a while...
12 comments:
So I imagine you'd think firemen and policemen expressing their faith on-the-job is a good idea too? "No sir, I cannot put this house fire out as it conflicts with my faith: that homeowner is an infidel!" Idiots! -r
Do you think any firefighters would? None that I know of, from any religion.
Would you like a fireman who leaves his conscience at home? Maybe one who thinks: "This guy has a car that's too nice. He's filthy rich. Let his house burn." Or one who put out the fire in your house, and when he went in to make sure everything was out, lifted your jewelry from your nightstand, or went through other of your private things? Is leaving his moral conscience out of his work a good idea?
A fellow pharmacy professor came up with a pertinent example of why pharmacists need to be able to act as autonomous moral agents and not as vending machines. He said that once while working as a recently-licensed pharmacist in Ohio a young man brought in a prescription for Elavil that his doctor had prescribed for depression. The pharmacist new a little about the patient's past history including at least one prior attempted suicide by drug overdose. With this knowledge and knowing that Elavil, a tricyclic anti-depressant, is highly dangerous in the hands of someone who is potentially suicidal because of its toxic effects on the heart if taken in excess, the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription and called the doctor and told the doctor why. With some of the proposed laws that strip pharmacists of their professional judgment and responsibility, this pharmacist might lose his license today, or worse.
In my thirty-some years I have only prescribed oral contraceptives to married women, non-smokers, non-obese with no history of heart disease, high blood pressure or blood clots. I can cite literature that supports each of these criteria on medical grounds. That some professionals have moral compunctions about prescribing or dispensing some drugs is entirely their prerogative. I, for example, will not prescribe "Plan B" because the evidence is that it primarily acts as a very early abortifacient. That is my decision and no one has the right to impose their morality on me.
This is rediculous! I'm not sure which arguement I'm more torked about... the one about why it's okay for men to get Viagra and not for women to get contraception when they need it.
Or suggesting Birth Control isn't a life or death situation. I would argue that it could be looked at as such. Let's think this through... for the sake of argument... let's examine a married couple.
Man needs viagra... man and woman want to have sex.... woman needs her pills because man and woman are not ready to be parents just yet... woman can't get her pills.... man and woman have sex.... man and woman get pregnant... now man and woman are contemplating abortion.
The way to end abortion is through birth control.
The way to end abortion is "not having them." Conception is not some automatic right to kill an unborn child.
You seem to have had an emotional response to this post, rather than a reasoned one. For instance, I explained the difference between Viagra and abortifacients (which some oral contraceptives can act as), but you don't seem to have seen that.
Would you care to re-read it and come back to comment after you've reasoned through it, rather than reacted emotionally?
Rape victims would have access to Plan B at the hospital, wouldn't they?
Besides, ending the life of the womans baby, even though the baby was conceived in an act of rape, would still be killing her own baby. Many women have experienced the same regret from abortion even when their baby was conceived from rape. The baby is still half from her, no matter who the father was.
Morals are relative. This argument supposes that only the pharmacist's sense of morality and their understanding of religion is correct and "sanctioned", which is why this argument is fundamentally flawed.
To start, not everyone interprets the Bible to signify that all form of contraception are "evil". Furthermore, not everyone believes in the same God. This is the reason that government and religion remain separate (or should remain separated). Otherwise, you'll have some people who discriminate against other people on the basis of religion.
In the case of dispensing birth control, this kind of discrimination is reprehensible for two reasons. Firstly, it is reprehensible because one person's sense of "morality" is allowed to impede on the health and safety of another, and secondly because the person being impeded on is always a woman. Thus, this type of pharmacist refusal is discriminatory against women as a group.
Therefore, it is the duty of the pharmacist to dispense medication regardless of the of the other person's religion and gender, regardless of their own views. Discrimination on the basis of such, whether one is a pharmacist or fireman or nurse or police officer, is reprehensible and illegal.
Morality is relative? If so, please provide me with your address. I'd like to come over and see if your car or TV is nicer than mine. If so, I plan on taking them, and I expect you to be tolerant of my morals and not interfere.
Since the my previous argument seemed to fly over a few heads, let me clarify it.
Morals are indeed relative and many times fall into gray areas. While most people agree that breaking into someone's home and stealing their TV or car for personal gain is wrong, what about the beggar that steals bread from the vendor to survive? Should the beggar be punished as severely? Most people believe that murder is wrong, but what if someone attacked you or a loved one and you killed the attacker in self-defense? Should you be tried as a murderer? There are interpretations of the law that allow the gray areas in life to be analyzed with a more subtle lens, but all too often we see attempts to force a black-and-white solution upon them.
Abortion and contraception (although contraception much less so) fall into gray areas. Some people are totally against both, some are against one, some are against neither, all because their beliefs on what is correct or "moral" differ.
Many people in America have tried to define abortion and contraception as crimes. However, that has not yet happened and I don't believe it ever will, because the majority of women and those who love and respect them have a million different attitudes and beliefs towards the issue, yet they share the same one: a woman knows what is best for her, and she is capable of making her own decisions. They acknowledge the grayness and decide not to judge because they know what would happen otherwise: desperation, unwanted children, and the endangerment of lives.
So you aren't going to let me come get your TV or car? How intolerant of you!
The beggar could ask for some bread rather than steal it; he'd almost certainly get some if he just asked. Even if the vendor wouldn't give him some, he could ask a church or other relief agency for bread. He doesn't need to steal. Theft is wrong. Period.
When you kill to defend yourself or others, that's self defense. Murder is the wrongful killing of an innocent person. It's always wrong. Period.
Contraception itself may very well be one of your beloved "gray areas." Biblically, one can extrapolate a fairly solid reproductive imperative which would make contraception immoral, but it's not clearly laid out as such.
Abortion is more clear. We know that the wrongful killing of an innocent human being is murder. The unborn child has human DNA, making it human. The unborn child's DNA is unique from it's mother's DNA, making the child not a part of it's mother but a unique and separate person; the mother has a measure of sovereignty over her own body, but not that of another human being. The unborn child has not endangered the life of the mother or others (and don't get started on this "life of the mother" malarky; not a single child was aborted in South Dakota in 2006 "to save the life of the mother"; further, I've heard doctors and pediatricians testify that there is practically no instance where a child would HAVE TO be aborted to save the life of the mother), so if the child has not committed a capital crime and is not endangering the life of the mother or another person, then the child is innocent, and cannot rightfully be killed. Therefore, abortion is the intentional and wrongful killing of an innocent human being, otherwise known as "murder."
The argument provided ignores my original point: not everyone agrees with the position that a fetus is a human being while in the womb; especially in the earliest months of pregnancy.
While the fetus does have "human DNA", every cell in the body has "human DNA", so the only thing that makes a fetus different is that half of its DNA is foreign to the woman's body. Where people start to disagree is about whether or not a fetus constitutes a human being. It's clearly a potential human being, but does a potential human being automatically have rights that supersede the rights of the woman, who is very clearly a fully realized human being?
Many people from all professions have declared that the moment when life begins is unclear - from doctors to scientists to religious leaders to the average man and woman - all can make reasonable arguments about when life begins, and they can all differ.
So why, then, if there is such disagreement across the board, should the laws be made to conform to a minority that believes abortion equals murder? If one believes this, couldn't one simply not have an abortion? While murder may always be wrong, what constitutes murder remains unclear in this case. Also, if abortion were to be classified as murder under the law, would the women who obtain one be classified as murderers? How long should their sentence be?
As far as any "reproductive imperative" that may or may not be interpreted from the Bible, according to the Guttmacher Institute 60% of women who obtain abortions already have one or more children, so it's simply not the case that women who have abortions never have children. And with the growing crisis of global overpopulation (something that didn't exist in Biblical times), it's not necessarily a safe thing for women to have more than one or two children in the interest of the global community.
Furthermore, as a rejoinder to the argument that beggars can just ask and receive aid, anybody who has visited a third-world country can tell you that asking for free food is sometimes not possible. Often, the food vendors are nearly as poor as the beggars themselves, and in many areas there are no relief agencies to seek food, as demonstrated by the recent hunger riots caused by the global food crisis. In places like Haiti, where people are eating dirt to survive, nobody would give a stranger a crumb of bread for free.
Also, I just consulted a doctor about cases where it may be in the best interest to terminate a woman's pregnancy for health reasons, and they include: if the woman is diabetic, if she is older than 40, if she has cancer or other chronic diseases, and if she is in a comatose state. These situations do occur at low frequencies, but the fact is that they do occur. How is endangering the life or health of a woman a better option? It is a discriminatory, deeply misogynistic policy to do so.
Yes, many people do disagree on when life begins in the womb. However, given the facts I already cited (the unique DNA, the heartbeat within a handful of weeks, same with brainwaves), I think any unbiased person would definitely say you have a young life by around the time most women know they're pregnant...unless of course, the bias of the pursuit of convenience gets in the way.
The instances you mentioned with health problems during pregnancy are, as you admitted, rare. It's rarer still that these conditions cannot be carefully monitored and treated without killing the child to protect the mother. Apparently you would justify killing 99% of the aborted children to maintain the legality of killing 1%...and the "life of the mother" exception has never been in question even under the "strict" 2006 South Dakota abortion ban.
You simply don't make any sense in your justification of stealing; you're simply trying to avoid the reality that there are absolute truths. If the food vendors are nearly as poor as those for whom you would excuse theft, then are not these "excused thieves" jeopardizing the life of the vendors by taking what little they have? Or would you then further justify the vendors to steal from still others...until no one is responsible for anything? Do you see how little sense this argument makes? Or is it simply more convenient to absolve everyone of responsibility...unless, of course, YOU are the one victimized? (Relativity stops pretty quick when it reaches YOUR doorstep, doesn't it?)
Post a Comment