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Illinois’ morning after pill
Some Illinois pharmacists have been in a scuffle with the ACLU and Planned Parenthood the last several years about whether they are required by state law to distribute the morning after pill (known as Plan B) – birth control which some consider to be abortion because it prevents the implantation of a fertilized egg. According to a rule Gov. Rod Blagojevich issued in 2005, pharmacists could lose their licenses for refusing to dispense the pill.
Blagojevich said if pharmacists had moral objections, they should “find another profession” – apt, since it looks like the governor has learned that moral objections are simply a thing to be overcome and ignored.
Last Thursday the Illinois Supreme Court said pharmacists could challenge the rule. But Planned Parenthood representatives have said they believe Blagojevich’s rule will withstand any court challenges.
back to top136 Comments to “Illinois’ morning after pill”
If I own the pharmacy I can say what drugs I will and will not dispense. If you are a PharmD working for my shop and I’m proAbort and you arent and you decline to dispense this med, I can fire you and I will.
I liken this to bars and restaurants and their previous right as private property owners to allow or forbid lighting up. If I own the joint and I say you cant smoke, go to my competitor’s bar down the road.
Now as far as RU486 goes, I would proudly boast that we do not and never will dispense the morning after pill. That boast along with several aisles of OTC prophylactics should lure in lots of proLifer customers
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1. That sounds fair.
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sawunner post 1,
if you were not licesned by the state perhaps.
But I believe you will find a pharmacy is a regulated business and I believe you will find that it therefore must provide pharamceuticals according to state law.
Open a nutritional supplement store if you want to avoid regulation.
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To me, this is one of those “wise as serpents” things. As a Pharmacist, I wouldn’t order any of those drugs and I would just tell the customers the truth, that we didn’t have any of those drugs right now and that they should go to XYZ Pharmacy down the street. Too many people seem to look for a fight instead of avoiding one.
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What definitely is not fair is yanking a license of someone who has a moral objection to something! As someone has pointed out (I’ve heard him quoted on the radio a couple times), government seems to be trying to change people from health-care professionals to vending machines–it’s their job to dispense, not to heal. I wonder if pharmacists were suddenly required to include cocaine in their list of medications (as a street drug, not as a healing agent), if the left would decide that moral objections to specific regulations were OK?
I for one don’t want to live under the kind of government-chosen freedoms the left is endorsing (the government can tell you you aren’t allowed to let customers of a private business smoke, but at the same time it tells you that you have to hand out abortificacents (sp?) or lose your license?! Our founding fathers wouldn’t have recognized aspects of this land.
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Bob, smart solution–you may be required to treat it as a valid prescription, but no, the government is (so far) not looking at order lists, I guess. (I once worked for a drugstore in a senior-citizen community. A few products we kept in very small quantities and only the most popular brands–tampons, for instance, and baby supplies. (We’d keep a few baby toys as grandparent gifts.) A new instruction came through that all our stores had to have a well-stocked baby formula aisle. My manager compliantly ordered two cases of every brand, and stocked one case as an unopened case and one as individual cans. When the expiration dates hit, one by one, we threw out the formula and removed its shelf ticket rather than reordering–a perfectly predictable end to that story. (We were already carrying three or four varieties of formula, the most popular ones, and we did sell a few, but stocking it was really just a courtesy to the occasional customer who needed it. We rarely sold a whole case of cans before they hit their expiration dates, even with only about three varieties. Twenty varieties, two cases of each, was a guaranteed waste of money.) Only a store manager (or a pharmacist) can really say what’s appropriate in a particular store, and moral choices ought to be part of that.
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Cheryl D post 5,
unless of course a precondition of the license was dispensing these materials.
Bob Buckles appears to be the wisesty response here: what is sometimes termed malicious compliance. If one’s inventory is low becuase of poor ship[ments, well what can one do.
And I much prefer living under an environment where the state does not tell me who I can marry but does tell my pharmacist that as a condition of their license they must prescribe what is defined by law as medical necessities.
As compared to a government who can tell me who I can marry BUT does not let me get the drugs I need if an individual decides on their principles that I should not have them.
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My experiences have been with military pharmacies where the counter staff frequently have to tell retirees and active duty soldiers “Sorry we dont carry that med in our formulary, however you can go to Walgreens, CVS etc..” So if a med isnt in the formulary it aint there to be dispensed.
I hope at least the RU486 med has a warning label on it. Just a few years ago a young woman took it and later died. Are the pharmacists going to be shielded from liability if the med recipient has a “bad outcome”??
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When the state starts telling a private business what they can or cannot sell then maybe there is something wrong with the law
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Bob,
I’m not a pharmacist, and I don’t know how pharmacies work, but the more I think about your idea, the more I like it. I can’t see a better way out of this situation. I bet pharmacists could come up with lots of clever ways to quietly and ethically resist dispensing abortifacients.
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Musing, you have it wrong. The state doesn’t tell a pharmacy what drugs it must carry.
Sawgunner, RU-486 and Plan B aren’t the same thing. Interestingly, they are exact opposites, from a physiologic standpoint.
I have no trouble with an employer firing an employee who refused to carry out expected duties. But then, I also have no trouble with an employer refusing to hire someone just because he doesn’t like the looks of him, so maybe I’m not the best judge….
BUT, this thing should work both ways. Just as my boss can fire me, he can also make his own decisions about inventory, based on whatever he fancies.
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Musing,
Why should the state be deciding “by law” what drugs are medical necessities? Should they also be telling a doctor what drugs he must prescribe? No pharmacy carries all possible drugs, and like my example of the baby formula, there can be lots of reasons not to carry certain drugs. (If local doctors don’t prescribe a certain medication but a similar one instead, a pharmacist might choose not to carry the one that isn’t prescribed. For example, if the doctors all specifically tell the patient that the generic is covered by their insurance and the name brand isn’t, and the name brand is five dollars a pill, the pharmacist may waste money stocking the expensive pill.)
Look, as a customer I have sometimes stopped doing business with a store because they’re always out of stock on things I need, or they’re dirty and chaotic, or whatever. I have that right. I don’t have the right to demand any product from a store. And RU-486 isn’t an “emergency” medication that simply must be stocked or people will die…in fact, the pharmacists’ legitimate objection is that people might die if they do stock it (unborn babies and potentially mothers).
If Hitler had started demanding that pharmacies stock what he demanded or go out of business, would you liberals all continue saying, “Hey, they can always go into a different field than the one they trained for, no big deal”? Do you really want the field of medicine dominated by conscience-less dispensers, who’ll let you die if the government insists that a medication is safe and must be sold, even though they personally know more than the government does about that drug?
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kbells post 9,
but of course the mere act of licensing means that the state is telling what the proprietor can and can not do.
It is useful to go backand look at what the drug industry was like before licensing was established and the FDA regulated drugs.
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Cheryl D post 12,
because of course that is what the FDA is explicitly chartered to do, for a start.
You might explore the thalidomide history for some interesting insight into the processes here.
But an ideological the government shouldn’t is flying in the face of many decades of efforts to make the drug industry relatively safe.
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Cheryl D post 12,
but of course not every store can become a pharmacy. There is in fact an effective monopoly position being established. Therefore it is no longer pure consumer choice for selection of vendor.
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stubob post 11,
actually I believe the whole point of these cases and discussions is in fact because the state does within limits tell the pharamcy what it can and can not carry.
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stubob post 11,
the simplest case of course is that in some states it will be illegal to sell tobacco products in pharmacies.
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stubob post 11,
and of course the pharamcist can not carry drugs which have not been FDA approved.
This in contrast to certain situations in nutritional substance stores.
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stubob post 11,
so it would seem clearly established from a variety of perspectives that the state can and does tell the pharmacist what they can and can not carry.
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The following are th rules for pharamcies in Massachusetts:
http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/regs/247cmr006.pdf
secion 6.02 part 4 seems to be the salient paragraph.
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Musing, none of this is disputed. What we’re disputing is that the state can (or does) tell the pharmacy what it must carry, not what it must not.
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Cheryl D post 21,
but I have clearly shown that the state can and does tell the pharmacy what it must carry and I have provided reference to the Massachusetts stuatory authority under which it apears this occurs.
In short, it would appear that your argument is at variance with the facts.
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Cheryl D post 21,
it is perhaps useful to separate ideologically what one would like to be true from what can be demonstrated to be true. It usually makes for a tighter argument.
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Musing, why
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do you
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post
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like this?
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Your link doesn’t say or imply that the state can specify what constitutes “…commonly prescribed medications in accordance with the usual needs of the community.”
Why are so many “Americans” so opposed to the freedom of other Americans?
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LOL, Stubob.
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Burma Shave.
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Musing, you’re doing it again, not listening. I think it’s because you’re convinced you’re right, and if that is indeed the case, we’re not going to get anywhere by trying to change your mind.
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Difficulties arise when two “rights” or serious principles are in conflict with each other.
Letting pharmacies operate unregulated causes problems, so most countries do regulate them. (I believe regulation is much less in places such as Mexico or Thailand, but I am not expert on this.)
Letting people refuse to perform activies they find ethically or morally offensive is also a serious right or principle.
Conflicts such as that keeps wmb threads humming.
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I tend to side with Musing on this one.
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The libertarian in me compels me to side with the pharmacist. However, the pharmacist should be required to direct a client to an other pharmacy.
The only problem which will arise is the issue of accessibility. The pharmacist’s action may deny a woman her right to medication she is entitled to have and her doctor prescribes, especially if its the only pharmacy in town or within walking distance of a woman who lacks transportation. Can a pharmacist be compelled if there’s no alternative? In that case I would side with the woman.
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Oh. Well. Once Random Name takes a side, the matter is settled.
Someone noted above that forbidding pharmacists their right of conscience amounts to making pharmacies into vending machines: insert coins, get Rx, no questions asked, as long as you come bearing a piece of paper saying you’re entitled. I wonder if those arguing against the right of conscience here are forgetting that pharmacists are supposed to be medical professionals with whom a patient can consult about side effects, interactions with other drugs, and such. IOW, they’re allowed to think and make judgments in the patient’s best interest. Presumably, no one would forbid them the right to intervene when they believe a mistake has been made, i.e., double-checking with the physician when a dosage seems high or a large volume of a normally short-term medication is written.
We expect professionals to exercise judgment. Must gun dealers do business with people who don’t come off as good prospects for gun ownership? Must flying schools accept students who can’t be bothered with landing and taking off? Why must a pharmacist who believes there are moral questions and psychological risks associated with abortifacients be required to dispense them?
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“The only problem which will arise is the issue of accessibility.”
Agreed.
If people are seriously concerned that a practice or a remedy that some might find morally objectionable would be therefore hard to find, then they should invest time, money, and effort in a clinic or pharmacy that provides the practice or prescription.
But why bother with simply providing solutions when compelling others to violate their consciences allows the sanctimonious left the luxury of their righteous indignation.
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opinionated teen post 31,
I suggest that if you review StuBob and Cheryl D’s contention they are arguing that the state can not tell the pharmacy what to stock.
I have provided clear material showing that the state can and does.
The issue here is simple.
Now if you are saying that Cheryl D and Stubob are arguing not that the satte can’t but that it shouldn’t, you are right that is a different argument.
But look at Cheryl D’s post 21. She is not arguing that. Nor was sawgunner.
A graphical decomposition of the argument as posed may be useful here.
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opinionated teen post 31,
and I have watched you long enough to know that your logical abilities are sophisticated enough to handle this level of complexity.
So the first question: was the argument that the state could not tell the pharmacist what to stock?
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opinionated teen post 31,
and of course I did open up the question of should the government prescribe what pharmacies can and can not carry. You will note that no onhe wanted to address this question, which I suggest argues that my interperewtaion of what is being questioned is probably correct.
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#38 Musing
“So the first question: was the argument that the state could not tell the pharmacist what to stock?”
No, Musing the first question was in
#5 Cheryl D
“I wonder if pharmacists were suddenly required to include cocaine in their list of medications (as a street drug, not as a healing agent), if the left would decide that moral objections to specific regulations were OK?”
You often point out others’ misquoting posts and arguments.
It seems to me that if one can frame a logical argument in such a way that there is only one correct answer, one can never lose an argument.
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Bob Buckles post 40,
no actually the first question raised was by sawgunner in post 1:
“If I own the pharmacy I can say what drugs I will and will not dispense.”
Cheryl D followed up clearly on this point in post 21.
And I specficially provided clear reference to statuatory authoriuty in Massachusetts for requiring certain pharmaceuticals.
But nice attempt as revisionism!
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Revisionism, get a life. I found the first question mark.
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#35 RR
Oh. Well. Once Random Name takes a side, the matter is settled.
1. My wife will be quite pleased to be informed of this.
2. I think Musing has covered a lot of the issues pretty well on this topic. There is a tendency by some people here to say something along the lines of Musing, your writing is peculiar and I can’t make sense of it.
I would agree that Musing’s writing style is a bit odd (and like he I suspect he has a bit of dyslexia), but on the whole, I think is intelligence and ability to argue a case in a logical manner with support from facts is quite strong.
Also, as the “loyalists” here rather outnumber the “rebels” there is a tendency to “gang up” on someone expressing a view that doesn’t fit one of the main ones around here.
a) I tried to keep a response brief (though I can easily be inspired not to); b) I think the rebels should support each other, though I am quite capable of disagreewing with and criticizing other rebels; c) I am finding Musings posting on this topic interesting and informative and I wanted to express that.
d) Don’t make me explain what I mean. Well, if you really want to, go ahead. Make my …
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I can see that you are so stuck on following the correct rules of logical argumentation that you are missing the forest for the trees.
Many of us on WMB don’t like the government telling us what to do in regards to abortion. We don’t want women to tell a doctor or a pharmacist what to do with another’s body; kill it.
You can do with your body whatever you like. Don’t do whatever you like to somebody else.
Are you so dense that you don’t see our side’s point of view?
Shalom!
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Bob Buckles post 42,
no all questions have a question mark!
Post 1 introduces the first issue being considered and it matches my model.
And no one wanted to talk about should the government provide regulations here: I asked them. So we can say that was not the question.
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Bob Buckles post 44,
I agree with your statements:
“Many of us on WMB don’t like the government telling us what to do in regards to abortion. We don’t want women to tell a doctor or a pharmacist what to do with another’s body; kill it.”
But then don’t say that the government can’t regulate here, since it clearly can.
You are arguing that it shouldn’t.
So then argue that.
I provided the observations on an unregulated drug indsutry and noted the near failure in the U.S. of Thalidomide. The need for drug regulation is well established.
So we can say with comfort not only can the state tell pharmacies what to carry but indeed this is part of regulation which is required to ensure patient safety.
So even the question of should the government be able to regulate here is also a settled question.
In fact what is desired is a special exemption for conservative Christians based on thier interpretation of scripture (for evangelicals) or Papal edict (for Catholics), a point emphasized by Bush’ recent regulatory actions.
And when you go down this path I suggest that one needs to address:
1) what is human life and when does it deserve full protections
- the anti-abortion posters here are notoriously reluctant to discuss this objectviely, with good reason given Exodsu 21:22
2) should individuals religions be able to trump public policy
- this goes to the role of Christianity in the U.S. government, a discussion which Jon Rowe nicely shows does not match the usual conservative Christian argument
Since it seems that conservative Christians lose on the issues and on the facts in the abortion case, it would appear that they resort to emotion to make their case.
And this emoptional case does not appear to be resonating either with the electorate as a whole or the political system in general.
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Bob Buckles post 44,
your comment here:
“You can do with your body whatever you like. Don’t do whatever you like to somebody else.”
is one of the best argument I have heard against government restriction on abortion!
The government should not be regulating the bodies of women. Your perspicacity here is excellent. 
Careful of post 46 point 1 if you are going to try to redefine this point of yours!
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Pretnd
I am a pharmacist.
I believe abortion is murder
I don’t want to participate in murder.
I buy one of each of RU-486 and Plan B.
My anti-abortion friend with a trash can buys them at a deep discount-my cost. I don’t know what is done with them
They’re on my formulary list, but I’m out out of stock.
Are you saying that the state says I have to have a particular product on hand at all times?
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Musing has a good point. So do the right-of-conscience people.
Basically, I would not be able to dispense the morning-after pill (or RU486 for that matter — they’re not the same thing!). I would not be able to refer anyone either, as that would be equivalent to telling someone where to buy a weapon that you know they fully intend to use for murder.
Unfortunately, this means I could not become a pharmacist in some jurisdictions. It would be cheating my employer to refuse to do a service that would be part of my job description.
Also, I live right by a place called “Ralph’s Thriftway”. They had (have?) protesters from both sides for a long time when they refused to stock the morning-after pill in their pharmacy. I don’t know their legal status, but I seem to recall there was some kind of law or ruling. Sadly, I don’t remember which way it went, and if they are defying it if it went against them.
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Bob Buckles post 48,
actually I agreed earlier that the approach you suggest has some potential for short term viability. IN th elong term I suggest your continued short supply will probably result in a law suit which you will most probably lose.
But of course this is not the path typically being taken. People are apparenlty trying to make a point, and their point does not appear to be well grounded on the law.
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Cuthallion post 49,
I suggest that your post is among the most honest so far.
I believe the consequence is indeed as you describe:
“Unfortunately, this means I could not become a pharmacist in some jurisdictions.”
There is an obligation which comes with operating under a government license. As I noted, open a nutritional supplement store and you are apparenlty free of most regulations.
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Musing, we’ve already gone over Exodus 21:22. Here, I’ll post a bunch of different translations so that you can see once again that it could be pulled either way depending on which translators and manuscripts you trust.
KJV: If men strive, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart [from her], and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges [determine].
NKJV: “If men fight, and hurt a woman with child, so that she gives birth prematurely, yet no harm follows, he shall surely be punished accordingly as the woman’s husband imposes on him; and he shall pay as the judges [determine].
NLT: “Now suppose two people are fighting, and in the process, they hurt a pregnant woman so her child is born prematurely. If no further harm results, then the person responsible must pay damages in the amount the woman’s husband demands and the judges approve.
NIV: “If men who are fighting hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely [fn] but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. *fn: Or she has a miscarriage
ESV: “When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine.
NASB: “If men struggle with each other and strike a woman with child so that she gives birth prematurely, yet there is no injury, he shall surely be fined as the woman’s husband may demand of him, and he shall pay as the judges {decide.}
RSV: “When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is a miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
ASV: And if men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit depart, and yet no harm follow; he shall be surely fined, according as the woman’s husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine.
YNG: `And when men strive, and have smitten a pregnant woman, and her children have come out, and there is no mischief, he is certainly fined, as the husband of the woman doth lay upon him, and he hath given through the judges;
DBY: And if men strive together, and strike a woman with child, so that she be delivered, and no mischief happen, he shall in any case be fined, according as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and shall give it as the judges estimate.
WEB: If men shall contend, and hurt a woman with child, so that her fruit shall depart [from her], and yet no mischief follow: he shall be surely punished, according as the woman’s husband will lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges [determine].
HNV: “If men fight and hurt a pregnant woman so that she gives birth prematurely, and yet no harm follows, he shall be surely fined as much as the woman’s husband demands and the judges allow.
And if you’d like to see the Hebrew Masoretic Text and Greek Septuagint translation: http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Exd&c=21&t=ESV#conc/22
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@Musing 51:
Thanks. Fortunately, I’m not interested in pharmacy anyway.
Also, hopefully you will now be able to amend future posts to not accuse us of refusing to go into Exodus 21:22.
Finally, as you know doubt already know, the reason we push for abortion alternatives, enabling of single mothers to care for their unplanned children, and abolition of abortion, are simply because we do not believe that a zygote/embryo/foetus are part of the woman’s body. We believe that (s)he is a separate physical and spiritual entity that deserves equal treatment with adults not by virtue of potential contribution to society or by ability to feel pain or think or reason, but simply because (s)he is a human being.
We believe that science confirms the physical individuality and Scripture confirms the spiritual individuality.
Thank you for being one of our nicer opponents.
^_^
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Cuthallion post 49,
it looks like the was Stormans et al. v Selecky et al. and involved Ralph’s Thriftway of Olympia Washington among others.
Interesitngly enough the proposed regulation provided:
“Pharmacists may ask another pharmacist on duty to provide the medicine, but in all cases the pharmacy must fill the prescription in a timely manner”"
where it appeared that so long as there was another pharmacist who would handle the prescription, a pharmacist could opt out.
As of July 8, 2008 this was before the Appelas court. I can find no record of the final ruling.
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The point here is not what currently IS, but rather what SHOULD be.
A pharmacist SHOULD be able to follow his conscience about dispensing any “medication” that causes death, whether of an unborn child, or a disabled or elderly person.
No one should be compelled to take a life. This matter is SO controversial that to require that half or so of the professionals in a field either quit or violate their consciences is an abusive stance for any gov’t to take.
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Furthermore, why not default to Planned Parenthood, the darling special interest of the left, in these cases?
I’m sure the Planned Parenthood van drivers who pick up children at school to get secret abortions without their parents’ knowledge wouldn’t mind delivering “medication” to kill some more babies to women/female children who don’t have their own transportation for such errands.
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momof5 post 55,
but you are the first to actually raise that.
And why should there be an exception for a relgious perspective which is orthogonal to the medical data?
So lets make it easy.
Should a Christian Scientist be allowed to open a pharmacy, lets make it the only pharmacy in a small town, and offer no phramaceuticals based on thier religious conbvictions?
And your answer?
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Sure. It won’t be long before another entrepreneur sees an opportunity and opens a competing pharmacy.
Should a person be allowed to make dumb business decisions and fail? YES!!
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momof5 post 55,
and lets extend, what about a Pharmaicst who only believes in traditional Asian remedies? Could they open a pharmacy which only provided traditional Asian remedies? Could they be a licensed pharmacy?
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momof5 post 58,
actully the key words you used are:
“Sure. It won’t be long before another entrepreneur sees an opportunity and opens a competing pharmacy.”
which presupposed actual potential for competition.
As noted, licensed pharmacies are anti-competitive by nature.
So the essence of your argument is that it is ok so long as a competing option providing the services exists.
This is of course exactly how the Washington State laws were written and challenged.
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momof5 post 58,
and if no realisitic competiuton for services exists? The classic is the large reatiler who enters a rural area and drives local businesses into bankruptcy. It also occurs when large chains move into relatively suburban areas: the local pharmacist is usually gone in a short amount of time.
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As soon as a service is unavailable, competition steps in and fills the gap.
Unless gov’t is so intrusive and puts up so many barriers to competition that the pool is artificially shrunk. As in, only those who are ok with abortion can be nurses or pharmacists…
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…or doctors.
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What I can see happening is a national shortage of pharmacists, such that rural areas like you described can’t pay enough to entice a pharmacist to staff the pharmacy.
If you drive a large segment of the population out of a profession, you’re creating a “crisis” where there didn’t have to be one.
When you reduce supply, the price of hiring pharmacists goes up. Small towns would be hardest hit, I would think, with the draconian regs you seem to promote.
Talk about limiting access…
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momof5 post 58,
and while my memory is reaching back for this observation, I was under the impression that very little profit was generated from the pharmacy directly. Rather the pharmacy6 provided the context for generating traffic but the bulk of the profit was made on non-prescirtion products. A quick look at most pharmacies will suggest that floor space utilization would support this observation.
So our Christian Science pharmacy could, given good management, effectively never go out of busainess. But it could tie down the opportunity for pharmacies in your area.
I am considering the utility of Christian Science “pennicilin”.
Do you or your children get ear aches often?
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momopf5 post 64,
my point exactly. So rural areas in particular are short of pharmacists. Excellent point. But this is not because of religious conviction, it is because pharmacy school is very difficult and pharmcists are not the highest paid profession and pharmaqcies do not in general as pharmacies make a lot of money.
Now if this pharmacist has religious views which say preclude providing penicillan?
Are you still willing to defend their religious persuasions even if they are the only pharmacist around? What if your child has an earache?
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momof5 post 62 and 64 would appear to be in conflict.
Either competition is going to come in or it is not.
Since you admit to a shortage of pharmacies, it would seem that competition is not coming in. I have provided a suggested economic explanation of why.
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momof5,
unless you are willing to defned the right of a pharmacist not to provide penicillan if your child has an earache, I am sensing an inconsistency in the argument here.
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I am willing to defend the right of a pharmacist NOT to provide penicillin. Even if my child has an earache.
The right to follow one’s religious convictions trumps my right not to be inconvenienced. Period.
I’ll drive to another town if I must to get the meds my kids need. And I’ll take someone else who doesn’t have transportation if THEY need to go to the next town.
You’re way too ready to require professionals to violate their consciences just to keep others from being inconvenienced. The 2 problems are not anywhere close to equal in importance.
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BTW, Musing, I am enjoying the back-and-forth!
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Musing, is there some kind of law that there can only be a certain number of pharmacies per square mile in such and such a population density? I doubt it–and if there is, then get rid of the stupid law, don’t make pharmacists stock medication to which they’re morally opposed. Honestly, a store owner should be able to refuse to carry cigarettes, pornography, anything and all he doesn’t want to carry. And another store can open nearby and specialize in those things. And if a person cannot get one of these medications, again, lack of access is simply not life-threatening…and may in fact save a life.
Do we want to live in a country where the government can tell people in certain professions that they must violate their consciences or go out of business? The “licensing” requirement is simply a red herring. I’m not a “licensed” editor, but a pharmacist should be just as free to refuse to sell a drug that he believes to be murderous as a bartender is to refuse to serve a patron who is already drunk, and as free as I am to refuse to edit pornography. Without freedom to make decisions on moral grounds without the government interfering, we simply have no meaningful freedom at all.
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momof5 post 69,
I commend you on being logically consistent.
I suggest, however, that the law disagrees with your position.
When it came to penicillan, I suspect most of America does also.
Given that pharmacies are in part government sanctioned partial monopolies, the law has apparently allowed reasonable discretion on the part of the state in prescribing behaviors and offerings, as I posted in my link to Massachusetts law.
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Cheryl D post 71,
this actually came up in a discussion last Sunday. It was asserted by a local selectman that there were such regulations, but I have not been able to confirm this,
I can say that in Massachusetts every pharmacist must be licensed withg a rigorous examination AND every pharmacy requires state permission to open and must meet certain minimum standards.
Since phjarmacies do not appear to make much prfit directly, this level of control itself would seem, based on momof5’s comments, to provide effective recution of competition.
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Cheryl D post 71,
when you say:
“Do we want to live in a country where the government can tell people in certain professions that they must violate their consciences or go out of business?”
we do this all the time. Faith healers only practioners are not allowed to become Physiucians for example. Engineers must be willing to accept the basic laws of physics or they can not be licensed as engineers.
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Cheryl D post 71,
given the first amendment, I suggest that there will never be ” a “licensed” editor”".
And indeed no one holds you to any professional ethics save the rules of libel.
There are interesting aspects to formally recognized professions.
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Well folks, it seems to me that this all goes back to Roe v. Wade. Which is a ruling, not a law. Baby murderers seem to have won this last round. Wilberforce kept on coming back until he got what he wanted.
We will keep on coming back the same way.
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Bob Buckles post 75,
ah but we were discussing plan B in general, although we touchedon RU-486.
Plan B is a birth control method, not an abortifacient within the FDA definition as I under stand it.
As such, I believe that Roe v Wade does not apply to Plan B.
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Bob Buckles post 76,
but as of now a direct attack on Roe v Wade seems a bit of a stretch.
You are right, anti-abortion proponents will probalby keep coming back.
But if the present trends continue this will be a minority position except within a belt of the deep south.
Welcome to being a regional political position.
And if this remains the dominant to only issue, you will keep reinforcing the deep minority positon of the strong anti-abortion view.
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Bob Buckles post 76,
and aside from asserting without proof or development that abortion is murder, what is your rational or logic justfying your anti-abortion stance?
If you insist that your ground is murder, please demonstrate how it is murder. This would of course require demonstrating that the fetus is a human being deserving of the protections occurring to human beings after birth (see born alive infants protection act for wording on the problem). We also have to address the unjutified positon required to demonstrate murder. Also explain the rights of the mother vs. the rights of the fetus prior to viability of the fetus.
I suggest you also need to address why a blastocyst of say 10 cells can be differentiated from a 10 cell mass of stem cells. If you can’t demonstrate a clear difference, why does a blasotcyst deserv protection and the stem cells are not?
We can continue.
What I observe is that the anti-abortion posters seem very long on emotion and very short of facts and logical development.
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Regardless of the FDA’s position, people who are opposed to Plan B because of its potential to end life should still be entitled to refuse to dispense based on conscience considerations.
This is akin to requiring licensed engineers who are also pacifists to produce guns or bombs or chemical weapons. Requiring citizens to act contrary to their consciences is abusive.
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Musing, from what I could tell, the argument was SHOULD the government be allowed to tell pharmacies what to stock, though I might be wrong. My standing on said issue is that the government should NOT be allowed to do such, any more than it can tell a Japanese sushi place that it MUST have a California spring roll on the menu. To do such is uncapitalistic, because it tampers with competition. On the pharmacy level, it also tampers with my Bill of Rights-guaranteed right to my personal religious beliefs.
(No one’s ever called my logical skills sophisticated before!
)
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#79 Musing, we are talking about the RIGHT to BELIEVE, and to ACT on those BELIEFS.
Belief requires faith. Not scientific studies, research proof, or any of that.
To be a truly free people, we must be free to choose our own beliefs.
China outlaws faith. The state is all that matters.
I suggest that you argue that faith must take a backseat to a certain brand of science–your particular brand, which has defined unborn children to be “potential” rather than actual human life.
Your position takes faith. So does mine. The fact that “your guys” are in power shouldn’t limit my right to act according to my faith, even if it is contrary to popular assumptions.
Neither of us can PROVE our positions…yet.
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momof5 post 80,
I understand your positoion, but you still seem to be missing th epoint that by being under state regulation, this is a choice which may be removed from the pharmacist. Just like they can not withhold other drugs just because they violate their religious beliefs.
and indeed if you are a registered engineer working for a company of which part of the work is military you may be required to work on the military work.
Don’t work in ap harmacy if your religious beliefe preclude distributing certain pharmaceuticals.
Don’t work in a defense industry if you are a pacifist engineer.
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opinionated teen post 81,
from post 1 by sawgunner:
“If I own the pharmacy I can say what drugs I will and will not dispense”
which became the starting point of the dic ussion.
I suggest that momof5 was the first person who actually addressed the question of should the government have these regulations.
Amusingly even you did not address this path even when I raised it.
My sense is you have not looked carefully at how the argument developed but instead have imposed your sense of what you believe the argument should have been.
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momof5 post 82,
I am well aware that beliefs can not be proved. but if you can not develop the justiofication a belief is simply a statement of “because I say soi”.
IN this discussion, I suggest your assertion:
“I suggest that you argue that faith must take a backseat to a certain brand of science–your particular brand,”
has not arrisen. The argument has been based on the right of the state to regulate the behaviors of pharmacies.
You don’t seem to believe they should be regulated to this extent.
I merely observe that they are regulated to this extent and have provided clear examples of why the general public appears to agree they should be: few parents want to be told that they can not get penicillin for their ailing child just because it violates someone elses belief.
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What of those ro-life pharmacists who were working in the field before these “medications” were even developed?
Must they leave their profession now because someone figured out how to kill babies without surgery????
What about down the road when euthanasia becomes legal? Will pharmacists have to dispense or resign then?
Why would ANYONE want to train to be a pharmacist with such oppressive regulations?!
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momof 5 post 82,
and I note that science is a process AND in effect there is only one process. This makes an excellent and wonderful, but very long discussion.
But this is not germane to the pharmacy regulation discussion as developed so far.
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My point is this–the gov’t is going to have to institute expensive recruitment and training programs to lure replacements for all the God-fearing folk who will avoid the pharmaceutical field rather than violate their consciences.
It is unnecessarily harsh and punitive to religious people.
And society will suffer when people go into that field only for the money. Pharmacists will have to have the scruples of hit men to stay.
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momof5 post 86,
so let me see. A person must get a college educaiton and some graduate work to become a pharmacist. Make graduation at say 25. The first birth control pill came out in the middle 60s (note that Plan B is a high dosage birth control pill and the same effect has been achieved for years by taking several regular birth control pills).
So pharmacists who were practising before birth control pills would be about 68 years old.
Ok, I will grant you that pharmacists who began practicing before say 1965 should be exmpt.
Now for a practical discussion of the majority of pharmacists practicing today.
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I’ve got some chores to catch up on around here now–I’ll try to check back later.
Take over for me, OT!
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Let’s look at the situation at the store:
What is the customer’s reasonable expectation for service? When can conscience over-ride the offering of service? This is a classic 14th Amendment v. 1st Amendment clash. The flow in the court system seems to be favoring the 14th Amend side of things (i.e. equal access to public accommodations/goods).
Is there not a general public health concern here? Can we have providers stopping delivery of a drug because of matters of private conscience? Do pharmacies have this freedom? Perhaps if they are owner-operated and/or a stand alone. At the very least, there should be some public record of those pharmacy workers who have asserted their right to conscience.
What further complicates this matter is that the action of Plan B is far from understood. While some have hypothesized that in some cases it may function to prevent implantation of the fertilized egg, this is far from agreed upon. Indeed, we might ask whether the right of conscience has a Bayesian aspect to it: must Plan B meet some threshold of preventing implantation, some frequency for the right to be reasonably asserted? Should we consider failure to implant a function or a side effect of Plan B?
Again, can there be a right to conscience if the science is not understood?
And on implantation: this fertilized egg is a far cry from the situation described by Exodus 21 as Cuthalion noted in #52.
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momof5 post 88,
I am unaware of any specific governmental programs to recruit pharmacists. What program is this?
In a capitalist system if there is a shortage of practioners in a particular field, the market will of its own accord provide new members, right.
And as I already agreed, I will waive the issue for pharmacists who began practising before say 1965.
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Harris post 91,
generally a well developed discussion. The public accomodation observation is critical here as is the expectaion of service.
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Cuthalion post 52,
my apoloigies on missing your post 52.
As you note:
“Musing, we’ve already gone over Exodus 21:22. Here, I’ll post a bunch of different translations so that you can see once again that it could be pulled either way depending on which translators and manuscripts you trust.”
and all I ever argue for in this case is that the Bible is not, as you note, clear on this point.
I do not argue that the Bible supports abortion, only that the Bible does not clearly condem abortion and as such Biblical arguments are at best as you note, mixed. Further, traditional interpretaiton of Exodus 21:22 has in fact been understood to mean that abortion is not condemed, noting as always that just because an interpretation is traditionally held does not make it a valid interpretation.
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A while back I said that if we granted pharmaceutical right of refusal (which we should) the only real problem was accessibility. If we allow the pharmacists a choice to stock Plan B, women in non-urban areas may have problems accessing said medication. Ken suggests that benevolent groups who advocate for women’s rights should take care of it. As I support gov’t mandated universal health care, I would suggest the gov’t has an obligation to make Plan B available regardless of location ie equality of care.
Equity of care is a substantial issue for large decentralized countries such as the US and Canada. And in practical terms, rural health care doesn’t approach the level of care in urban centers in Canada — gov’t mandated or not. The problem will then arise if a pharmacist has the right to further limit the health care by not stocking Plan B, I would argue the right to access health care cannot be compromised by someone else’s exercise of conscience. In this I reflect the social democratic practice of weighing the right to health care and equity over the classical liberal consideration for freedom of conscience. Note this conflict will only occur in limited situations and when possible in urban areas pharmacy should not be forced to stock Plan B.
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cuthalion post 53,
and of course with a mixed interpretaion of Exodus 21:22 and no other clear statements on abortion, ones interpretaion of Biblical positions regarding abortion are inductive interpretations which can not be explicitly supported.
And the effect is to remove Biblical arguments from the discusison which if you look carefully at this discussion, you will see has in the main been effective.
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HRW post 95,
excellent post, which ties back nicely to Harris’ comments on expectaion of servcie and my cxomments on effectively state regulated monopolies.
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HRW post 95,
however when you say:
“Note this conflict will only occur in limited situations and when possible in urban areas pharmacy should not be forced to stock Plan B. ”
there arises the potential argument of equal application of the laws.
As a practical manner, in fact, most right of conscioence laws as posed allow the refusal of service if there are alternatvies avasilable, much as you suggest and describe.
In point of fact this qualified right of conscience has been deemed not acceptable by certain conservative forces as noted by the case in Washington.
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Pharmacists are regulated and there is a certain amount of red tape associated with running a pharmacy. Government regulation of prescription drugs is something everyone except the most ardent libertarian will argue is a good and necessary thing. The discussion should then revolve around the extent of regulation. Some will argue that drugs should be regulated only to quality, effectiveness and side effects. Others will stipulate a need for licensing for all those involved in any part of processing and still others will argue that the state has the right to stipulate what must be stocked. I would argue that the public good must be large enough to outweigh private harm. Thus, to compel a pharmacist at Wal-Mart to dispense Plan B when he can simply ask the guy next to him to do it is ridiculous. Similarly, if a pharmacist is willing to refer the client to an other pharmacist 4 blocks away, compulsion isn’t necessary. However, if he’s the only pharmacist 100 miles in any direction, compulsion is justifiable.
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What I would actually worry about is legislation by lawsuit (oh where is NJL when we need her?). What happens if the right to conscience (rtc) results in a woman’s pregnancy — and to make this nicely actionable, a birth of a special needs child?
Does the pharmacy’s failure to fill a prescription put it on the line for the damages (in this case the support) resulting from that failure? How much would a life-time of care for a special needs child be worth?
Now go back to our pharmacy, how does it head off this situation? The easiest path will be to restrict or control access to customers by right to conscience staff.
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What the conservative Christians on this board are essentially arguing for is the right of an employee to refuse to do the job they were hired for and to force the employer to pay them for not doing it. The vast majority of pharmacists work for an employer, usually a chain. If they refuse to do the job they were hired for, should the employer not have the right to terminate their employment?
And if we go down that road, can an employee of a grocery store refuse to ring up the purchases of meat if they have a religious or moral objection to it? Could a Muslim waiter refuse to wait on Jews or Christians? Could 7th Day Adventist at McDonald’s refuse to ring up the purchases of a burgers?
And do we really want a country where one has to pay attention to the religious signs on the front of stores, pharmacies, restaurants, et al to know whether one will be able purchase goods or services?
Some of these pharmacists have not only refused to fill legitimate prescriptions, but have refused to let another pharmacist fill it. And why should an employer be forced to have two pharmacists on duty simply because one has a moral objection to doing his or her job?
Finally, in many communities there is only one pharmacy. So what are the people who live there supposed to do? What if the person doesn’t have a car or any way to get to another pharmacy or another city? And what if a woman is raped and needs the MAP on a weekend or holiday when there is only one pharmacy open? What if a single woman is suffering in pain from Endometriosis and needs her birth control Rx filled, and the pharmacist objects on religious grounds? Why should her moral right to the medicine that will alleviate her physical suffering be trumped by a pharmacist’s religious objections?
No,no. If you are an pharmacist hired by a store to do a job, there are 3 options:
1. Do the job you were hired for.
2. Quit if you cannot do the job.
3. Open your own pharmacy and set your own rules.
Otherwise the employer should have the right to terminate you for refusal to perform the job they hired you to do.
If religious or moral objections take precedence over the rights of an employer to run their business as they see fit, chaos ensues.
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Anlir,
I think you probably haven’t read this thread very closely. Few of us are saying that a pharmacist has the right to refuse to sell what his employer tells him he has to sell (or that he shouldn’t quit and go elsewhere if he can’t comply). We are saying that the government has no business saying what individual stores, and individual pharmacists, must sell, and that government has no right to pull a license because of a conscience issue.
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Musing: this post tries to address something you’ve been pointing out.
…
Ok, I’ve been naughty again and skipped the last 20 posts or so, but I wanted to post this before I forget it.
What about specific conscience exemptions? A specific law that says that “a pharmacist is not required to dispense a drug he or she regards as an abortifacent”, or “no medical worker shall be required to administer or prescribe lethal medications”.
My state (WA) just passed an assisted-suicide bill. As far as I could tell from the summary on the ballot, it was a lot tighter and harder to abuse than Oregon’s. I’m still not happy about it, but at least it’s someone doing something (or having something done) to theirself by their own decision, and not what I and many others (perhaps 25% of those acquainted with the issue) regard as harming someone else without their consent.
Several medical places (Catholic hospices, etc.) are refusing to participate in the lethal prescriptions. However, I’m pretty sure the law only makes the drugs legal, but does not require anyone to provide them.
If we’re going to allow something controversial, that’s how it should be: legal, but not required. I also think that if you use languange specific to a given procedure or medication, you can appease us pro-lifers while avoiding such farces that Musing mentions with the Christian Science pharmacist refusing to dispense penicillin.
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Harris 91: Should we consider failure to implant a function or a side effect of Plan B?
Again, can there be a right to conscience if the science is not understood?
Isn’t that what Plan B is for? It prevents implantation. That’s why it’s called Plan B. You take it if your normal birth control didn’t work or you forgot it. Preventing implantation of fertilized eggs is what it does. If it doesn’t prevent implantation, it didn’t work. So it’s a function.
Or maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe I need someone to explain it to me again. Or I could be productive and re-read the article that explained it all…
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HRW post 99,
I suggest as evidenced by the case in Washington state, the effectviie law matches yoyur comment here:
“Thus, to compel a pharmacist at Wal-Mart to dispense Plan B when he can simply ask the guy next to him to do it is ridiculous. Similarly, if a pharmacist is willing to refer the client to an other pharmacist 4 blocks away, compulsion isn’t necessary. However, if he’s the only pharmacist 100 miles in any direction, compulsion is justifiable. ”
Again as deonstrated by the challenge to the Washington law, it does not appear that this position satifies certain of the anti-abortion forces.
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Harris oin post 100, indeed goes for the jugler of the problem here. I raised the earache question which Cheryl D shrugged off. However in the general case either unwanted pregnancy (ifyou are to challenge this term, be careful here) or even life can be at stake.
The right of someone to kill you based on their religious beliefs (consider withholding antibiotics in the case of sever pneumonia) would seem to be a bit over the top for almost anyone.
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Cheryl D psot 102,
and as Harris pregnancy example or my infection example suggest, it would seem your concern:
“We are saying that the government has no business saying what individual stores, and individual pharmacists, must sell, and that government has no right to pull a license because of a conscience issue. ”
allows a pharmacist to impose their individual religious beliefs on you to the potential detriment of your health.
The pharmacy is regulated to ensure the good of the community. One of the goods which is regulated (as I noted in the Massachusetts regulations) is the dispensing and availability of approppriate medications.
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Cuthaliuon post 103,
but of course when you say:
“If we’re going to allow something controversial, that’s how it should be: legal, but not required”
we open up what is controversial.
If you look carefully certain groups are now arguing that oral contraceptives are controversial. Indeed Plan B is but a high dose oral contraceptive.
In the end, controversial is resolved in the political marketplace. And at this point, I suggest that the use of Plan B as a cause celebe by the anti-abortion forces is not working in the market place.
Note we are admitting the right for the state to regulate what is and is not diuspensed, so the intiial question would not seem resolved. Now we are arguing how the state determines this.
And at the end of the day politics is how this is resolved. One would hope politics based on the best objective data available, but as has been noted in this discussion (c.f. Bob Buckles comments on the anti-abortion foerce) objective evidence seems of little consideration in the discussion (otherwise when a request to explore the objective evidence is raised it would be addressed and not ignored).
And if the decision is to be made by pure political power, then in all areas except a portion of the deep South, this objection is a minority positon and will undoubtedly be over ruled in time.
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cuthalion post 105 or so,
as I understand it Plan B is a very high dose birth control medication. Prior to Plan B it is my understanding that similar effects were obtained by taking multiple pills of ordinary birth control medications.
In the general case it is my understanding that it acts as a birth control medication to supress ovulation.
If the woman has ovulated (small portion of the month) and the egg is fertilized, it appears that Plan B also suppresses implantation, but this is apparently not the primary mode of action.
Do note that a number of approved birth control methods also work by preventing implantation (IUDs foir example), so the prevention of implantation as a birth control method goes back thirty+ years at least.
Indeed if the goal is to preserve all embryos even if they have not been implanted, one is facing a daunting challenge indeed: consider the various in vitro fertilized embryos: they are not implanted either.
And to add a twist to the discussion, it appears that these fertilized but not emplanted embryos are deemed property under the law, not individuals.
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To follow up on Musing and Cuthalion:
Plan B works in that time frame between sex and ovulation. The primary function is to prevent or delay ovulation. This accounts for the 72-hour time frame, and why access to the drug is critical. To the degree that Plan B functions to stop pregnancy by stopping ovulation (its principal mechanism), the potential time-delay from assertion of conscience does place a burden on the woman.
As to the argument about implantation. Plan B does nothing to the fertilized egg itself, it kills nothing. What is hypothesized is that it prevents implantation (so manufacturer, FDA), but evidence here is less clear. Research (2005) using monkeys found no impact of the use of a emergency contraception (Plan B) on implantation (placebo and Plan B yielded similar rates). I would take that as at least being suggestive, if not perhaps definitive (i.e. I don’t find others referencng the study, so I am cautious about how much weight to give it).
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Musing, I see you accusing me of “shrugging off” something that I don’t remember replying to at all. For the record, I generally don’t read your posts. On this thread, I’ve been skimming them and interacting with some of them. But you post too frequently (and often too irrelevantly) for me to read them all. So, quite frankly, since you didn’t say what post this earache post was, I don’t even know what it is I’m supposed to have “shrugged off.”
Honestly, it really does boil down to pharmacists should have a right to refuse to sell something that bothers their conscience and that is not life-saving. (All this stuff about “What if he refuses to stock a heart medication” or whatever is a red herring–that simply isn’t the issue here.) A pharmacist should be told what he may NOT sell (cocaine, for instance), but he should not be told what he MUST sell. Another pharmacy can open if the need is present. There is no “constitutional right” or “life-threatening medical necessity” for the morning-after pill, and certainly none for RU-486. And deciding to run any pharmacists with a conscience out of business is not a good strategy for a free country or a moral society.
Do those sound like talking points, like I won’t deviate from script? There’s really nothing more to be said, and you’ll never change my mind and make me think that the government has the right to punish people for refusing to sell harmful, non-essential medications. If I wanted government coercion, I’d move to China.
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Cheryl D post 110,
now I believe this is the first itme you have entered the constraint of life saving:
“Honestly, it really does boil down to pharmacists should have a right to refuse to sell something that bothers their conscience and that is not life-saving.”
rather than a general right of conscience. We had the case of Christian Scientists, and it was considered acceptable for them to dispense no pharmaceuticals based on their religiuous beliefs.
In any event if we accept that at some point during the pregancy the fetus is life deserving of protection AND we note that some pregancies may occur under conditons where pregnancy is not an option, then I suggest Plan B is potentially life saving and would fit your exemption: it can prevent a pregnancy which otherwise may occur and which may need to be terminated.
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Cheryl D post 110,
of course I don’t expect to change your mind. But in the political context wehich is developing whether you change your mind or not is increasingly moot.
And failure to deal with the issue on an objective basis will increasingly marginalize your participation in the conversation.
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Another tie-in to all this is the requirement for physicians to perform certain procedures, or for nurses to assist in them.
Should all hospitals and clinics offer abortions, even though they are legal? Should there be a right of conscience to refuse to abort a baby? Or to refuse to perform IVF? Or to refuse to fertilize more embryos than a woman is willing to have implanted?
Should all med students have to observe an abortion? Or perform one before being “licensed” to practice medicine?
None of us, that I can remember reading, anyway, are advocating that employees undermine their employers. But business owners, whether of a pharmacy or a doctor’s office, or of a hospital, should be able to decide whether to participate in these activities, and whether to exempt employees from performing them.
If I were running a hospital, for instance, I certainly wouldn’t want to limit my employee pool. Nurses are hard enough to find as it is. Many owners/managers are willing to work around employee conscience exemptions. The Gov’t should limit its interference to the minimum necessary (ie, not allowing pharmacies to sell placebos in place of actual meds, etc…)
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Musing,
Not sure what you mean in post 113 by “failure to deal with the issue on an objective basis.” I believe that’s what I’m doing. Believing it to be wrong to kill the innocent, and accepting that as a starting point on moral questions such as this one, doesn’t affect one’s “objectivity” at all, unless you define “objective” as “holding a relative view of truth,” which has never been the definition of “objective.”
The political climate may be changing. Our leadership may soon be extremely unfriendly to Christian principles. That doesn’t mean they’ll be right, or that I have to agree with them.
It’s perfectly acceptable for Christian scientists not to dispense medication, as I don’t dispense medication. He can’t be a pharmacist, of course, if he doesn’t believe in dispensing medication, but that’s a completely different, and truly irrelevant, issue, both because he wouldn’t want to be a pharmacist and would never go through the training to be one and because his boss can legitimately fire him if his conscience suddenly doesn’t let him dispense any medication. This is sophomore-level argumentation and not really worthy of you. (OK, you really do a lot of arguing on this level, but you know better.)
My point in saying “life-saving medication” is twofold–one, we aren’t arguing for a drug that will save one’s life during an asthma attack or a heart attack, or anything at all critical to health. (The argument you make that it might be dangerous for a woman to get pregnant, and thus she might need plan B, strikes me as rather silly. Such a woman can act before sex and doesn’t have an “emergency” afterward. And her convenience shouldn’t obligate any pharmacist to offer a drug he believes to be morally wrong.) But second, not only is this not life-saving medication, it’s potentially life-ending medication, and someone who is in the healing profession has every right to refuse to kill!!! Is this that hard to figure out? If it is, your problem might not be bad use of logic, but a weak comprehension of morality.
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momof5,
in light of the hypopcratic oath, your comments on doctors are perhaps more interesting than the comments on pharmacists. There is potentially a professional ethics argument to be made.
So lets look at some boundary conditions, if the life of the mother is in dange,r does not the doctor under the hypocratic oath have to perform an abortion to save her life?
If the mother can not count on this respoinse from the doctor what does it do to doctor/patient trust?
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Cheryl D,
I have seen a number of faith arguments raised, conscience arguments raised, but I don’t believe I have seen arguments raised based on the actual potential for harm to the patient for example.
In fact with Plan B we are, as Harris notes, introducing no new challenges to conscience which have not been in place for perhaps 40+ years.
I suggest then that the Plan B argument at least is not based on objective data but is a subjective argument. There is a way to refute this if you are to be rigorously consistent: you have not taken this path AND to take this path will open even more logical challenges to your position.
As such, it would seem that you are willing to let the issue fall back to a pure political process. As such, I sense that you are perhaps on the losing side if we are to argue based on pure power politics.
I would hope it would be decided on other grounds, but arguments such as I have understood you to present would not seem to allow reasoned dialog: you appear to have your belief and that is that.
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Musing, now I’m just confused. I stated the argument as I saw it, and my position on such. If I’m wrong about the argument, please just tell me instead of hinting at vague things with smiley faces. I’m pretty sure you’re not nearly as smart as you think you are. I’m pretty stupid, personally, so use small, easy-to-understand words instead of tiptoing around. Refute my arguments plainly, and I will respond the best I can. Then we can have an argument. Seriously, man, I can’t understand anything you’re talking about.
Thank you.
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opinmionated teen,
I am happy to admit you posed the argument as you saw it.
What I asked is what actually occurred. I reference post 1 by sawgunner:
“If I own the pharmacy I can say what drugs I will and will not dispense.”
and until post 55 with momof5’s comment, I am finding a continuous discussion of whether the government can tell the pharmacist what to carry and I provided clear references that at least in Massachusetts they can.
Oner thing I can say with certainty: you are indeed very smart.
However, it does seem that you let your preconceptions cloud what is actually under discussion and what a given idea truly means.
I am going to wager that you will do very well in college (if you choose to) and will be successful when you graduate. I sense however that in the process you will face some challenges regarding your present preconceptions, and the outcome of this challenge would seem most plausibly to be:
1) you will focus on protecting your preconceptions (what might perhaps be called the McDowell syndrom)
2) you will abandon your preconceptions, most probably quite forcefully
There is a third option:
3) you will learn to measure when your preconceptipons are appropriate and when they are not
I am crossing my fingers that you will go for option three.
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opinionated teen,
when you suggest:
“so use small, easy-to-understand words ”
I will demure for several reasons.
Among them are:
1) simple easy to understand words typically have not so simple but hard to understand meaning: there tends top be much ambiguity (consider worry vs.anxiety)
2) simple easy to use words tend to have the characteristic that they imply strong hard positons, when generally the situation is much more nuanced
3) there is already so much controversy regaridng my posts that if I chose simple words it would seem that the discussions would explode: the more complex words tend to diffuse the discussion
4) because I choose to
I note that others choose to use simple ill defined words. Why do I not have the right to use more complex potentially more precise words?
And so to irritate you perhaps further, when a person starts cirtiquing your style rather than the substance of your posts, what does this usually indicate?
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opinionated teen,
your performance during the worry discussion would seem to belie your statement:
“Seriously, man, I can’t understand anything you’re talking about.”
I usually hold on to my wallet when some one reaches this level of self-modesty and say no I will not buy a bridge from you!
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opinionated teen,
and in like vein, I wish you would use language appropriatly complex enough for the complex topics we are discussing, that you would be able to do the logical developments your self rather than insisting I do it for you (although I will be happy to critique and assit in the development of your logic), and that you would realize that critiquing style means you have conceded the argument.
Now see how this sounds, yet it is as equally valid as your post is.
Realistically, what right do I have to expect ou to be like me, or for you to expect me to be like you?
Now if you can indeed find a failure in my logic or error in my facts, this will be a delightful discussion.
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I’m just asking you to speak as plainly as possible. What makes sense in my brain often comes out completely nonsensical in print or out of my mouth. Perhaps it is the same way with you? Please, don’t hint or use hyperbole or try to make me think hard about what you’re saying to figure out what you’re saying. I don’t want to figure out what you’re saying, I want to consider your opinions and compare them to mine. Discussions would go much smoother with you if you spoke more bluntly.
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opinonated teen,
I am spaeking as plaingly as I have been trained. I spent 27 years of formal education being trained in a specific model of argument development. It has a number of things which make it useful, one of them being avoiding a set of specfici types of logical failures which crop up in this blog often. And watching you it is as effective with you as it has been in the remainder of my training.
And opinionated teen, I have a very high respect for both your present understanding and your potential. My language will indeed take that into account.
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opinionated teen,
why should I be blunt when it will almost certainly result in misinterpretation? I have actually tried it here and it results in much poorer discussions.
Argumentation and logic is hard. There is nothing else whch can be said about it.
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Very well, Musing, then I ask that you be blunt with me. I will ask you if I don’t understand, and by all means correct me if I misinterpret.
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opinionated teen,
all right I will try.
Lets see how it works.
You are a very bright but somewhat intellectually lazy person, but if you need me to spoon feed you, given the potential you are showing, I will try.
But I tend to be impatient with people intellectually, so I trust you will not try my patience too much.
There how was that?
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OT, most people here eventually find it not worthwhile to ask Musing to communicate the way “normal” people would. I don’t think he/she is more intelligent than the average person, or a better debater, just a confusing one, and one who’ll debate definitions of terms endlessly. So if you get frustrated and decide you are wasting your time, that’s OK. (I nearly always skip his posts, which saves a lot of time. I really usually only see what he says when someone else quotes him, and then sometimes I get involved in the discussion a little bit, if I find something with which to respond.) In other words, don’t sink a lot of time and effort in here, and let stuff like his calling you “intellectually lazy” roll off your back.
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We’re off to a good start, Musing.
Thank you.
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The duty of the pharmacist is to dispense those medications a doctor prescribes. If you can’t do that in good conscience, find another line of work.
If you went to a steakhouse and your waiter said you can’t have a steak because the chef on duty has a moral conviction against eating meat and refuses to cook it, you would no doubt find that pretty absurd, yes?
But you want a pharmacist to have the right to countermand a doctor’s orders? It’s all well and good to say the patient can go to another pharmacy, but (1) in many smaller locales there are not that many options and (2) why should she have to?
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SteveG post 130,
I think you are correct:
“The duty of the pharmacist is to dispense those medications a doctor prescribes.”
and this appears to be how the laws are wrriten.
The pharmacists is, however, supposed to check that something is not amiss with the presecription, check for unintended drug interactions, and explain side effects to the customer: the pharmacist is not a pure automoton.
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Also, if the pharmacy doesn’t carry what the doctor prescribes, the customer needs to go somewhere else. The pharmacist is not the physician’s “assistant” but an independent professional who probably knows more about medications than even the doctor does.
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Cheryl D post 132,
well actually i most cases they will order it for you.
but there is, as I have noted in the Massachusetts regulations, that they will stock those items typically considered necessary. Plan B has been discussed in regulatoryu proceedings regularly as one of these items.
Amazing if you look at my last sentence in my earlier post and your last post, we perhaps agree on something.
However, it is the doctor who is responsible for determining the drugs used to sustain the patients health, not the pharmacist.
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I see no way a Plan B pill would “sustain the patient’s health”, except in special cases, in which said patient would be better suited going to the hospital than their pharmacy.
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opinionated teen,
and if the patient was physically incapable of undergoing a pregnancy?
When one says “no way” one is almost always wrong (do check the two different syntaxes
).
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When you get your prescription filled, do you want it filled by a pharmacist with integrity? When you are too sick to care for yourself and you have to be admitted to the hospital, do you want your physician—the one who writes your orders, makes your diagnosis, does your surgery or performs your procedure—to be a physician with integrity? Of course you do. Everyone does.
That, to me, is the real question regarding rights of conscience. It is wrong to ask a pro-life pharmacist to destroy his or her integrity by prescribing an abortifacient. It is wrong to ask a pro-life OB/GYN physician to destroy his or her integrity by asking that doctor to perform an abortion, refer for abortion or otherwise aid a woman in obtaining an abortion.
Secretary Leavitt, head of Health and Human Services, recently signed a regulation requiring pharmacies, healthcare systems, hospitals and clinics to honor the rights of conscience of pro-life doctors, pharmacists and other health care providers. Based on that order, I suspect the Illinois law will be challenged and struck down.
Unfortunately, with Senator Obama becoming president and a pro-abortion majority in the House and the Senate, our rights of conscience will be in serious jeopardy. Those of us in this battle covet your prayers.
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