Why no uproar about taxi drivers at the airport who won't transport you if you have alcohol in your baggage, for their moral reasons? Taxi drivers are as much/more of a public service, particularly in so far as service at the airport is concerned.

Why no uproar about taxi drivers at the airport who won't transport you if you have alcohol in your baggage, for their moral reasons? Taxi drivers are as much/more of a public service, particularly in so far as service at the airport is concerned.

Sorry about double post, got an internal server error message.

Matters of conscience are only acceptable reasons for a stand are only valid when you are a leftist

Taxi drivers and medical care... yeah, they're exactly the same thing. My wife is frequently put in several days of discomfort each month because of picky taxi drivers.

Many women don't use contraceptives like the various forms of "the pill" for purely contraceptive reasons. In my personal situation, I had a vasectomy and my wife has painful periods that contraceptive hormones even out. I have known several other women who have even more painful side effects that would essentially require them to take at least one sick day every month without it.

The problem I have is that in a small town or among people who aren't terribly mobile (due to poverty for instance), there is something terribly wrong if the one available pharmacist decides to be an ass and withhold medication. Let's say they believe AIDS is a curse and shouldn't be interferred with -- no drug cocktail for you, suffer God's will and like it. You're going to die of it anways, so it's basically non-essential. STD drugs? Sorry, you chose to sleep around, we're not going to aid and abet your recovery so you can do it again. And only a few STDs are fatal if untreated, so entirely non-essential drugs there too. But at least the pharmacist might pray for you, and that's something, right? In a more open market like the metro area, you'd just tell the ass to Cheney themselves and patronize a more reasonable business. What happens if you don't have that choice? What a doctor prescribes you shouldn't be held hostage to someone who refuses to do their job.

I'm quite curious about what, precisely, the moral reasoning is that these people go through that tells them selling contraceptives is wrong.

Actually it really is pretty simply once you realize the type of medication (e.g. birth control) and the rationale for the refusal of service (religious beliefs) are utterly irrelevant.

A truly “pro choice” person takes the position that human relations ought to be voluntary and a private business (by virtue of allowing its employee to refuse the service) ought to have the right to refuse a particular service on moral grounds, regardless of whether you agree with their beliefs.

Bottom Line: we’re probably going to see legislation about this soon at our legislature. I hope that they take the only principled position which is that (a) a customer has a right to refuse to shop at a pharmacy if they don’t like the services offered, (b) a pharmacy has a right to set its own policies for what it will or will not sell and to whom and (c) an employer has a right to ask its employee to follow its lawful policies or submit his or her resignation. None of these rights conflict with each other except in the minds of those who think that one person has a “right” to extract a service from the other without their consent.

Unfortunately I think what we’re going to see happen is a push to either (a) infringe on the right of a private business to refuse a service that it doesn’t want to provide or (b) infringe on the right of an employer to require that its employee follow its policies on the distribution of birth control devices.

Where to start, where to start.

To Loren's comment about the Muslim taxi drivers who won't transport alcohol: An interesting comparison. The airport's taxi policy requires them to go to the end of the line if they won't take the next available customer. If a pharmacist doesn't want to help a patient, they should get someone who will.

Is birth control controversial? Only among a small number of idiots (not a "significant part of society" as you say). The Pill has been legal in the US for 50 years (thanks to Griswald v. CT, which established the right to privacy -- wouldn't you just LOVE to overturn that one?). Virtually every sexually active person has used some form of birth control at one time or another, and virtually everyone in this country is, has been, or will be sexually active. There is no shame in it, and only uptight right-wing blowhards want to make it shameful. For God's sake, the vast majority of American Catholics use birth control!

It's simpile, Mitch. Let's boil this down to its essense.

If I were a Christian Scientist pharmacist and I refused to dispense any medication, how long do you think I would be employed?

A pharmacists job is to give the patient the correct prescription. Not to hassle her about her sexual morality (and by the way -- hormonal birth control pills are often proscribed for other reasons, even acne medication). The prescription is between the doctor and the patient. The pharmacist's job is to fill it.

If a company isn't going to fire these rogue pharmacists or require them to find someone else to fulfill the patients' needs, they should be required to notify customers that they are a limited service pharmacy. Someone on the Star Tribune's message board suggested a large "LIMITED SERVICE PHARMACY" sign to be placed next to the establishment's name.

Nowhere in my post did I say that the government should require pharmacists to dispense birth control pills. But I do believe that if a company isn't going to require its pharmacists to fill prescriptions, all of them, or get someone who will, then that pharmacy should be required to notify its customers of this fact before they take their business there.

Isn't this more about the "morning after pill" rather than regular old birth control pills? the morning after pill is basically and aborticide (is that a word?). Big difference.

"Is birth control controversial? Only among a small number of idiots..."

Ahh, reasoned discourse, just as we'd expect from Mr. Francl. And only true if you consider 1 billion to be a small number and all Catholics to be idiots.

Probably not a stretch for Luke, but for anyone who can empathize with religious beliefs it tends to shoot up a big "unreasonable" flare that colors how you read what follows.

"Is birth control controversial? Only among a small number of idiots..."

Ahh, reasoned discourse, just as we'd expect from Mr. Francl. And only true if you consider 1 billion to be a small number and all Catholics to be idiots.

Probably not a stretch for Luke, but for anyone who can empathize with religious beliefs it tends to shoot up a big "unreasonable" flare that taints anything else he writes.

Sorry about the double post, Mitch. Got an "internal server error" when I tried to post after a preview, then reloaded the original post to see if the comment got posted anyway. Didn't see it, so I posted again, only to find that I posted twice.

Steve: I'm talking about in THIS country. Your milage may vary in others. As for the billion Catholics against birth control, I suggest you check the surveys. The _Church_ may be against birth control, but in the West, the vast majority of its flock is not, and use it without hesitation.

Colleen: the word is "abortificant", it isn't about that, and the morning after pill isn't an abortificant, anyway, unless you consider the millions of embryos that fail to implant for natural reasons abortions.

These rogue pharmacists have exclicitly turned down women seeking to fill up their prescription for hormonal birth control pills. Read the article.

So if the guy at 7-11 is a health nut, he can refuse to sell me cigarettes? Sorry, I have to go against you Mitch and agree with the hysterical left. At the very least, as mentioned in a previous post, those pharmacies that refuse to dispense this product should inform potential customers up front.

As for the comment about the 1 billion Catholics, I'm willing to bet a fair number of them are on these very pills...

:^)

Unless things have changed recently, birth control pills are still doctor prescribed. i.e. you need a doctor's written prescription, or a validated call from his/her office to obtain them. Additionally, doctors also prescribe birth control pills not for birth control, but for the hormones and other drugs they contain to effectively fight whatever medical malady the patient has. So the pharmacist may think they are taking the moral high ground, but where is that ground when the birth control pills are prescribed for conditions other than birth control? The reason the patient has been prescribed birth control pills is between her and her doctor, and none of the business of the pharmacist, whose job it is to dispense the drugs ordered by the patient's doctor. If I were a female who had been prescribed birth control pills for other than birth control, and a pharmacist at a drug store refused to sell them to me because they felt morally obligated not to do so, you can bet my attorney would be making sure that pharmacist would be spending most of their time in a court of law, as well as the lawyers for the drug store in which the pharmacist worked. I would also work to have that drug store's drug license pulled due to their "arbitrary and capricious methodology used to dispense legally ordered drugs".

hmmm, a convenience nostrum trumps conscience! Nobody needs BCP, but I supose the current zeitgeist should overrule the religious concerns of a small minority. After all minorities should bow to the will of the majority and surrender any faith-based qualms to the state.

Who are you to decide whether or not a woman needs birth control pills? It's none of your business. That's between her and her doctor.

So, to Loren and billhedrick, are you saying you support the anti-alcohol objections of the Muslim cabdrivers? Or are you saying that matters of conscience are only acceptable if you're a right winger?

I have no problems with pharmacies - or pharmacists - informing people about their policies (positive or negative; if they wanna plaster "WE SELL RU486 TO EVERYONE!" on their storefront and let the chips fall where they may, more power to them. Heck, it could be a marketing coup!

And if pharmacies want to fire people who refuse to fill prescriptions, again, that's their prerogative.

But Luke, you said Pharmacies provided "a public service" in your original post. They don't. They're a business.

Whatever, Mitch.

Code of Ethics for Pharmacists: "VII. A pharmacist serves individual, community, and societal needs."

http://www.aphanet.org/pharmcare/ethics.html

Pharmacies are businesses, and they serve the public. There is no contradiction.

Your RU486 example is specious. Only a woman with a prescription can recieve it. It's not as if they give it out like candy.

Whatever, indeed. Such a wonderfully trite, snide brushoff...

RU486 was hyperbolic and satirical. I don't think that was especially opaque.

Pharmacies are indeed businesses, and like most businesses, serve the public, and that there is no contradiction is implicit in my original post.

But your post implies there's some sort of ethical violation to refusing to fill birth control prescriptions.

At any rate, your original statements - birth control and extramarital sex not being controversial, birt control is almost universally accepted - were hopelessly broad and reflect your prejudices more than reality. Even many people who use birth control and have sex outside of marriage are ethically conflicted by both.

Oh, don't be silly Luke, you know there are safe and effective options to BCP. I feel matters of conscience should not be dismissed easily. The fact that we are having this discussion is a good and healthy thing. If a person chooses to suffer financial loss because they can not go against their conscience, they are courageous individuals. Whether they are right or not is not my call.

There are no alternatives that are as simple, convenient, safe, and under the woman's control as the pill. There's a reason why it sparked a sexual revolution. But that's neither here nor there, because the issue is whether or not a pharmacist should be making medical decisions for a patient.

I think there is an ethical violation in refusing to fill a prescription (do your job!), and I think companies should fire pharmacists that fail to do their jobs. I don't necessarily think the government needs to get involved, but if there is an access issue in a community without free competition, I might change my mind.

I intended to stir up controversy on the anti-sex right with my post. Sex outside of marriage and the use of birth control is the norm, not the exception, and conservatives need to get used to it.

The big question is, if male birth control becomes a reality, will the same pharmacists have the same qualms?

Ryan, we should probably, to avoid obfuscation, stick to reality based concerns.

Shop somewhere else. If Joe or Julie Pharmacopia open their own business, and decide to not sell BCP's, they will suffer the market effects. There's no "right" to access to BCP's from any specific source. Docs don't have to do abortions, stylists don't have to offer cornrows, lawyers don't have to do divorces, and, while it is a pain when the nearest pharmicist won't help you, and you don't have a car, it just falls into that big rubric of, it sux to be poor.

Well Luke, this is where we part waves. Conservatives tend to believe in moral constants, that we feel should endure the vagaries of fashion. But the thing that confused me is that I have always thought, from my readings and the lectures that liberals have made through the years that the conscience of the individual is important and should be respected. In fact that's the gist of JFK's "Profiles of Courage." But,if I understand you correctly, you feel people should surrender their consciences to the current Zeitgeist.

Also as has been pointed out earlier Luke, using your standards, gays and lesbians should just shut up since gay marriage is rejected by the vast majority of Americans. Which is it, a living standard based upon Majoritarian decrees which would have free sex and no gay marriage or one based upon an underlying moral code?

Luke:

"I think there is an ethical violation in refusing to fill a prescription (do your job!), and I think companies should fire pharmacists that fail to do their jobs."

Fine. So, basically, do I. However, that's not how people are putting this; rather, they phrase it as some sort of overarching ethical responsibility to fill all orders, regardless of ethics. Inevitably, when (not if) euthanasia becomes accepted by a large part of society (which seems to be the only threshold you recognize for ethics, Luke, which opens up all sorts of interesting issues), will they be expected to do the same?

Because, again, nobody has shown us the overarching ethical framework under which they are supposed to operate. How much personal discretion is involved in the job?

"I intended to stir up controversy on the anti-sex right with my post. Sex outside of marriage and the use of birth control is the norm, not the exception, and conservatives need to get used to it."

Now, Luke, you're getting downright juvenile. Of COURSE it's the norm. But "Anti-Sex Right?" Pffft. Anti WHAT sex? Again (this seems to be your wont, Luke), it's hopelessly broad (to say nothing of smug, self-adulatory, and, in my experience, utterly wrong). Anti-extramarital sex? There are issues, indeed, even among those who indulge. Anti-gay sex? I know very few people on the right who have the faintest interest in what people do with their personal lives. Anti-sexualization of society? Huge issues.

Ryan:

On what do you base this claim?

Mitch, r.e., "anti-sex right," considering the "Roe Effect," I would argue that conservatives do it better than liberals! :-P

Apropos the "Anti-Sex" conservative remark: In my experience (as a HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE HYPOCRITE who finds moral and ethical issues with extramarital sex but occasionally indulges anyway), conservative women are VASTLY better in bed. As in, no contest. Democrat women tend to be hung-up, with huge emotional issues, while women to the right of center tend, when they put out, to be a whole lot more relaxed and just plain into it. It's just more FUN with conservative women.

My background is, by the way, about half and half, left and right. And let's just say the sample size is big enough to have developed an inference or two.

I base it on the medical way male birth control supposedly works.

One of the consistent arguments I hear from opponents of female birth control is that, in some instances, it prevents a fertized egg from taking root in the uterus, thus it's seen almost as a form of abortion in some case.

Male birth control, alternatively, works by effectively dropping the sperm count to zero. Pretty snazzy.

Soooooo, if a pharmacy stocks condoms, and I have yet to find a drug store/pharmacy that doesn't, they shouldn't have a problem filling male birth control prescriptions and, by extension, female birth control prescriptions as well.

But that's just the way my warped little mind works.

And billhedrik, male birth control is probably closer to becoming a reality than some might think:

http://www.askmen.com/love/dzimmer_60/72_love_answers.html

Although, going in for testerone shots every six weeks or so doesn't sound like all that much fun.

The Pill used to come in much higher dosages of estrogen and progestrogen (sp?), but these were causing blood cots and occasional dead women. But they did make almost certain that an egg wasn't released. Now, The Pill comes, to put it oversimply, in reduced strength form since the drug companies discovered that in the reduced strength form. This eliminates (at least almost) blood clots but allows the occasional "breakout" of an egg. It turns out, however, that the pill also causes the womb to be inhospitable to implantation, so this fertalized egg dies. The ethical question is then whether the action of the pharmacist (dispensing the pill) is "causing" the death of fertilized eggs. This is not a slam dunk, but it seems to me that a reasonable argument can be made that she is. Luke just dismisses this by pointing out that fertilized eggs fail to implant quite often, but (how to put this) simply shows he is a shallow thinker. Of course many fertilized eggs fail to implant. And many kids in the world die of starvation. That doesn't give me the right to starve my kid. If a fertilized egg is a human being worthy of protection, I don't have the right to take actions which I know will kill it.

Three issues

1) Pharmacists that are refusing to fill perscriptions are also refusing to transfer perscriptions. That is direct interferance with a dr's orders, and you cannot let "free market society" work its way out when you can't just go to a different store.

2) States are trying to pass laws saying a pharmacist cannot be fired for refusing to serve BCP due to morality issues. Since when do you like government telling you what to do?

3) "Moral" pharmacists seem to have no problem being immoral when it comes to not providing the pill. Suddenly lying is completely okay. Look at either your Concerned Pharmacist for Life leader, who was actually fired for lying about having BCP, or at this man...

---Absolving pharmacist's conscience

Apr. 15, 2005 12:00 AM

Since Gov. Janet Napolitano has vetoed the "conscience bill" that would have allowed pharmacists to refuse to fill abortion and emergency-contraception prescriptions based on religious or moral views, I have a solution:

The pharmacist should just tell the patient that he is out of the medication and can order it, but it will take a week to get here. The patient will be forced to go to another pharmacy because she has to take these medicines within 72 hours for them to be effective. Problem solved. - Dan Gransinger, Scottsdale
The writer is a pharmacist and pharmacy manager.

Interesting question, and I think much harder than either Luke or Mitch is willing to admit. On the one hand we have a liberty interest; on the other we have a public health interest. These can be very hard to balance.

An analogous situation:

Is it right that a person should be jailed without having committed a crime? Of course not. Is it right that a person with a very infectious form of TB spend a couple of hours watching a movie in a public movie theater? Of course not.

How then shall we adjudicate quarantining irresponsible people with TB?

How does that change if the disease is Hansen's Disease (leprosy) instead? (Hansen's Disease is scary, but only nominally contagious and quite treatable.)

How does that change again in a Christian Scientist community, where Hansen's Disease might be fatal?

The answer must come down to a balancing of interests, and this is very difficult in the absence of common values.

My take on this particular issue? If you call yourself a pharmacy (with no special qualification), you should be willing to dispense any legal medication. If you are not so willing, you are advertising yourself falsely. If you are hiring for a pharmacy, you should ensure that you only hire people willing to do the job for which they have been hired, and you should fire people who are not willing to do that job.

Oh, and BTW, proscribe is an antonym of prescribe.

So, can the same be true for the cashier who doesnt want to sell a man condoms or sell a woman the sponge? Where is the line drawn? A pharmacist does not have the right to not DO THEIR JOB.

"I intended to stir up controversy on the anti-sex right with my post. Sex outside of marriage and the use of birth control is the norm, not the exception, and conservatives need to get used to it."

Just because something is the norm does NOT mean conservatives need to get used to it. It may mean conservatives have an uphill fight teaching their kids to abstain until marriage, it may mean conservatives face ridicule for having more than 2 kids, but it does not mean we have to accept it or get used to it.

Hey anti-sex zealots: You might be surprised to learn that people have been having sex outside of marriage for centuries! Good luck teaching your children enough self-shame to prevent them from participating in one of life's most enjoyable and widespread activities.

Again, I re-iterate: if you don't want to prescribe birth control pills, don't become a pharmacist. Don't come in between a patient and their doctor. That is the ethical framework within which to operate.

Mitch, if you want me to believe the Right doesn't have a significant contingent anti-sex zealots, stop shilling for them. Because that's what the right to birth control is all about: being able to decide how to conduct your life in the privacy of your own home, without the Government Preacher or a grandstanding pharmacist telling you otherwise.

"I think there is an ethical violation in refusing to fill a prescription (do your job!), and I think companies should fire pharmacists that fail to do their jobs."

Mitch says: "Fine. So, basically, do I."

Once again, you come around to reason in your comments. Whenever you respond to New Patriot posts, it seems like you spend a whole lot of time on peripheral issues (which is fine) but ultimately agree with the core position.

I value your blog much more than most conservative blogs because you *are* reasonable, and because you're more of a real world guy, not a fundamentalist Christian zealot.

I'd be curious to know just how far apart we are in valueing and balancing personal liberty, privacy, the free market, and the public good.

The job of the pharmacist is to dispense the drugs doctors prescribe, period, end of discussion.
My wife takes birth control pills not because she wants to (in fact she hates the way they make her feel) but as a doctor-prescribed measure to help prevent ovarian cancer, which her mother had. How dare someone presume to refuse to fill her prescription???? I would get the store or regional manager and get that person canned RIGHT NOW after giving them the tongue lashing of their life.
How do these same pharmacists feel about working in a store that also sells condoms? What happens if someone wants to pay for their condoms at the prescription counter after filling an unrelated prescription?
Condoms are used both for birth control and to prevent the spread of STD's. I know, I know, if there was no extramarital sex there'd be no STD's, right? What about the woman who contracted an STD during a sexual assault and doesn't want to spread it to her spouse?
People are entitled to their beliefs. But people with certain beliefs shouldn't take certain jobs. I'm usually with you, Mitch, but I have to disagree here, strongly. And I hate to find myself on Luke's side, because his reasoning about birth control not being controversial, etc., is so lame.
If a pharmacist doesn't like that doctors prescribe birth control pills for a wide variety of reasons s/he should get another job. Don't you dare refuse to serve me when you have no idea why my wife needs this medicine.

Isn't a pharmacist, who refuses to fill a doctor signed birth control prescription, practicing medicine without a license? And if so, isn't that illegal?

"And no matter how much you value your love life, birth control is non-essential..."

Actually Mitch, that is not always true. There are some drugs (I know of at least one for joint pain) that are abortifacients. Without birth control pills, a woman, a married woman even, could get pregnant and have that pregnancy terminated without knowing it is happening. In such a case, depriving a woman of birth-control pills could lead to an abortion.

For a moment I will grant that this pharmacist is breaking the law, as was Martin Luther King.

There is a code of ethics for pharmacists. The person who withheld the birth control clearly violated code #3 and #4:

A pharmacist respects the autonomy and dignity of
each patient.

Interpretation: A pharmacist promotes the right of self-determination and recognizes individual self-worth by encouraging patients to participate in decisions about their health. A pharmacist communicates with patients in terms that are understandable. In all cases, a pharmacist respects personal and cultural differences
among patients.

A pharmacist acts with honesty and integrity in professional
relationships.

Interpretation: A pharmacist has a duty to tell the truth Code of Ethics for Pharmacists and to act with conviction of conscience. A pharmacist avoids discriminatory practices, behavior or work conditions that impair professional judgment, and actions that compromise dedication to the best interests of
patients.

read more here:

http://monkeysponge.blogspot.com/2005/05/poison-pill-ethics.html

Thanks to all for the comments. It's been an interesting thread.

Chuck, one question: Why do you assume I'm not a fundamentalist Christian? I mean, I am, in the sense that I believe in the fundamentals of the Christian faith, and it's a vital part of my "real world".

I guess that's another of those peripheral issues...

Virility Pills - VP RX Male Enhancement Formula
Doctor Approved in both the United States & Internationally!

• Increase Your Size and Your Power
• Improve Sexual Desire & Performance
• Experience More Powerful Erections Click here to see the results of our online customer survey.

Virility Pills VP-RX® Male Enhancement Formula is an all natural herbal supplement containing a variety of herbs known to help promote male sexual desire and function. By taking our formula you should experience an increase in sexual desire, an improvement in your size and performance, as well as increased energy and pleasure during sexual activity.

Virility Pills is uniquely formulated with a wide variety of herbal ingredients knows for safe and effective male enhancement. This formula has been a top selling male enhancement formula for years due to its powerful combination of scientifically formulated herbal ingredients.

Our laboratory uses the highest quality ingredients and manufacturing procedures to produce the finest and most effective formula. Virility Pills our all-natural herbal supplement, remains a top seller among competitive brands, making it the #1 choice for those seeking safe and effective male enhancement.

Supplement your life today! Join thousands of satisfied customers and experience for yourself the proven benefits of Virility Pills. With every order guaranteed, you have nothing to lose!