Some things just make me want to scream. This is one:
A fourth-generation pharmacist whose drugstore still sits on the courthouse square of his conservative small town downstate, State Senator Frank Watson knew exactly what side to take when Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich ordered pharmacies to fill prescriptions for women wanting the new “morning after” pill, even if it meant putting aside their employees’ personal views.
“The governor is trying to make a decision that must be left to the pharmacy,” said Senator Watson, whose family business, Watson’s Drug Store in Greenville, Ill., does not stock the pill. “It’s an infringement on a business decision and also on the pharmacist’s right of conscience.”
It isn’t the pharmacy’s decision, it is the decision of the DOCTOR WHO PRESCRIBED THE MEDICINE AND THE WOMAN WHO WILL USE IT. You are nothing more than someone wearing a sanitary labcoat who is paid to distribute the CORRECT DOSE.
This is not a morals issues. This is an issue about buttinski creeps trying to impose their values on others. Do you stand in judgement of overweight people when they go in for their blood pressure meds?
How about someone who needs an antibiotic to combat a sexually transmitted disease? If they are single, should you deny it so they can suffer yuor God’s wrath? If they are married, do your morals dictate that you call up the patient’s spouse?
These wingnut lunatics need to get their asses in line, check their faux morality at the countertop, and start issuing the damned pills that the people who went to MEDICAL SCHOOL FOR TEN YEARS are prescribing. Otherwise, turn in your damned labcoat, turn in your government license, and run off to seminary school. The church is short a few good men, although most of the priests and ministers I have known are not judgemental know-it-all creeps like these jerks.
And, as usual, guess who is adovcating this lawlessness:
“This is going to be a huge national issue in the future,” said Paul Caprio, director of Family-Pac, a conservative group that urged pharmacists in Illinois to ignore Governor Blagojevich’s rule. “Pharmacists are coming forward saying that they want to exercise their rights of conscience.”
Rick
The theocratic Great Terror continues to spread its sticky tentacles.
Be very afraid.
Not.
Cordially..
Gregory Litchfield
If the pharmacist in question owns his own pharmacy, then he can refuse to fill any order he wishes for whatever reason he wants. On the other hand, of the guy is working at a CVS, and company policy is to always fill a valid perscription, then he should be canned.
I just don’t see how the state can coerce a pharmacist who owns and operates his own business to fill a perscritpion. Like doctors and mental health professionals, pharmacists attend specialized schools, and are licensced by their respective states. Yet doctors and shrinks are prefectly free to refuse to perform any procedure they feel is ethically objectionable. Mnay doctors refuse to peform abortions, for instance. For that manner, many doctors are opposed to euthanasia.
Why should pharmactists be any different? If the pharmacist owns his own store, and he doesn’t want to perscribe the morning after pill, then tough, his customers can go to the next town over and get it there. It’s his right to do so, after all.
JG
I’e never ever looked at the labcoat wearing clown on the platform behind the counter in the back of a safeway as any kind of authority figure. Who gave them power? Is this again just a hot button issue to paint the dems against or do our betters in congress really think we need guidance from a pill dispenser?
Compuglobalhypermeganet
You have clearly gone off the deep end here, John. Is your Schiavo-itis really causing you to abandon the tenets of free market capitalism just so you can rant incoherently about morality and faith some more? Give it a rest. We know what you think about Schiavo and the people who tried to (gasp!) prolong her life against her husband’s wishes. There is no need for you to pretend that, on every issue, people who profess morals and conscience are always wrong.
Your point about STDs and antibiotics couldn’t possibly be sillier. Can’t you grasp that the pharmacists’ problems with the morning after pill would likely have NOTHING to do with the sexual activities of the patient and EVERYTHING to do with what he/she may feel is terminating an innocent life? Seriously, you can’t have gotten this dense overnight.
If an Rx doesn’t want to stock a product — any product, for any reason — then there should be no government interference to make them. The market should (and will) dictate the consequences of refusal to supply a demand, not the governor. There are plenty other pharmacies in the world, and there will always be someone to step in and fill a demand, if one exists.
When the doctors and governors start paying the pharmacists’ rent, then they can start making the decisions as to what the pharms should do with their private businesses.
Some people have consciences, and you should respect that. To paraphrase you, it’s time to get your ass back in line, and get over your Schiavo-itis.
John Cole
Greg- HE is given the right to dispense controlled substances by the state. WIth that right, should come obligations, including the obligation to fill perscriptions as perscribed by Doctors.
compualphabet- We are not talking about over-the-counter drugs. Read the damned story.
If the pills in question become over the counter, by all means, the pharmacist should not be forced to stock them.
Mona
John I have to strongly disagree with you on this one. Pharmacies are private businesses, and should not be compelled by the govt to sell any damned thing, not unless they hold a monopoly, which they do not. A woman can get a morning after pill from the pharmacy down the street, or from most hospitals.
Just because the state licenses pharmacists, does not mean it should be able to dictate their inventory and coerce transactions. I’m a lawyer, and so must be licensed to practice. Yet, I remain entirely free to reject any potential client whose claims I find repugnant; for example, when working for a small firm that prosecuted for a tiny municipality, I refused to do the pot possession cases. That was between me and my employer, and not me and the state bar.
Freedom of contract is an important liberty, and coercing transactions violates it. That can rarely be necessary, as for example with coercing even Catholic hospitals to dispense abortifacaient agents to rape victims in their emergency rooms; it is not reasonable to except a distraught rape victim to shop around” for an ER in order to receive standard care, and the hospital may be the only one in her geographical area.
But short of such exigent situations, and monopolies, the govt should stay out of it.
Gregory Litchfield
John: Ok. But why then are doctors permitted to opt out of treatments that they feel are ethically objectionable? Any doctor can refuse to perform abortions, for example, and should euthanasia become legal, I would imagine any doctor could refuse to participate in that process as well. If a country doctor is the only MD for 200 miles in any direction, it basically puts women with unwanted pregnancies, or (one day soon) the severely ill, in precisely the same sort of situation at the pharmacist.
So why the difference? Why is the doctor accorded these priveliges of conscience that the pharmacist is not?
Mona
John writes: HE is given the right to dispense controlled substances by the state. WIth that right, should come obligations, including the obligation to fill perscriptions as perscribed by Doctors.
So because the nanny state controls what substances we may purchase by, among other things, requiring a piece of paper from a doctor to get many of them, the people licensed under the nanny state rules should be COMPELLED to sell a product they find morally repugnant? Should all licensed OB-GYNs be required to perform abortions? What is pro-liberty about such a position?
Christie S.
I believe the key words here are ‘privately owned and operated’.
A single-store pharmacy cannot possibly stock every drug that a physician can prescribe. Even if they ‘do’ want to. This particular owner has the absolute right to not stock the Morning After pills or any other similar product.
I don’t agree with this owner’s stance. So, therefore, I wouldn’t buy ANY of my products from his facility. I’d take my business to someone who will want it. That’s the free market.
As for chain pharmacies. Again, its up to the management of the company to decide what to stock. And again, they’d have to live with the decision. Pro-lifers will not have a problem, pro-choice folks will take their business elsewhere.
The true problem will manifest when a pharmacy DOES sell the Morning After pills and the on-shift pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription. My opinion only, get a new job. You chose to work for a company that you know sells products that you by conscience will not distribute. You have no business applying for work there. Go work for Wal-Mart. They don’t stock it either.
JG
In a lot of cases there is no other pharmacy down the road. Small towns sometimes have only one pharmacy. If that guy decides his religious views get in the way of doing his job….? Why can’t people just mind their own business. If God has a problem with a girl taking birth control he’ll deal with her when she dies. Assuming of course you guys don’t ask congress to step in and keep her from dying.
Mona
JG: This is the U.S. in 2005. Almost no one has access to only one pharmacy or a hospital within reasonable driving distance. But let’s say there are a few such locales; how about a rule that singular pharmacies within a 25 mile radius may be compelled to carry everything in the pharmacopeias?
People who object to the morning after pill believe it is a tool of murder. If they own the place, it is their decision as to whether they should be compelled by the govt to sell that which they find abhorrent.
Gregory Litchfield
JG: “Why can’t people just mind their own business.”
If the pharmacist in question owns his or her own pharmacy, then they are minding their own business.
DecidedFenceSitter
Yeah, I’m going to have to go with Christie, as much as I hate say he [the pharmist] should get his way, well, I put it in the same category that I put nazi speech.
Something that should be protected for the ideal that it upholds, and not the action itself.
Christie S.
DFS, precisely.
DecidedFenceSitter
Of course I’ve reading mixed accounts of what the bill entails. Anyone have the time to see if it protects someone from being fired from say a CVS or similar chain if they refuse to carry out their duties?
Birkel
QUERY THIS:
Should a pharmacist be forced to fill a birth control prescription for a 14 year old girl who is getting the prescription solely for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy? After all, no 14 year old can consent to sex. The 14 year old is complicit in her own rape. So should the pharmacist knowingly provide the means so that the rape can be accomplished in a less risky manner? And when would some excitable DA bring a criminal complaint against such a pharmacist for aiding and abetting or criminal conspiracy or some such?
****************
I don’t know that I have the answer to the above not-so-hypothetical. But I do know it’s more complicated than the black-and-white story Mr. Cole is telling.
I also know there is no “olbigation to fill prescriptions” as Mr. Cole wants to imply. The pharmacist can deny a presription if there will be a dangerous reaction between the new prescription and some older prescription. In fact, the pharmacist has a duty to check for such possibilities. And can be sued if they miss something.
So the idea that a pharmacist is simply a trained monkey dispensing whatever the learned MD prescribes is completely over the top. Oh, and untrue to boot.
BLG
Why should a pharmacist, provided he/she owns his/her own pharmacy, carry or distribute a drug he/she finds morally repugnant?
P.S. I live in Illinois (Chicago to be exact) and I just want to say that Blagojevich sucks. Alot.
Christie S.
The first part’s a bit disingenuous, Birkel, IMO. How does the pharmacist know that this prescription is “solely for the purpose of avoiding pregnancy”?
Other than outright asking what the Rx was for, which he/she doesn’t have the right to do, how could the pharmacist know?
I do, however, agree with the rest of your post. This matter is not just a question of opposite sides of the moral/ethical debate.
Avedon
When I was in my teens, my gynecologist put me on the pill to regulate my period. I was not having sex and didn’t even realize it was “the pill”. Of course, my mother took the prescription to the counter, but I was with her. I’m trying to imagine overhearing that conversation…..
John Cole
It is a black and white story, Birkel. A woman sees a doctor, is prescribed something that will not harm her and that she and her physician have deemed is best for her, and the pharmacist is saying, quite simply:
No.
Yes/No is as black/white as it gets. And it isn’t just morning after pills, it is birth control pills, and other forms of contraception. Pharmacists are licensed and trained to detect drug interactions and the numerous dangers that mixing multiple prescriptions can cause. They are not licensed to spread their vision of morality.
And btw- birth control pills are not just for birth control…
RW
Mona,
Forget what I said on the other thread…..you are remarkably wise and spot-on. :)
Well stated and pretty much my line of reasoning put forth the last time John went after the theocrats using this same subject a few days ago (I get confused which ones to pick). Now, that I agree with you could give you pause, so you might want to reconsider. :)
John Cole
Ricky- Now look who is calling them theocrats…
I am happy calling the moralizing blowhards with an inflated sense of self-purpose.
alice
You guys do realize that the Pill is prescribed to treat a number of serious disorders right? Also that many of these disorders (ovarian cysts and endometriosis are two) have absolutely nothing to do with sexual intercourse?
What’s next, refusing to fill cancer patients’ prescriptions for Percocet because because you’re against drug addiction?
Kimmitt
I am of the opinion that pharmacists who are unwilling to perform the professional duty of dispensing whatever medication a doctor, in consultation with a patient, has seen fit to prescribe are engaging in gross violations of their duties.
Pharmacists are not doctors; they do not get to decide patients’ care. If a person does not want to provide the drugs prescribed by doctors to patients, then that person should not be a pharmacist. This isn’t a difficult discussion.
Let’s try a more extreme example — what if a pharmacy was being operated by a white supremacist who believed that it was immoral to waste resources on the illnesses of African-Americans. Would the state be allowed to force the pharmacist to dispense prescriptions (via the Civil Rights Acts)?
Christie S.
Alice, yes I do realize that. I had the pill prescribed for cysts myself. If the pharmacist didn’t stock the pills then I had to go elsewhere.
This was more than 20 years ago, long before the “crisis of conscience” debate was even a blip on the political radar screen/scene.
I’m not going to touch the moral or ethical standpoint. I don’t agree with turning down a valid ‘scrip just because I don’t like it, but I also don’t consider it my place to tell someone else what to believe. Would that everyone else gave the same courtesy.
For me, it comes down to the business end of it. If you own the pharmacy, you get to decide what to stock. If you don’t own the pharmacy, you have the obligation to sell what is stocked. Period. If you don’t like what the business sells, find a new job.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Pharmacists are not doctors; they do not get to decide patients’ care. If a person does not want to provide the drugs prescribed by doctors to patients, then that person should not be a pharmacist. This isn’t a difficult discussion.
The pharmacist ISN’T deciding patients’ care. He’s just deciding what products he chooses to sell in HIS/HER business. The patient has multiple options for care — the pharm is just declining to be one of those options, which EVEN THE LEFTIES have to admit is his/her right. RIGHT?
Right?
(Crickets chirping)
ketel
RW says, “Mona, forget what I said before… That is, until you disagree with me again.”
Maybe I’m reading this differently, but I think the most important thing here is the slippery slope we’ve already started down. Where exactly does this behavior stop? Morning after, birth control, AIDS medication? And yes, birth control can be used for many things other than what it’s name implies. Who says how far a pharmacist can go if they don’t agree with something you’re doing? Also, are abortions better than contraceptives?
Hypothetical:
Your neighbor (who you don’t really know) is your local, small-town pharmacist. Because there’s so much gossip in your neighborhood, he hears that you’ve been cheating on your wife. When you go to get your prescription filled to counter STDs, he refuses on moral grounds.
Is that justifiable, when in reality, you actually got the STDs from your born-again wife, who you didn’t judge, just like God told you in the Bible.
JG
‘JG: “Why can’t people just mind their own business.”
If the pharmacist in question owns his or her own pharmacy, then they are minding their own business. ‘
You can’t possibly think thats what I meant. Nice dodge though. If a woman wants a morning after pill its that womans business not the pharmacists. He has agreed to fill prescriptions, he should do that and move on to the next customer. Morning after pills, if they are legal, should be accessible. Some clown in a white coat who feels you aren’t moral is not allowed to stand in your way. Whats next gas stations refusing service to the kids who drive too fast on main street?
DecidedFenceSitter
Question, in the licensing is there a contractual obligation to dispense medication, by the pharmacy?
If so, then that should be supreme, under contract law, IMO.
If not, then it’s the pharacists choice.
Does a business have a right to stock or not stock a particular item?
Now if it chooses to carry any item, but just not dispense it to “you” then there may be a due process claim, based on discrimitory practices that you may be able to follow; however, if it is equally applied to everyone, that Small-Town Pharamacy simply will not stock this medicine then that is their choice.
Simply as it is my choice to do business elsewhere, or open a competing business, write letters, complain to management, protest in proper and legal ways, and if I consider it serious enough engage in acts of civil disobediance and suffer the appropriate and legal consequences.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Who says how far a pharmacist can go if they don’t agree with something you’re doing?
Have they totally stopped teaching about free enterprise and private ownership of businesses in schools? The ignorance here is nothing short of shocking.
If a pharmacist has his own store, he should feel free to decline to sell anything he wishes, especially if selling it would create a conflict of conscience. If there is a market for a product he chooses not to sell, someone will step in to supply that demand. No dollar will ever go begging for something to be spent on.
Funny how the liberals always want businesses to overlook profits and have a conscience… as long as that conscience agrees 100% with their agenda.
Mr Furious
…but I also don’t consider it my place to tell someone else what to believe. Would that everyone else gave the same courtesy.
Exactly what the “objecting” pharmacist is doing. Imposing his beliefs on someone else.
When those beliefs impact the health and well-being of the consumer through the actions of a provider licensed by the state, the state should have the right to intervene.
The best part is that throught these actions more abortions are sure to result. Instead of being allowed to arrest a pregnancy before it even begins (you are not pregnant until the egg is implanted and the morning after pill stops that process), the pharmacist is ensuring that you become pregnant with a baby you don’t want…
Right to lifers should have waited until abortions were illegal before tacking this issue to truly be successful.
Then again, actual results don’t matter as long as they get to feel good imosing morality on everyone. Just look at the abortion numbers since Bush took office…
RW
It really is impossible to be somewhat cordial and joke around a bit, as I’ve done with both John and Mona lately, isn’t it?
Look, people, not everyone is running around itching for a bitch fest. Sheesh, get a grip.
Until big brother takes over completely, apparently nowhere. And if you’re going to argue the slippery slope, then you have to take it to its logical conclusion on your end, which is state-run rx care. And if the people running their own private businesses have little or no say-so over how that business is run, then that’s what you have, just via contract workers (the quasi-owners doing what they’re told by the gov’t).
And, apparently, the goal of some.
ppgaz
No, sorry, pharmacists *do not* get to decide what to dispense. Doctors do. The law, and courts, two venues widely despised by the meddling shitheads, will not support this “conscience” nonsense. Pharmacists have every opportunity to exercise their “conscience” (code word for “manipulation of other people”). They can exercise it by quitting their high-paid pharmacy jobs and giving back their signing bonuses (they’re in great demand) and going into another line of work, like talk radio hosting, or standing on a street corner and shouting “REPENT” to the passers-by.
This bullshit won’t stand, you just have to be patient and in the fullness of time, these crapheads will be struck down and shown the door.
ketel
Shocking ignorance? Yes, oh lord compuwise, you are supreme and so are your infallible free market ideals. There’s a good, open discussion going on here, with people from the other side (gasp!) agreeing with you on certain points. Please get over yourself and your paranoid battle against liberals.
If you read what I said, you’ll notice that I was trying to address a more subtle, but bigger point IMHO, and not necessarily this exact case. My comment was more in reference to the Rx licensing process, which DFS asked about. I should have been more specific.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I favor a collateral attack. If the insurance companies require affiliated pharmacies to fill all prescriptions issued under their insurance, then pharmacies will have to comply. They can’t survive without insured prescritpion sales.
The State can start the ball rolling by insisting on it for pharmacies affiliated with its own insurance programs, both for employees and whatever Medicaid program subsidizes medicines for the poor.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Instead of being allowed to arrest a pregnancy before it even begins (you are not pregnant until the egg is implanted and the morning after pill stops that process), the pharmacist is ensuring that you become pregnant with a baby you don’t want…
Yeah, right, if one pharmacist doesn’t provide the pill, we’ll have more unwanted pregnancies…sure.
Seriously, what happens when you nitwits go to buy bread and your bakery doesn’t have any left? Do you starve?
No, you GO TO THE NEXT BAKERY.
Just as people who want to take the morning after pill will go to the next pharmacy. If the demand exists for a product there will be a supplier or fifty willing to make money from them.
The customer gets what they want, and the pharmacist gets to abide by his/her conscience, which is not too much to ask, is it?
Can any rational human being have a problem with that?
simon
Seriously, what happens when you nitwits go to buy bread and your bakery doesn’t have any left? Do you starve?
Seriously, what happens when you, nitwit, compare medical health and the dispensing of drugs with buying bread? How many places sell bread vs. the Pill? FREE MARKET, HOOOOOOOO!!!!!
RW
Not too many online bread distributors who’ll ship to an individual customer.
Online RX prescriptions, however, are plentful. If you don’t believe me, ask John or other bloggers besides myself how many comment/trackback spams they’ve gotten in the last year pertaining to online prescription drug solicitations.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Shocking ignorance? Yes, oh lord compuwise, you are supreme and so are your infallible free market ideals. There’s a good, open discussion going on here, with people from the other side (gasp!) agreeing with you on certain points. Please get over yourself and your paranoid battle against liberals.
I’m also glad there’s an “open discussion,” but when seemingly informed people think that the US government has the right to tell private businesses that they must stock certain products against their consciences, then I think that is shocking ignorance of the American economic system. Sorry if you are offended — I was merely trying to bring people back to reality.
Mr Furious
Do you really still buy your bread at a bakery, jackass? Lucky you, because the Wal-Marts in many towns have run that bakery out of existance. Along with the pharmacy down the block.
And Wal Mart doesn’t want to carry Plan B. The patient has ONE DAY to get this treatment and asshole pharmcists who confiscate scrips or otherwise delay treatment are putting an undue burden on the patient.
If it was as simple as pharmacies on every corner and the pill would be readily accessible, it wouldn’t be a problem. But the reality is, this cannot be a market-based solution.
Oh, and relating this to doctors refusing particular procedures is a crock. Pregnant women seeking an abortion have a much longer (though narrowing) window to seek out a provider for this service.
MT
Has anyone ever noticed that so many of the debates in this country and around the world are, at the root, about sex in some form or another? I’ve often mused that the wide Puritanical streak that has been suppressed in this country (but is now enjoying a renaissance thanks to the religious right) is really at the bottom of things like attempts to deny birth control (“They shouldn’t be having sex anyway!!!”). We seem be both fascinated with and repulsed by sex…a seriously divided mind on the subject! Segments of the population seem to actually be FRIGHTENED by the very IDEA of people having sex! At the same time, they wouldn’t think of missing an episode of “Desparate Housewives.”
I think John’s point about STDs IS valid for this very reason. IMHO (please note – my opinion!) refusals to dispense certain meds may spring from a certain unconsious, Puritanical, anti-sex mindset. There also seems to be a certain subtle underlying misogyny present in those who hold these self-rightous opinions. And it’s not just here…115 men in red dresses just secretly picked the successor for 50% of the world’s Catholics.
Just something to think about…
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Seriously, what happens when you, nitwit, compare medical health and the dispensing of drugs with buying bread? How many places sell bread vs. the Pill?
There are CVSs on about every corner where I live, and only one nearby bakery and a couple supermarkets (which also have pharmacies in them which sell birth control). What’s your point again?
ketel
Compuwonder, not offended at all.
Still, lets be clear and not muddy the waters with generalizations and sweeping descriptions. we’re not talking about hardware store owners who don’t carry the kind of special laser-guided level you desperately need for your next home improvement project. We’re talking about a very specific, critical business that is part of the bigger medical system keeping people healthy. Maybe we should get rid of our medical guidelines and licensing strictures and let anyone dispense medication for whatever reason they feel morally obligated. I know you’re obsessed with your little free market hobbyhorse right now, but it’s not quite that simple.
Mr Furious
Hey RW, do those online pharmacies offer 1-hour delivery? Because if they don’t the patient is shit out of luck.
I guess women will have to find out if their doctor is willing to write a “preventative” prescription, so they can mail-order their pills in case one day they need it.
Once again, the meddling rightie actions actually bring about the situation they wish to prevent: either (A) a medicine cabinet stocked with morning-after pills for casual use, or (B) a true abortion later on, because the woman is pregnant with a baby she doesn’t want/can’t have.
Nice work.
John Cole
I think one thing that is becoming abundantly clear is that members of the blogospehere, both readers and blog-owners, have a pretty large blind spot. Most of us, if you believe the surveys done by the blogads folks, are in the upper percentage brackets as far as education and income, and I think that is why so many people here are advancing the folowing argument:
“If this pharmacist won’t do it, go to another pharmacy.”
To me, that tells me that the person advancing the argument has no concept how rural much of America is, and in particular, the red states where this is more likely to be an issue. They also have no idea the level of poverty and how pervasive it is, how difficult it is for many people to transport themselves to and from their home to a pharmacy, and the have no concept that one phramacy towns do exist.
Not everyone in the country has credit cards. Not everyone can go to rx.com and have their pills there the next day.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
We’re talking about a very specific, critical business that is part of the bigger medical system keeping people healthy.
Let me ask you this: Certain pharms obviously think Plan B is not about keeping people healthy, but about destroying potentially healthy people. What would you tell them that would assuage their consciences about being a party to a practice to which they might object?
I know you’re obsessed with your little free market hobbyhorse right now, but it’s not quite that simple.
It only built the strongest superpower the world has ever seen. How you can belittle it is beyond me.
Simon
Online RX prescriptions, however, are plentful.
and
There are CVSs on about every corner where I live, and only one nearby bakery and a couple supermarkets.
You two are so completely self-absorbed that all you can see is the narrow viewpoint from your own, little world. Believe or not, quite a few people still don’t have an internet connection and I can most certainly bet you’re exaggerating with talk of a CVS on every corner. I’ll bet you any amount of money there are far more places selling bread around you than are selling the pill. So, now you’re just lying to make a point, which was what? And again, not everyone lives in the same privileged situation as you.
If I assume both those comments are from men, can I also assume that you have a similar lack of respect for other people you make no attempt to relate to? Like women?
ppgaz
Sorry, the “go to another bakery” analogy is anapt.
An apt analogy would be that a bakery worker at the counter would decline to sell you bread that he has in the bread case, because he doesn’t approve of your morals and wants to “exercise his conscience.”
That’s illegal, and the pharmacists’ phony exercise of “conscience” will also turn out to be illegal.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
To me, that tells me that the person advancing the argument has no concept how rural much of America is, and in particular, the red states where this is more likely to be an issue. They also have no idea the level of poverty and how pervasive it is, how difficult it is for many people to transport themselves to and from their home to a pharmacy, and the have no concept that one phramacy towns do exist.
Sorry, John, but you can’t throw out free-market principles and private ownership of business because some people might not be able to receive some services based on their geography.
One thing perfectly clear: I hope that EVERY SINGLE WOMAN WHO WANTS Plan B gets it and I hope it works for them. But no one is legally ENTITLED to immediate access to Plan B.
I realize that the time factor is there with that particular drug, but the druggists’ rights to their conscience and to run their personal business the way they choose trumps any alleged right to one-day access to Plan B.
Show me any example of a time where the public wanted a legal product and no one stepped up to supply it and profit from it, and I’ll entertain the notion that the market won’t solve this problem.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
If I assume both those comments are from men, can I also assume that you have a similar lack of respect for other people you make no attempt to relate to? Like women?
No, what you should assume is that I was answering a question that was asked of me, and THEN you’d be correct. I even asked, “What’s your point?” because I thought it was a silly thing to ask.
…Although my wife might chuckle at your assumption…
Mr Furious
Quick research on Greenville, Illinois…
Population: 6,000
Pharmacies: 3 (two independant, one CVS)
Closest abortion provider (according to the yellow pages): Granite City, 46 miles.
And that’s a pretty good-sized town. Good luck, rural women!
John Cole
What free market principles are you talking about? I can’t open a pharmacy tomorrow without government permission.
Second, this is stupid:
“Show me any example of a time where the public wanted a legal product and no one stepped up to supply it and profit from it, and I’ll entertain the notion that the market won’t solve this problem.”
Eventually, most products are supplied, but I know of places in West Virginia where you can not get city water, where you can not get cable television, etc.
Your argument is flwed, not to mention the fact that what would be a more apt argument is that if I wanted city water, it was available, but the managers decided I wasn’t a good Christian and didn’t deserve to have water.
I am not demanding that pharamacists give every woman that walks in their door a birth control device or a morning after pill. I am arguing they do their job and fulfill the prescriptions written out by physicians. If this was an over the counter drug, where market forces would apply, yuor argument might make more sense. Right now, it doesn’t.
ketel
What would you tell them that would assuage their consciences about being a party to a practice to which they might object?
Get a different job. Or move to another country that doesn’t have legal birth control.
It only built the strongest superpower the world has ever seen. How you can belittle it is beyond me.
Sweet argument tactic buddy. “How can you possibly belittle my argument* in this specific case when it built the greatest superpower EVAR KNOWN!!! YEAARGH! Only a fool or an idiot would dare disagree with me!”
*Handy conservative formula
I + those who think like me = the USofA > you + those who don’t think like me
DecidedFenceSitter
What free market principles are you talking about? I can’t open a pharmacy tomorrow without government permission.
Which is why I asked what is required in the licensing of a pharmacy. If it requires the dispensing of drugs as dictated by a doctor, then unless this law is passed, the pharmacist has to dispense it.
Also, if this law prevents a worker from being fired by someone for not dispensing, although they violate company policies, then I also have a problem with this law.
But a pharmacist deciding not to dispense ANY of a particular medication I do not have a legal issue with. I have moral and ethical objections, but I do not have a legal objection.
semm
This not is not about the rights and wrongs of selling such a pill; forcing a pharmacy owner to sell a product which he has no desire to sell is an infringement of his property rights. I really couldn’t disagree more with your rant Mr Cole.
ppgaz
The availablility of an alternative is not a defense.
If it were, Lester Maddox and his ilk would still be running Negroes out their eating establishments with the excuse, “Hey, they can get food somewhere else.”
When a pharmacy gets a license to dispense, they agree to abide by the generally accepted practices and ethics that pertain thereto.
The law will settle this matter, and the phony self-righteous objectors will get their comeuppance.
The whole thing is a theatrical stunt, anyway. By their own admission, the objector’s failure to dispense does not deprive the patient of the prescription. No lives are being “saved” by the phony gesture, even if you can argue that withholding contraceptives “saves lives” (a topic for another thread).
The real motive is to make a political statement. Not to “exercise conscience.”
ppgaz
Nope, it’s not a property right. That’s why there are pharmacy laws.
The laws and courts will find that pharmacies and pharmacists have an obligation to dispense to any legal prescription.
The claim of “property rights” is often the last refuge of scoundrels.
Again, see Lester Maddox and the axe-handle battle at his Pickrick Restaurant. Maddox lost that fight, but thanks to the bottomless stupidity of the voters in Georgia, he became governor of the state.
Let’s just say, civil rights advocates had the last laugh.
RW
I don’t know about anyone else but yes, I hate women. Especially my wife, who had to take birth control pills out of a medical necessity, and my daughter who may one day need to take them.
And little puppies, too. As you know, everyone who may disagree in principle with you on some political policy – even if it’s a slight disagreement – has no respect for women. Or blacks. Or foreigners. Or children (we beat them incessantly). Oh, and we’re stupid, too. That engineering degree I have on my wall came in a cracker-jacks box that I stole from some little kid on the street.
[groan]
timekeeper
ppgaz:
An apt analogy would be that a bakery worker at the counter would decline to sell you bread that he has in the bread case, because he doesn’t approve of your morals and wants to “exercise his conscience.”
No, that is not the correct analogy, because the pharmacists who are not filling prescriptions are not filling them for ANYBODY; there is no bread in the case because they don’t stock the drug.
A more apt analogy would be going into a butcher shop owned by a Jewish (or Muslim) butcher, and not finding pork for sale. If you want pork, you go to a different butcher. Or are you going to argue that butchers are required to provide all cuts of meat? After all, they are licensed by the state just as pharmacists are.
I am all for allowing companies who choose to sell prescription contraceptives to fire any sanctimonious asshat who chooses not to fill a prescription because of some moral objection. (They knew what their job might entail when they were hired.) However, it is inexcusable for the government to dictate to a business owner what he will and will not stock in his store.
The only town I can remember that had only one pharmacy was a town of 1,500 people (34 years ago); by the time the town had 3,000 people it had five competing pharmacies, and there were plenty of pharmacies in nearby towns.
As to Mr. Furious and his small town, I refuse to believe that CVS refuses to fill such prescriptions, and would permit someone who did refuse to fill one to continue working for them. Same thing for Wal-Mart; although they are notoriously conservative, they are above all interested in making money. They would fill the prescription.
Senator Blutarsky
Hey, I live in Georgia!
Actually, it wasn’t the voters who elected ‘ole Lester. He lost in the general vote, but because no candidate received 50% of the votes + 1, the General Assembly had the final say.
On the pharmacist issue, what’s even more troubling that the example cited is that there have been instances where not only has the pharmacist refused to fill the prescription, but has also refused to return the prescription to the customer…
ppgaz
Nope, give it up. The lame bakery argument will not work.
A pharmacy is not a store where the store owner decides what to stock and who to cater to.
It’s a regulated facility under very strict laws and codes, and it is bound by established practice and established ethical constraints.
It must, and will, dispense to a legal prescription. You can argue otherwise all you want, this nonsense is not going to stand. We are not going to have Republican and Democrat pharmacies in this country.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Say, timekeeper, maybe you should send your economic analysis to the CEO of WalMart. See, they don’t carry emergency contraception.
Mona
Some here seem to think that just because a pharmacist is licensed by the state, s/he has an obligation to sell any commodity any consumer might desire. Look, this situation is not akin to refusing to sell to people because of race; some religionists devoutly believe that the morning after pill is a tool for MURDER. They are not discriminating on the basis of any characteristic of the person, but because the THING SOUGHT TO BE BOUGHT is one they find repugnant.
Now, whatever you or I might think of that, it is what the Roman Catholic Church, among others, teaches. Surely it cannot be the case that all practicing, truly devout Roman Catholics (prolly a minority of RCs) should be precluded from running pharmacies under pain of violating their beliefs in a profound manner? (By contrast, if a pharmacist won’t sell this product, and they are an employee of a pharmacy that does, whether the pharmacy will accommodate the particular pharmacist’s beliefs should be strictly between them.)
Further, I simply do not buy all this stuff about poor women being SOL if the first pharmacy they go to won’t sell them this product. Unless they are living in the Alaskan wilderness, there is a pharmacy within driving distance for them, or a hospital, or a Planned Parenthood outlet, and sometimes even the prescribing physician will have this sort of thing in stock. (And this argument is too much like the “what about the children?” hue and cry put forth by statists of both left and right. Freedom crumbles when it is cribbed by every conceivable harm that MIGHT happen to some innocent somewhere when adults exercise liberties.)
All of these labored attempts to argue that hypothetical indigent will not get this pill unless we employ the coercive powers of the state to FORCE a conscience-stricken pharmacy owner to complete that transaction with her, are most unpersuasive. They seem to be rooted in disdain for the morality of the handful of pharmacists under discussion. But this is the United States, and people have freedom here not to sell commodities that violate their deepest beliefs as a condition of earning a living. Or so I thought.
Jay
John, you still haven’t answered questions that people have asked.
Should doctors be required to perform abortions? Should doctors be required to assist others in dying should assisted suicide be legalized?
Also, the American Pharmacists Association recently reaffirmed its policy that pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions as long as they make sure customers can get their medications some other way.
I can’t open a pharmacy tomorrow without government permission.
John, stop it. You couldn’t open a hair salon, restaurant, appliance store or auto body shop tomorrow without government permission. Are you going to argue that not a single private business has the right to exercise their moral values at all when making business decisions?
Mr Furious
Timekeeper,
That’s not my,/i> town, it’s the town in the news story with the pharmacy in question. Yes, that town has a CVS, and the CVS will likely be carrying the drug (and hopefully) the prescription.
My point was that even in a town of 6,000 the options are not as wide as some are describing (ie: a CVS on every corner).
In this instance, the private pharmacist could choose not to carry the drug, and there would be another option (relatively) around the corner. Unless this guy was the same kind of dick who refused to hand the scrip back to the patient like in other cases.
Many towns will be small enough that the only options will be a small, independent pharmacist susceptable to the pressures of a domineering local church… or a nearby Wal-Mart that has wiped out all independent retailers. Result? No access to urgent, necessary, properly prescribed medication because of uptight moral bullies.
That should be an unacceptable situation.
Rick
Gee, after all of John’s moaning about the State inserting itself into an intimate situation in re: Schiavo, here he comes advocating a big State hostile takeover of a some small number of pharmacists’ consciences.
File under Balloon Juice Stupidity.
Cordially…
Mr Furious
Oops. Formatting error above. “my” was the only thing that should be ital. Just so no one wonders what the hell the emphasis is supposed to be…
Simon
Just a little light-hearted jab, don’t be so defensive. It was only a question. FWIW, I don’t automatically assume the other things you stated up there, so there’s no need for the fake victim posturing and self-reassurance. I don’t believe in bogeymen anymore, do you?
Either way, the question wasn’t posed because you don’t agree with me. I was just fairly pointing out that your “why can’t they buy it online” argument was egocentric and ignored a large portion of the population. That can be a bad thing when talking about public policy.
shark
The pharmacist’s license has ZERO to do with some sort of requirement or ethical obligation to dispense any type of drug that is ordered. The license is akin to a food prep certification someone working in a kitchen would have to get. It’s to ensure standards of accuracy and safety (ie: you don’t have some clod dispensing the wrong medication, the wrong dosage etc)
So if the guy doesn’t want to stock (WHATEVER) he doesn’t have to.
The state grants you a license to sell liquor, I should sue you if my favorite variety of ripple isn’t in stock?
John Cole
No, Jay, I do not think docotor’s should be forced to have an abortion. I also don’t think the morning after pill is having an abortion.
Likewise, I have never heard of a doctor prescribing anyone to get a hair cut, go to a restaurant, appliance store, or auto body store. I am not the one comparing apples and oranges here. Pharmacies are unique.
And the APA rules are not law, and beside the point. If a pharmacist decides to not fill a prescription, and the patient CAN NOT get it filled anywhere else, what is the APA going to do? Issue a press release.
And Rick, quit being absolutist and stupid for a moment, if you can help it. I am not mandating that the government tell pharmacists to give every woman a morning after pill. I am not doing anything other than suggesting that since the government already does require strict control and licensing of the distribution of controlled substances, they should be required, unless there is a toxicological problem or drug interaction problem, to fulfill the prescription.
I understand that some stores don’t carry all drugs. IN my small town of Wellsburg, the local CVS has an agreement with Kroger to fill each other’s prescriptions in that case. What you are advocating is that that even be too much of a crisis of conscience for these lunatics.
And finally, this day after pill is not an abortion.
John Cole
The state grants you a license to sell liquor, I should sue you if my favorite variety of ripple isn’t in stock?
Don’t be so damned stupid. The licensing requirements for a liquor store are much different from that of a pharmacist. Unless your local university has a liquor department. My university left that to the fraternities and sororities.
Rick
See more Balloon Juice stupidity:
I am not mandating that the government tell pharmacists to give every woman a morning after pill. I am not doing anything other than suggesting that since the government already does require strict control and licensing of the distribution of controlled substances, ****they should be required, **** unless there is a toxicological problem or drug interaction problem, to fulfill the prescription.
Sorry John, jes cain’t hep it, stoopid ‘n’all.
How many prescription drugs are there? Thousands? And if some pharmacists have issues of conscience regarding the limited line of abortifacients or “morning after” pills, well, the state–“buttinski creeps”– must act, huh? Or the pharmacists must find some other line of work?
That’s bullshit, and seems counter to the trend of your views as I’ve seen them for these past 2 or 3 years.
To borrow an phrase from a Balloon-Juice-line affirming respondent in the thread below, you seem to have jumped the shark.
Cordially…
Brad R.
And finally, this day after pill is not an abortion.
That’s absolutely right. The point of the day after pill is to block fertilization. It nomrally takes sperm longer than a day to reach the egg.
ppgaz
You right wingers are a hoot.
The state, with its power to license, sets reasonable and expected regulations in place for the practice of pharmacy, and licenses appropriately qualified candidates ….
… who later want to claim that they are being “coerced” into going against their conscience for doing exactly what the stated expectations were when they applied for the license?
Fine. Let them honestly answer the question “Will you dispense any legal presciption.” If they say no, license declined, and they can sue the state.
Let them, in the meantime, stay home and look for jobs at Burger King and try to fund their legal battles. I have no objection to this behavior.
But if they accept the license now, and enjoy its benefits, they also accepts its responsbilities. If they can’t meet them, they do something else.
RW
One cannot denote sarcasm via text alone. If you’ll reread your entry, you’ll see that someone would have to go far and wide to capture such an intention. But, your followup is duly noted.
I need no reassuring of my own stance, thank you. You can stop talking about me, now.
Another friendly jab? Does the word “overreach” mean anything to you?
Au contreire. You focused on women and I fail to see any rational indication why women would be less inclined to be able to purchase/obtain pills unless they were from a state-run pharmacy overseen by the USSC and the justice department with Federal Express drivers on-call in case Sara Jane in Podunk, Alabama, needs her delivery taken across the ravine within the next hour.
I’m assuming that you now see the folly in making the argument that it was “population” based instead of an accusatory tone wrapped around mysogenation.
I’m all for having localities ensure that people who need drugs actually get their drugs (legal ones, of course). That said, I want my money back from the Al Gore internet tax that put access in every public library (and I mean every cent, since you guys have now informed me that some people don’t have access and all those millions went towards ensuring that all communities have access).
What I don’t see is the ridiculous notion that big brother needs to be over the shoulder of a pharmacist, but that’s the libertarian in me speaking. As usual, it depends on whose ox is being goured and in this case, it’s quaint to see how the Andrew Sullivan “they’re trying to run our lives” crowd has done a double-take without a hint of realization at the duplicity involved.
Here’s an idea: local oversight.
Yeah, I know….forgive me for the heresy.
Mona
John and Brad R.: the morning after pill’s usual mechanism is thought to be preventing implantation of a fertilized ovum. that’s how Wikipedia describes it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morning-after_pill
Medline says this in a long entry on birth control methods:
EMERGENCY (“MORNING AFTER”) BIRTH CONTROL
The “morning after” pill consists of two doses of hormone pills taken as soon as possible within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse.
The pill may prevent pregnancy by temporarily blocking eggs from being produced, by stopping fertilization, or keeping a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in the uterus.
—-
My reading has lead me to conclude that Medline’s third listed mechanism is most common, namely, the MAP most commonly acts to prevent implantation.
For Catholics and some other Xians, preventing a fertilized ovum from implanting is not morally distinguishable from a surgical abortion after implantation. Regardless of how any of us might feel about such a position, I’m not willing to coerce pharamacy owners to sell what to them is a mechanism for murder.
ppgaz
Big brother? Local oversight?
First of all, isn’t state pharmacy licensing “local oversight?”
Isn’t it a tradition of Republicans to tout for “states’ rights to make decisions” as an antidote to Woe v Wade, er, I mean, Roe v Wade? So, states have pharmacy laws. Until recently, the most boring laws you can imagine, but now they are going to get some attention.
Talk about a slippery slope. Will paramedics refuse treatment to accident victims on their way to an abortion clinic? Will blood banks refuse them transfusions?
Only a few years ago, phony Nutrights harped about “Balkanization” of the United States (see: Pat Buchanan). Now they are hell-bent on Balkanizing this country.
Can’t they formulate one delusional, crackpot set of ideas and stick with it?
Mona
ppgaz errs: … who later want to claim that they are being “coerced” into going against their conscience for doing exactly what the stated expectations were when they applied for the license?
No such “expectation” exists, and certainly did not when most people now licensed, were. Why you are so insistent that a small number of religious pharmacists should be compelled to either forfeit their license or sell a commodity under state mandate, beats me. Doesn’t sound like living in a free country.
And btw, I am not a “right-winger.” I’m a socially liberal libertarian who believes in individual liberty — for gays, women AND for religious people.
Jay
And the APA rules are not law, and beside the point.
Fine. And it isn’t against the law at this time for pharmacists to refuse to fill certain prescriptions.
Don’t like it. Change the law.
But I would find it funny that those who were screaming bloody murder about government intervention in the Schiavo case would now be screaming for the state to exert their powers to force private business to complete certain transactions.
Mona
Jay writes: But I would find it funny that those who were screaming bloody murder about government intervention in the Schiavo case would now be screaming for the state to exert their powers to force private business to complete certain transactions.
Agreed, and I oppose both unacceptable state interventions.
RW
Ditto.
Brad R.
The thing about this is, I don’t think denying birth control to women is going to become a widespread practice, if only because it’s bad for pharmacies’ bottom lines. So I take Mona’s point that forcing people to sell things they don’t want to sell might not be the best course.
And frankly, any pharmacy that denies people contraception ain’t gonna get my business.
Simon
Not as far as someone would have to go to infer from my comments that I thought you hated “women. Or blacks. Or foreigners. Or children… or puppies, too.” (puppy sarcasm noted) Talk about overreaching. I never said anything like that or implied that you were stupid, especially with that engineering degree on your wall that you told us all about.
What folly? My point, that you still don’t get, was that you prescribed a solution – now it’s, ‘libraries are the new pharmacies, people!’ – to the problem based on your own limited situation. It’s then not that far a stretch to think that maybe you haven’t exactly shaped your worldview based on other’s viewpoints, but mainly your own narrow perspective. It was only an implication derived from current behavior.
And please spare me the “big brother needs to be over the shoulder of a pharmacist” line. We’re not talking about some complex monitoring system that’s more intrusive than current law. You either fill the legal prescription or you lose your job. As long as we’re taking it all the way, I’d rather have the nanny state “trying to run our lives” than a bunch of moralizing religious wackos (******not all religious people are wackos).
Who reads Sullivan anymore? Didn’t he quit or something?
Kimmitt
The thing about this is, I don’t think denying birth control to women is going to become a widespread practice, if only because it’s bad for pharmacies’ bottom lines.
This really won’t be universally true. The pharmacists really do believe that they are acting on their morals, and like most basically good people are willing to accept losses of income, sacrifices, etc. for those morals.
The problem is that we as a society have every right to decide that a pharmacist’s professional ethics — which essentially consist of accurately and thoroughly implementing the decisions of a patient and his/her doctor — outweigh a pharmacist’s personal morals in this area.
Look at it this way; today it’s fundies denying birth control meds. Tomorrow it’s granola-eating hippies denying cholesterol meds (“Hey, lay off the red meat, man,”). The next day it’s Christian Scientists refusing to fill any prescription whatsoever. Let’s all agree that the person who decides what drugs a patient should receive is an MD.
ketel
I agree with most everything Mona says here, but the end goal of this newly vocal movement isn’t to allow individual pharmacies to refuse certain drugs. They’re trying to push through laws that would not allow a pharmacy to fire – or not hire – someone who would refuse to fill these pills. FenceSitter’s comment above, something that should be protected for the ideal that it upholds, and not the action itself was well said. Let’s just be aware of what the stated intent is.
Birkel
Are you guys thick or what? I said that the teenager was getting the pills solely for the purpose of not getting pregnant.
You can’t change the hypothetical because you don’t like the conclusion you draw from it. Well, let me say it otherwise: You can’t change the hypothetical construct without admitting that you’re taking your toys and going home because you don’t like the hypothetical.
So thanks for being completely disingenuous. Oh, and thanks for treating me like I’m an idiot who doesn’t know that birth control pills also regularize the flow and length of a woman’s period, among other effects.
In the future I’ll make sure to insult the intelligence of others instead of assessing their stated opinions.
Meanwhile, as an atheist I think the pharmacists are acting foolishly but still maintain that the state should be a limited thing that doesn’t impose itself all over the darned place.
***************
Here’s one example of a professional organization not being able to regulate like it wasnted: The Bar Association used to prevent advertising by attorneys. And that was ruled an unconstitutional restraint of trade. Applicable to this case? What if it was a Christian pharmacy run by a church?
RW
Simon,
My sarcasm was as clear as a single pane glass window. Come on, I’m trying to be an honest broker here, throw me a bone, please.
Ah, I see the problem. Simon, I imply….you infer. And, I know what I imply. Methinks you infer incorrectly. If you have questions, feel free to ask. I won’t lie.
The government, which isn’t your employer, takes away your livliehood but it’s not an intrusive practice on the part of big brother. Glad to see we cleared that up.
:O
RW
Incorrect!
The decision of what a patient can/should receive and the allowable amount of which is made by the government (ultimately the federal government), which many of you want to empower with the authority to impose on private citizens how to run their private businesses.
RW
The above pertainst to this quote:
“Let’s all agree that the person who decides what drugs a patient should receive is an MD.”
ppgaz
Mona is wrong.
IACP code:
Operate in conformance with applicable State law regulating the practice of pharmacy.
Do not deny services on the basis of race, religion, gender, disability, age or national origin.
(Int’l Academy of Compounding Pharmacists)
A state pharmacy school’s student handbook:
As a student of pharmacy, I believe there is a need to build and reinforce a professional identity founded on integrity, ethical behavior, and honor. This development, a vital process in my education, will help ensure that I am true to the professional relationship I establish between myself and society as I become a member of the pharmacy community.
Under what law or authority does a pharmacist claim the right to choose which legal and properly written prescriptions to fill, and which to refuse to fill? Under what interpretation of the above-mentioned code is it permissable to deny services? Under what authority does the pharmacist presume to override the primacy of prescribing physician, and/or the constraints of accepted codes of ethics, practice or standards embedded in law, or in professional codes, and take that decision unilaterally?
Under what business model would pharmacies open their doors under a sign reading “Notice: Our pharmacists may deny service or refuse to fill any legal and valid prescription on the basis of their sole and individual judgement of the circumstances of each case. This pharmacy operates a service to our pharmacists’ right to express their individual consciences as they see fit without regard to the needs of the patient or the opinion of the prescribing physician?”
Under which state, national, or professional code of ethics is authority granted the pharmacist to do this?
Under what understanding of “honor” or “integrity” does a person go to pharmacy school, and presume to take on the benefits and privileges of a license (high pay, among other things) while harboring a hidden intent to refuse to dispense at his whim? And to accept employment with the expressed or tacit understanding that dispensing is expected, only to refuse to dispense later, as he sees fit?
What will happen is that pharmacies will begin requiring their employees to agree to dispense all legal scrips.
The issue will be forced, and adjudication will be forced.
Mona is exactly and precisely wrong: The expectation does exist, for the simple reason that no expectation of the opposite has ever been advanced or expressed in professional teachings or codes of conduct. Health care professionals are expected to do their jobs in the usual, expected manner, and not to decide later that they can refuse to do their jobs at their whim … no matter how drenched in faux bathos the excuse may be.
jdm
I too agree with Mona; both on this issue and from her political position.
And I don’t understand how a non-but-supposedly-not-anti-religious, old-fashioned conservative like John can be complaining about this issue. Except that his interactions with the saveterry types has completely ruined him on cutting those on the religious right any form of break whatsoever.
They get to live here too, you know. And just so we’re clear on this, I’m an atheist.
Mona
[[gaz errs again: Mona is exactly and precisely wrong:
Nothing you quoted requires a pharmacist to sell that which s/he finds morally repugnant. That you read that into it, or think it should be read in, does not change the fact that licensing agencies have been permitting pharmacists to refuse to sell certain drugs, as long as they see to it that the scrip is referred.
That is the state of things when most pharmacists got their licenses.
ppgaz
You don’t get it, Mona.
After pharmacy school, and after landing a job, is the wrong time to announce that one (a) thinks he has the right to make unilateral decisions about denial of service, and (b) will act on that right to the possible detriment of his employer and his customers.
If he has that attitude, let him state it up front, and thereby be guided into another profession.
You cannot have a civil society in which people decide in the middle of a professional occupation to start deciding for themselves what the rules are, and who gets served. The professional community and lawmakers get to decide that.
Nobody is forcing these people to be pharmacists.
Mona
No ppgaz, YOU don’t get it. Licensing of pharmacists is an arguably necessary measure meant to insure that Joe Farmasist does not give you an anti-depressant when you are supposed to be getting something for hypertension, or 10x the dosage prescribed. But even if licensing improves quality so much that many lives are saved (and this is arguable), its raison d’etre does not impinge on change the default position that all businesspeople get to decide what they will sell, and all service providers to decide to what ends they will apply their intellects.
The only person with standing to object is a pharmacist’s employer.
ppgaz
Nope. You and the pharmacists don’t get to decide that. The boards of pharmacy and legislatures do.
Pharmacists do not “sell” prescription drugs. They “dispense” them in accordance with rather carefully regulated procedures. They do not choose which are good, and which are bad, medications, or patients, or doctors for that matter.
Pharmacists dispense. That’s all. If they don’t want to dispense, they will have to go do something else.
Furniture stores “sell.” Bookstores “sell.”
Pharmacies operate under a license. The license issuers decide what they do. Not you, and not the pharmacy owners.
Not like a “store” at all. Different. Not comparable.
Welcome to the End Times
Oh, don’t you worry, Mona.
The Pill’s just the first of the unholy pharmaceuticals to go. Next, we’ll stop stocking AIDS meds. After all, people who get AIDS are homos and they deserve to die. The Bible tells us so. Then it’s bye-bye to Vicodin and other heavy-duty painkillers. Junkies abuse that stuff, dontcha know? No more blood pressure medicine? Serves ’em right for being fat and smoking. Ditto for Lippitor. Nicorette’s OTC, but don’t worry. We’re working on it. We got your prescription morals right here.
What? It’s not like we’re paid to dispense pills or something.
Oh, don’t look so glum. We’ll always stock Viagra.
KC
As a diabetic, I can say I’d be pissed if some pharmacist refused me medication because it didn’t correspond with his religious perrogatives.
ppgaz
Indeed. And we have not even addressed a real, urgent issue that bears directly on this conversation:
One of the big problems that drug enforcement and pharmaceutical distribution faces right now is the integrity of the doctor-patient-pharmacist relationship, because of the Internet and the ease with which meds can be “sold” online.
Just exactly how is the government going to maintain control over this distribution scheme — which it absolutely WILL do in a forceful and agressive manner — while at the same time turning away from situations where pharmacists start deciding what gets dispensed and to whom?
Integrity is an all or nothing proposition here. Either you have control over the scheme, or you don’t. When pharmacists start acting on whims (call their motives whatever you want, it does not matter, because it all translates to personal opinion and judgement) then those who want the meds, and those who prescribe them, are going to fight back, and pharmacies will either get in line, or they will be removed from the chain.
It’s already a fact that emergency morning-after “treatment” can be had without using the services of a pharmacy at all. And this has been true for a long, long time.
One way or the other, patients and their doctors will make these decisions. Which is exactly as it should be. People do not go to church for medications, and they do not go to a pharmacy for unwanted morality demonstrations.
This is a battle which the dishonest manipulators cannot win.
CaseyL
The righties on this thread are having a high old time defending Xtian Consciences when it comes to birth control.
How many of those Most Xtian pharmacists are also demanding the right not to work on Sundays? I ask, because respecting the Sabbath is right up there in the 10 Commandments, and the 10 Commandments are the most important laws in the Bible, aren’t they?
How many of those Most Xtian pharmacy owners are refusing to stock condoms and BC foam? Just because condoms and BC foam are OTC shouldn’t exempt them from Bibilical decree, now, should they?
How many of those Most Xtian pharmacists and pharmacy owners are refusing to stock or fill prescriptions for anti-AIDS drugs?
How many of those Most Xtian pharmacists and pharmacy owners are demanding they be told if a prescription for antibiotics is to treat an STD? You don’t get STDs from lawfully wedded monogamous sex, right? An STD is prima facie evidence of fornication; fornication is a sin; shouldn’t people be punished for it, rather than treated?
On, and the property rights rationale? Is bullsh**. Property rights do not trump public health and safety concerns. That’s why your neighbor can’t use his yard to bury nuclear waste, can’t open up his own sewage treatment facility, and can’t exercise his 2nd Amendment rights by firing his gun out the front window whenever he feels like it.
Birkel
“Pharmacies operate under a license.”
And? This means…?
Why does every perceived problem need state action? When did the farkin’ government do things so well that so many just want to trust it implicitly?
Why not let individuals make stupid decisions with which we disagree?
S Ty
One thing is, this b.s. is highlighting which pharmacists to patronize and which ones to avoid like the plague (and their entire stores).
Ever read Madame Bovary? It’s French. ;)
ppgaz
One can but laugh. Only a short time ago, in historical terms, conservatives called for “law and order.”
Now they act as if law is the enemy.
A drug and controlled substance distribution scheme WITHOUT strict government controls?
When pigs fly, my friend.
Not even the stupid Nutright is going to go along with that.
Mona
ppgaz, you have not made any case for a nexus between licensing and the right of the state to tell a business what it must sell. And that is what pharmacies do — they dispense drugs, but they also SELL them. I dispense legal counsel, and I also *sell* it. Yet, even tho I am licensed, the state bar does not mandate that I accept particular kinds of cases that I might find morally reprehensible — and there are several. Follow the logic, ppgaz.
(And I’d be willing to bet that there are those statists who would take the position that if I will not prosecute drug laws, which I will not, I am unfit to practice.)
ppgaz
Give it up, Mr. Mona.
Now you are arguing that the state SHOULD NOT tightly regulate this practice?
As I said above, one can but laugh.
Here’s an idea: Why don’t you run for office on a platform of deregulated drug and controlled substance distribution?
Let me know how it turns out.
(Note to self: Explain to POTUS why the War on Drugs has to be called off. Rove).
ppgaz
Welcome to the Drugworld of the Future.
The government struggles mightily to sustain support for its massive and expensive War On Drugs. Zillions are spent on prison space for people who dared to sell a little weed.
OTC cold medications are pulled from shelves lest they be scooped up by high school kids to make methamphetamines. Millions of noses are plugged up as supplies of the precious cold remedies become short. Cold pills are sold on the black market.
Morning After pills are tightly “regulated”, but rightwing crackpots decide that there is no “nexus” indicating a natural right for the state to regulate the dispensing of drugs.
Morning after pills are sold on the street. The going rate is 5 MA pills for one Sudafed.
Uh, pardon me for being rude, but have you meddlers actually thought this all through?
Controlled distribution such that pharmacists can impede meds they deem “immoral”, but at the same time, less regulation and more leeway for pharmacies to market drugs as they see fit?
Pharmacists can decide what pills get distributed, but patients don’t get to decide for themselves — are blindsided by whimsical decisions made at dispensing time?
Whooeee, welcome to the upsidedownery of Bushworld. All Pandering to Religous Crazies, All the Time.
Mona
Now you are arguing that the state SHOULD NOT tightly regulate this practice?
Nowhere did I argue that. I expressed agnosticism as to whether the cost/benefit to the consumer is worthwhile. But this is a tangential issue, and has no bearing on whether the state licensing entity should be allowed to coerce unwilling vendors (which pharmacies also are) to sell that which the owner finds abominable.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Are Mona et. al. the sort of libertarians who decry the Civil Rights Act and how it made businessmen serve black people in their restaurants and hotels, even if their conscience was against it? (Hey, there might be another hotel around the corner for you, Boy.)
I just want to get some understanding of the parameters for consciencious objection.
Al Maviva
Hey, way to uphold your libertarian ideals John.
I guess it’s a little like how domestic disagreements used to end at the water’s edge. In this case, libertarian principles end at the tip of your Johnson. Anything that can slow down your right to fool around without consequences, cannot stand.
So the pharmacist objects to abortifacient contraceptives, which kill the fetus after conception, rather than preventing conception – then big deal, it’s not his choice. He’s just following orders, and has no moral culpability. That’s a well established moral defense that we all accept, right?
If you want John, and if this issue exercises you as badly as you say it does, I can get you the addresses of some D.C., Florida, and California politicians who are working to force Catholic hospitals and Catholic doctors into performing abortions. I’m sure they’d appreciate some help forcing the Catholic hospitals do something they avoid on the grounds of moral unconscionability. Matter of fact, Senator Boxer and D.C. Council member Linda Cropp will be happy to hear from you. They need some help in getting them uppity papists under control.
Why should abortion be different? If a Planned Parenthood clinic prescribes it and you are an ob-gyn, it’s a done deal, and you should have to just do it, right? If you think it is, do explain how performing a surgical abortion is different from dispensing RU-486, an abortifacient.
Interesting, we’ve gone from contraceptives and abortion in the first trimester being a woman’s choice, to being a right that private actors have to provide on demand at any time up to 9 months plus, or else…
But then again, what can I say about my busy body opinions. I guess I’m just a shitty conservative who doesn’t adhere to conservative values and law & order the way you do. Clearly there’s no merit to my arguments, I’m a judgemental know-it-all creep etc…
Dude, you oughtta start guest blogging for Duncan.
ppgaz
Your reptition of the same incorrect thing does not make it correct.
Pharmacy is a regulated practice. It is dispensing, which is not “selling”. There is a distinct difference, whether you see it or not.
Pharmacists and pharmacy owners cannot do what they want. They have to do what we want. That’s their job, and that’s the law.
But more to the point, that is as it should be. Medicine is not mustard, or floor tile.
The states tightly regulate the practice. The Federal government tightly controls the drugs.
Pharmacists do not make care decisions. Patients and their doctors do.
I assure you, when the crazy people have taken away the right of people and their doctors to decide these things, then the people are going to get rid of the crazy people. The laws, the pharmacy boards, the courts will prevail.
Jay
Are Mona et. al. the sort of libertarians who decry the Civil Rights Act and how it made businessmen serve black people in their restaurants and hotels, even if their conscience was against it?
How many times is this kind of strawman going to be used?
The objection the pharmacists have, has nothing to do with the person trying to get the prescription, but rather the product itself and what they believe it does to somebody else.
The drugs for AIDS patients is a bogus comparison as well.
And ppqaz falls back on ad hominem whenever Mona gets the best of him. “Right wing crazies!!!!” Give it up.
Jay
It is dispensing, which is not “selling”. There is a distinct difference, whether you see it or not.
So what if there is a difference? The fact of the matter is, the pharmacy IS selling the drug. Why do you think you pay the pharmacist to fill the prescription? Are you under the delusion that every dollar goes directly to Phizer or some other drug company?
Pharmacists and pharmacy owners cannot do what they want. They have to do what we want. That’s their job, and that’s the law.
If it was the law already, certain states wouldn’t be trying to pass legislation forcing pharmacists to fill all prescriptions, so you’re wrong.
Again.
mds
The following excerpts are from an April 11 news item at the website of the AMA.
And to bring back echoes of Schiavo:
What a terrible slippery slope “liberals” would put us on, forcing health care workers to obey DNRS!
Hey, it’s the free market! You can always go to another doctor…without a referral. Well, you can always go to another insurance company.
I hope Governor Doyle was happy, blocking the workings of conscience and the free market.
So go ahead and rush to the defense of the “poor businessman” who in most of the cases so far did not own the pharmacy in question. The radical religious right want them to be able to deny your prescription and refuse to let you take it elsewhere, yet still keep their jobs. And yes, it’s interesting that theocratic groups such as the American Family Association have taken this up, and suddenly we’re getting more and more cases of conscience-stricken pharmacists. I don’t know if they ever dreamed that they would be supported in their push to eradicate one’s right to make one’s own health care decisions by the kool libertarian kiddies, but the more people who should know better helping their agenda, the better.
Now, you could move out of libertarian fairyland, where I’m sure you’ve built all your own goddamn roads and laid your own goddamn sewer lines, and look at the facts of the cases where this has happened, as John Cole has. Or you can keep smugly patting yourselves on the back for standing up for the free market while the Dominionists play you like a banjo.
Mona
Pharmacy is a regulated practice. It is dispensing, which is not “selling”. There is a distinct difference, whether you see it or not.
Not selling. I see. They give the scrips away and have no thought to profit margins. (eyes rolling)
MINE is a regulated profession; I “dispense” legal advice, which is nothing like floor tiles — and I SELL my services.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Re: The Wisconsin non-referral case
Are we supposed to pretend that John was referring to this case instead of the Illinois case he linked to? Because I think we are talking about the case mentioned in the blog.
I do not support any government effort to force people of conscience to sell any product which they find morally objectionable, but I also do not support the non-referrals.
I repeat: I hope every woman who wants Plan B gets it, but they have no legal right to it that supercedes the right of a private business to be protected from the government telling it what products to sell.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Pharmacists do not make care decisions. Patients and their doctors do.
No pharmacist is making a care decision for anyone, as long as the objecting pharmacist just says “No, I don’t stock that — you’ll have to go to another pharmacy for that product,” and doesn’t confiscate the scrip or refuse to refer or whatever.
They are foregoing profit margin and giving competitors an advantage in order to display conscience — I thought the left LOVED businesses like that! Oh, wait, they only love conscience-over-profit if it is in line with THEIR agenda. Gotcha.
John Cole
but they have no legal right to it that supercedes the right of a private business to be protected from the government telling it what products to sell.
They already are and they already do. You have heard of the FDA, haven’t you?
Maybe we should abolish the FDA and let market forces work out what drugs are safe? People can wear their prescriptions on bands on their arm, and when you find a corpse in the street, read up on what medication they were taking, and when enough people kick the bucket from a certain drug, the news will cover it, and people will stop buying that company’s drugs.
Gee- you are right! There is a market solution for everything!
Again, one more time for the slow. We already regulate pharmacists and their practices. We regulate the drugs they sell. No one is forcing pharmacists to run out and give every woman a morning after pill- only the ones who are prescribed one from their physician.
Again- this could all be solved if we just made the drug over the counter- I have no qualms with pharmacists who refuse to sell condoms, who refuse to sell other over the counter drugs. That is their choice. But in the highly regulated world of prescription pharmaceuticals, this is a faux display of conscience with real world consequences for many people. You can tell us all you want how many pharmacies where you live, that simply isn’t the case everywhere.
And for those of you outraged that a ‘libertarian’ might say this, I am not a big L libertarian. Like, for example- I recognize the government exists and generally push for less government involvement when possible. I don’t drink colloidal silver and have a bunker under my house. I haven’t filed a lawsuit against the government claiming they have no Constitutional authority to tax me.
And most of all, while I show proper respect for market forces and lower taxatiuon and free trade, I recognize that there is not a market solution for everything. In other words, I live in the real world.
Mona
[email protected] writes: I do not support any government effort to force people of conscience to sell any product which they find morally objectionable, but I also do not support the non-referrals.
Agreed. In that WI case, the pharmacist apparently would not give the woman her scrip or send it elsewhere as she ordered, which may well constitute criminal conversion. THAT he should be required to do, and his failure there appears to be (from what I have read, if he really would not release it) a proper matter of discipline. It ain’t his, it is hers.
Welcome to the End Times
MINE is a regulated profession; I “dispense” legal advice, which is nothing like floor tiles — and I SELL my services.
That’s a stupid analogy, Mona. Pharmacists don’t practice medicine, they sell the medicine that doctors prescribe. If you’re comparing yourself to a pharmacist, then I’d like to know who is handing you the legal advice you’re “dispensing.” I’m sure your employer would like to know, too. Is it being supplied by “legal advice” industry that’s federally regulated?
Let’s try for an analogy that actually has something to do with dispensing a pre-made and pre-approved product. If a Mormon works at Starbucks, does he have the right to refuse to serve you caffeinated beverages and turn you out of the shop? Under your logic, the answer is yes, because the use of caffeine is morally objectionable to him.
Pharmacies sell prescription drugs. The role of the pharmacist is to dispense the drugs and offer general medical advice. It is not, nor has it ever been, to decide whether or not you have the right to take the medicine that your doctor has prescribed.
John Cole
I dont think half of them even read the story I linked to, which contains this:
No one is requiring that they stock anything. They have it- they refuse to dispense it. To hell with them.
Mona
John writes: And for those of you outraged that a ‘libertarian’ might say this, I am not a big L libertarian.
Neither am I. I have never once voted for an LP candidate. Your lack of LP membership notwithstanding, you are nevertheless imposed upon to explain why a businessperson should have to sell a product s/he finds repugnant, when they are not a monopoly. In the “real world” you refer to, there are other pharmacies, hospitals, and Planned Parenthood, everywhere, to meet this woman’s needs. Your desire for coercion is unjustified, in the small “L” libertarian world.
Mona
Welcome to End Times writes: That’s a stupid analogy, Mona. Pharmacists don’t practice medicine, they sell the medicine that doctors prescribe.
Doctors do not get to dictate what pharmacists MUST sell; they can only prescribe and willing pharmacists may fill. The invocation of “practicing medicine” does not collapse liberty. What, a woman has a piece of paper from Great God MD and suddenly all freedom falls before it?
There are plenty of other pharmacists who will fill the scrip, and so can Dr.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
They already are and they already do. You have heard of the FDA, haven’t you?
Please. Don’t. Nowhere on this entire board are we discussing legality of product. Sorry I was not more clear, but we are discussing not what CAN be legally sold but what can legally NOT be sold. To put it another way, as long as everything SOLD is legal, the government should have no say in what is NOT sold by a private business.
But in the highly regulated world of prescription pharmaceuticals, this is a faux display of conscience with real world consequences for many people. You can tell us all you want how many pharmacies where you live, that simply isn’t the case everywhere.
So for the sake of a few people somewhere who you swear couldn’t get to a pharmacy in 72 HOURS that would take their money (rolls eyes), you’d have the government intrude on private businesses by telling them what they have to sell.
I’m really not sure, but does anybody have the RIGHT to immediate access to any drug? I can’t imagine that they do. And that imaginary right should superceded the long-held right of private businesses to sell only what they wants to sell?? No, thanks.
Suppose another girl somewhere can’t get to a Planned Parenthood clinic to have a legal abortion — you gonna ask the government to force the local Catholic surgeon to perform the procedure?
I know, I know…If these horrible ghouls on the buttinski-creep-religio-fascist-right get their way, imagine the horrible result: A few people somewhere in rural America might have to face the natural consequences of their sexual behavior, just as EVERYONE did for, oh, millenia upon millenia.
OH, THE HORROR!!!!!!! How will we as a nation survive??
Compuglobalhypermeganet
If a Mormon works at Starbucks, does he have the right to refuse to serve you caffeinated beverages and turn you out of the shop? Under your logic, the answer is yes, because the use of caffeine is morally objectionable to him.
Accepting for now that someone who objects to caffeine would work somewhere where the dispensing of caffeine is Job One (while dispensing Plan B is certianly not Job One for a pharmacist, especially a veteran one)…
Yes, absolutely, he has the right not to serve you, as long as his refusal isn’t discriminatory.
Then, here’s what happens:
Most likely, his boss immediately fires him and hires someone without that objection, and people STILL get their coffee,
…or if the Mormon OWNS the coffee business that won’t sell coffee (sigh), then people who want caffeine will go elsewhere for their coffee, and people will STILL get their coffee.
…or if no such competition exists, it WILL exist in a caffeinated heartbeat, and people will STILL get their coffee.
Just like they’ll still get their Plan B, even if people of conscience do not sell it.
The free market makes it highly unlikely that money goes begging to be spent.
Kimmitt
when they are not a monopoly
Again, why this presumption of competition? And which kind of law makes more sense — a law which requires pharmacies to be aware of the nature of every single business within fifty miles, or a law which simply lays down professional obligations for all pharmacies?
you gonna ask the government to force the local Catholic surgeon to perform the procedure?
Do you really think that providing a legally prescribed morning-after pill carries the same weight of conscience as performing a surgical abortion?
DecidedFenceSitter
Kimmitt, it doesn’t matter whether we think it does or not. I think anyone who doesn’t is a fucking loon.
Here is what I believe:
1. A business has the right to sell whatever legal item it wishes, as regulated by the government. (Whether or not I agree with that regulation is another matter)
2. A business has the right to not sell whatever legal item it wishes for whatever reason it chooses.
3. If a business chooses to sell a particular item, it is not allowed to decide who should have the item or not, as long as all regulations related to the purchase of that item are followed correctly.
4. As it relates to the cases that we’ve discussed, and my have we scatter-shotted across the map, my belief is that we cannot force an owner to sell an item; however, if he chooses to stock and sell an item/service then he should/must provide that service without discrimination to all. If an employee of a business refuses to carry out that duty, either by making it clear in the interview process or in the carrying out of his duties, then he should be removed from his position due to an inability to fulfill his contractual obligations.
Anything that contradicts the above 4 statements (and note I wrote them quickly, so there are probably holes you can drive semi-trucks through) I will probably disagree with.
I think that covers most of the various arguments and counter-arguments that have come up.
[Tongue-in-cheek]PS BTW Does my defense of this make me a crazy right-winger? I just need to know how I’m supposed to label myself now.[/tongue-in-cheek]
mds
Yes, absolutely, he has the right not to serve you, as long as his refusal isn’t discriminatory.
Then, here’s what happens:
Most likely, his boss immediately fires him and hires someone without that objection, and people STILL get their coffee,
Or, to make the parallel better, he refuses to serve the coffee, and refuses to let you have your order taken by another server, and the religious right push legislative intervention to protect him from being fired. Or, the nth case of coffee refusal finally occurs, this time in Chicago, and the governor says (as Mr. Cole points out) that if you stock coffee, no one at your store can refuse to sell it. Whereupon the religious right find someone who owns a store that doesn’t stock coffee to scream about how this violates his freedom of conscience by, uh, not applying to him at all. So, other than basically everything to do with this issue as it’s occurring in the real world, your analysis is spot-on.
mds
I know, I know…If these horrible ghouls on the buttinski-creep-religio-fascist-right get their way, imagine the horrible result: A few people somewhere in rural America might have to face the natural consequences of their sexual behavior, just as EVERYONE did for, oh, millenia upon millenia.
Okay, the mask is really off, here. At worst, a few little whores will get what they deserve for their sins. Definitely not a social libertarian, I take it?
Buddy
mds
Honestly, if a private proprietor decides not to stock any item for any reason whatsoever, that’s his business. Don’t frequent that business if you don’t like it. Really it
dave drake
Good topic – good discussion. The EASY answer, at least for those women 18 years & older is this: after you leave your Doc’s office with your ‘script for birth control pills – go home, open the yellow pages to the pharmacies. Call them by phone and ask if they fill ‘sceipts for BC pills. If they say ‘no’, keep calling until you find one that does. Then go to that pharmacy to get your BC ‘script filled. What’s so hard about that?
Compuglobalhypermeganet
Okay, the mask is really off, here. At worst, a few little whores will get what they deserve for their sins. Definitely not a social libertarian, I take it?
Hope you enjoyed your little strawman there, but it couldn’t be sillier.
Sorry if you don’t like reality, but what I stated is the absolute truth. Again, I hope everyone who wants Plan B gets it (kinda ruins your point, I know), but they must get it from a pharmacy which wants to sell it.
FC
dave:
You were just date raped (sorry about that), and ran to your doctor. He said that because you live in hicksville OH, and there are all those issues with Plan B, he is going to prescribe you normal birth control pills, and that you are to take two immediatly after you get them, and two in twelve hours later.
You’ve made the calls, and at the local drugstore, the floor manager you spoke to says “Yes mam! We certainly do.”
You arrive at the pharmacy, hand your BC prescription to the pharmacist, who looks at your hand and sees no wedding ring, and says “Sorry, mam. The state we live in has adopted the Pharmacists for Life International Model Concience Clause, which says, in part, that my right of conscience as a person who objects on religios grounds to the performence of any act in the normal course of my dispensing shall be respected. I do not dispense the pill to unmaried women.”
You scream for the manager. The manager comes by, and says that he would like to help you and fire the pharamaicst, but he was unaware of this concience issue, but does know that “any such person making such a claim of conscience shall not be denied employment because of such a claim of conscience,” and that there are not other pharmacists in that day and that he is sorry.
You ask for you prescription back, but of course, as that’s performence of an act in the normal course of professional performance, the pharamcist refuses to give it to you, with no reprecussions. In the 2 hours it then takes you to get a replacement scrip filled, you ovulate. The EC does not succede in preventing implimentation, and you are pregnant. Have a nice day!
Buddy
>Right, except that the entire situation in the linked article is about the governor requiring pharmacies to dispense medications that they stock. Reading comprehension is supposed to be pretty dang simple, too.
Perhaps you should take your own advice, to wit: read the first paragraph, which is talking about a small town pharmacy which
Compuglobalhypermeganet
In the 2 hours it then takes you to get a replacement scrip filled, you ovulate. The EC does not succede in preventing implimentation, and you are pregnant. Have a nice day!
Even in your HIGHLY-unlikely hypothetical where a date-raped woman can’t get to any doctor or pharmacy dispensing Plan B freely in the 72 HOUR period of time (sheesh, you guys…this isn’t 1824), the biggest harm you can come up with is that a woman may have to have a legal abortion, just as women have been having for decades?
Gosh, what did these hysterical types rant about before the Plan B pill was invented a couple years ago?
It is helpul to note that not one pregnancy has been alleged to result from a pharmacist’s conscientious refusal of Plan B, and that’s because there are plenty of alternatives for women to choose. Hell, in the Illinois case, the woman just went 500 yards down the block and got Plan B, yet she felt compelled to go to the government to assault the pharmacist’s legal rights.
Compuglobalhypermeganet
this is what the law does…If the contraceptive, or a suitable alternative, is not in stock, the pharmacy must obtain the contraceptive under the pharmacy’s standard procedures for ordering contraceptive drugs not in stock
Ahhhhh, so will all the pretend experts who said that the government isn’t forcing Rxs to stock Plan B now kindly print their retractions?
Buddy
Clarification:
In rereading the order, it’s even MORE strict that I first presumed. It leaves the decision on whether or not to forward the prescription on to another pharmacy at the discretion of the PATIENT. So the patient COULD FORCE the pharmacy to fill said prescription, under this order, if they wanted to.
Hence all of the arguments that the order is not forcing pharmacies to stock things they do not already stock are BOGUS. The order requires just that: That pharmacies stock or order any contraceptive that a patient has a valid prescription for if said patient wants to force the issue.
FC
You are all bad at reading legislation. No offence.
The patient cannot force a pharmacy to order drugs they do not otherwise order:
Buddy
“This says that employees, if they are out of the drug, must order the drug if their standard procedure is to order the drug. If the standard procedure is “We don’t order contraceptive drugs,” then they don’t have to order the drug. This is a removal of the agency problem between the pharmacist and the drugstore owner. Come on, now. Read.”
Bad reading indeed.
FC
Are you now talking about a drug store that stocks some contraceptive drugs and not others refusing to distribute Triphasil and not Ovrette, because there’s something not moral about Ovrette that is moral about Triphasil? Conservadissonance strikes!
Buddy
Nice dodge there FC. As has been discussed previously some ‘oral contraceptives have other uses than contraception.’
FC
No dodge. I honestly can’t think of a single case in which your hypothetical has real-world validity.
Oh, you’re talking about a store that will sell Ovrette or Triphasil one type of person but not to another? Yeah, that’s what I’d like to see regulated out of existance. I guess Libertarian really does mean opposed to Civil Rights!
TomE
No FC, he means if they sell a standard “Pill” to everyone, should they also have to sell “Plan 9”. I say no but this legislation will make it so they have to!
FC
He’s wrong, as I’ve explained. I also don’t think that you are translating what he’s saying correctly.
TomE
Scuse me, I think your wrong, and have read all your comments, I think you are the one who’s not translating it correctly. Under this directive a pharma has to sell all what ever the customer is asking, even if they don’t stock it. Plan 9 is opposed by alot of people, If a phrma doesn’t want to sell then he should have to, if he wants to sell other Controseptives then he should be allowed to. You dissmis it as we are reading the directive wrong, but I think its the other way around. This directive is poorly writen and lawyers will have a field day with it!
splashy
What if the woman is on foot, and the nearest pharmacy from the one that refused to fill the prescription is 30 miles away? That could happen in the area I live in.
I have read that some of the pharmacists have been lecturing the patients too.
TomE
Then she chose poorley and should have called ahead. Its the Pharma’s business he can do with it what he pleases even Preach the word of the lord to her if he so pleases. If she doesn’t like it don’t shop there any longer.
FC
What if the person she calls ahead to dosen’t know that the new Phramacist on duty that day isn’t willing to prescribe birth control pills to unmaried women? The employer dosen’t get to tell his employees to sell his goods or be fired – they are protected by the conscience clause such that they are a protected class – people who chose not to make maximal profits for their boss cannot be fired. Libertarian!
TomE
Conscience clause? wtf are you talking about? Why can’t the be fired? If I sell something to someone and my manager/boss told me not to sell it to them I sure as hell can get fired. All these “What Ifs” show you are digging. Get a better argument than “What if”
FC
If you don’t know what the Consience Clause is, then you’re coming to the debate without having done the background work. They couldn’t be fired because the people you seem to be supporting insist that legislation is required not to help owners of pharmacies do what they want, but to protect pharmacists who choose not to dispense birth control pills to unmaried mothers against their bosses desires from any reprecussions at their job. This is not a what-if, this is what your side, assuming you’ve chosen one, supports.
You said she could have called ahead, I said she did, and still didn’t get her prescription filled, and the pharmacist who refused to follow corporate policy remained employed. That’s what at issue, here.
Buddy
Ah, so we’ve moved from proprietor having the right to refuse, to employee having the right to ignore his boss. The first is what we were arguing for, the second is insubordination, and the employee should be fired.
The employee has a contract between himself and the employer to do work that the employer asks them to do. As long as said work is not illegal, said employee better do what they are asked, or else hit the road.
But alas, we have wandered far from the original question, which was
FC
That’s not the original question. Spin it all you want to, but the govenor of the state is reacting to the initial salvo, fired by employees ignoring their employer by refusing to dispense drugs their employer wanted them to dispense.
However, you seem to be willing to sign onto the libertine position, so let’s hear it, Buddy: “I do not support the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life.”
Buddy
I do not support any law that would force an employer to employ someone who will not fulfil their legal JOB, no.
However, I do support a business owner chosing which products he or she wishes to sell.
I’m not sure what you’re point is, as I’ve already made this clear before.
FC
You say you’ve made it clear, I think you’re dodging.
If the government says their job dosen’t include selling drugs that they are morally opposed to selling, should they be fired for not selling drugs they are morally opposed to selling? Obviously not. Are you opposed to government regulation in this area?
Here, real easy: “I do not support the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life.” Try it on for size.
Buddy
There
FC
With the Concience Clause as proposed by Pharmacists for Life, forcing an employee to distribute drugs he had a moral problem distributing would be a violation of the law. You pounded, and continiue to pound on the “legal” part of your job description.
Now that you’ve come clean about your opposition to Concience Clauses as proposed by Pharmacists for Life, let’s ask what’s more relevent:
Government power restricting all pharamacies from firing people for not doing their jobs or Government Power making a handful of mom-and-pops order a pill or two?
Now that you’ve answered that one, let’s move on to why you care enough to fight the governor on his efforts but haven’t lifted a finger to stop Pharmacists for Life.
Buddy
“Government power restricting all pharamacies from firing people for not doing their jobs or Government Power making a handful of mom-and-pops order a pill or two?”
Not understanding why it has to be either or? Is it so complicated for an employee to just do the job he or she signed up for? If said employee doesn’t want to do the job his employer asks, then he is free to get out, get a loan, start his own pharmacy, provide a better service to the customer, and kick the pants off his former employer. He should then be able to sell or NOT sell whatever he wants, as long as those items are legal items.
‘Fight the Governor’ Hah, heck I don’t even live in Ill. I just don’t agree with any government entity forcing a business to employ someone who won’t do their job, or force them to stock certain items they don’t care to stock. Honestly though, if the voters of the state of Ill. approve of this, I suppose it
timekeeper
FC, You apparently support the right of the government to force pharmacies to stock every drug, regardless of the personal preferences of the owner of the pharmacy. You don’t consider this a violation of the owner’s first amendment rights to self-expression? Remind me of this the next time a (private college) newspaper rejects an ad by David Horowitz, for “failure to meet their advertising standards”.
No pharmacy should be compelled to offer ANY medication, particularly one that does not treat a life-threatening condition, and one whose intended use is to facilitate what many people consider to be a heinous crime. Don’t bring up AIDS drugs, because their purpose is to preserve the life of the user; how he got AIDS is not relevant, and (as I have stated repeatedly) any pharmacist who refuses to fill a prescription for an in-stock drug should be fired.
Now, about why *I* am not fighting pharmacists for life— they are not issuing a binding decree (which apparently violates established state law) like Blagojevich. Only governmental agencies or persons can abuse their position in such a fashion; the Pharmacists for Life people are acting as any other special-interest group (such as People for the American Way, or the Sierra Club, or the National Rifle Association), attempting to marshal support for their position. Do you advocate that they be denied their free-speech rights, too, because you disagree with them?
You are trying to tie anyone who supports the right of pharmacy owners to control their inventory with the whole PfL crowd. They are not the same thing, which is why I don’t give two shits about an extremely obscure group (which spent less than $30,000 last year, and has no paid employees), which is exercising its right to publicly argue its case. The fact that I disagree with them does not negate that right.
FC
So, you consider a law that effects one or two mom-and-pops in one state to be more substantial than one that prevents pharmacists from being fired by their employers for gross insubordination in 4 states currently and 7 more prospectivally?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/daily/graphics/pharmacist_032805.html
Finally, no, a state legislature or governor forcing a pharmacy to stock a drug is in no way “Congress … mak[ing a] law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Buddy
“So, you consider a law that effects one or two mom-and-pops in one state to be more substantial than one that prevents pharmacists from being fired by their employers for gross insubordination in 4 states currently and 7 more prospectivally?”
No, I consider both equally substantial. Just because one law discriminates against fewer people doesn’t mean that law is not unfair.
Again, you’ve not answered my question, why does it have to be either or? Why can’t the law be written more clearly to specify that an employee of a company does not have the right to determine what his employer sells or does not sell? Why do you keep skipping around this point as if it
FC
I spend more energy on things that effect more people.
You seem to think that it’s “common freaking sense” that “An employee does not have the right to refuse to do his job,” while I’ve been showing you over and over that the side you refuse to critique supports the right of an employee to refuse to do his job. Conservadissonence.
I’d love to see the Conscience clause as proposed by the Pharmacists for Life and adopted by a number of states revised so that it dosen’t do what it’s explicitly designed to do. Sadly, it’s not going to happen when people like you are focused on one drugstore in Chicago.
buddy
No offense one who is designing law, and knows there are going to be people who are legitimately infringed upon and they do not seek to rectify that then they are an obtusely lax and astoundingly derelict lawmaker. Yes I realize we have a lot of them today.
As to ‘refuse to critique’ what part of ‘do your job or get another one’ are you having a hard time comprehending? Are you so captivated by one group of zealots that you can’t focus on anything else?
Honestly, I don’t pay that much attention to fringe nutzoids. However I do respect their right to lobby the government to attempt to get their ideas promoted. I’d still, however, call a spade a spade.
Heck I
timekeeper
FC: Jesus Christ, would you PLEASE let go of the conscience clause, because nobody who has participated in the past 100 comments or so has articulated a position that has ANYTHING to do with the damn clause. Buddy, CompuGlobal, TomE and I have all stated (REPEATEDLY) that we do not support allowing employees to make decisions about drugs stocked in the store in which they work. This alone differentiates us from PfL, since it totally undercuts their entire platform. We are supporting the right of the owner of the pharmacy to control his inventory.
Further, none of us has articulated a position based on religion, but rather on economics and property rights.
Considering my views on most social issues (pro-gay rights, pro-choice, pro-drug legalization), and the fact that I have not attended church regularly in my adult life, I’m hardly a religious zealot. I don’t know whether I should be annoyed or amused by your efforts to categorize me as such.