This always caused a heated debate here in the past:
Pharmacists are obliged to dispense the Plan B pill, even if they are personally opposed to the “morning after” contraceptive on religious grounds, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
In a case that could affect policy across the western U.S., a supermarket pharmacy owner in Olympia, Wash., failed in a bid to block 2007 regulations that required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills.
Family-owned Ralph’s Thriftway and two pharmacists employed elsewhere sued Washington state officials over the requirement. The plaintiffs asserted that their Christian beliefs prevented them from dispensing the pills, which can prevent implantation of a recently fertilized egg. They said that the new regulations would force them to choose between keeping their jobs and heeding their religious objections to a medication they regard as a form of abortion.
Obviously, I support this ruling.
Sarcastro
They said that the new regulations would force them to choose between keeping their jobs and heeding their religious objections to a medication they regard as a form of abortion.
Line up at the unemployment office with all the Christian Scientist doctors, Sikh barbers and Mormon bartenders.
Xecky Gilchrist
Glad to hear the court went with the sanity option.
Though if they didn’t I’d be tempted to become a pharmacist myself so I could refuse to sell boner pills and fertility drugs on moral grounds.
lawnorder
Free Market rules, no ?
You don’t want to do your job, leave it.
Tom Hilton
People like you would deny Amish folk the right to not drive buses for a living, or the right of PETA members to work at a butcher shop and not serve meat, or the right of Quakers to enlist in the army and not fight.
Hater.
El Bandito Blancito
Jesus’ sermon on the mount was explicit about this…
J Bean
“The plaintiffs asserted that their Christian beliefs prevented them from dispensing the pills, which can prevent implantation of a recently fertilized egg. ”
Although it’s been clearly shown that Plan B prevents the release of a mature ovum and has no effect on a fertilized egg, they still prefer to lie about it to their patients. It’s okay to lie, if you are a Christian.
Garrigus Carraig
Well this is a shame. Perhaps they can embark upon a new career in gun sales.
jl
Has there ever been a case of the doc or pharmacist refusing boner pills on religious grounds?
The traditional Christian (I mean ‘traditional’ in the sense of hundreds of years ago, not the new Christianists) objection to early abortion (that is, before quickening) was because of sexual immorality, not because of the life begins at conception nonsense.
The double standard for boner pills, anything that concerns womens’ sexuality and reproduction is stunning.
As is the double standard regarding supposed murder at early abortion vs fertility clinics.
The double standards, sexual hysteria and repression regarding women runs deep in this society.
General Winfield Stuck
Since Roberts has done a Jedi mind trick on Kennedy, slowly bringing him back into the wingnut fold, I doubt this won’t get overturned by the SCOTUS.
Unless something changes with the court makeup, a woman will have to undergo 6 months of reprogramming at Religious Wingnut Central Command, and then run a three minute mile to get an abortion. Currently the robed Orbs of Jesus are circling the wagons to fend off the coming godless libtard assault on lily white conservatism.
Lee from NC
@Garrigus Carraig:
Except, of course, many guns are used to kill people so as we know Christians in this country are vehemently opposed to people owning guns. Oh. Wait. I see what you did there. ;)
Paddy
I’ve been glad to hear about these advances, but I’m still not sure what this is about- July 3, 2009-The Prez saying- ‘Robust’ Health Worker Protection Backed
Just pablum for the fundies?
Will
If the pharmacists’ religious beliefs prevent them from dispensing a certain type of medication, the pharmacists’ religious beliefs prevent them from being pharmacists.
mvr
The striking thing is how many of the people who will think this case is wrongly decided would think nothing of overruling genuine religious rationales for small accomodations of religious views even when these views do not substantially interfere with doing the job. (Such as saying prayers on the job at prescribed times as was at issue in a packing plant case here in Nebraska if I recall correctly.) In other words, their sympathies are highly selective even among religious objections to terms of employment.
Any distinction between cases looks like it should go the other way round from the one that favors the anti-choice pharmacists. Where an accomodation is small and doesn’t interfere with the point of the job, it seems reasonable to make it. But these are pharmacies, the whole point of which is to dispense medicine as prescribed. In such a case accomodation is impossible.
beltane
The pharmacists should take this as a sign that God wants them to find another line of work. They’ve obviously spent way too much time around drugs anyway.
Just Some Fuckhead
Who the fuck cares what the pharmacist believes? He ain’t taking the medicine. Jesus, no one can just do their fucking job anymore, amirite?
Alan
I don’t think their claim is an actual Christian belief. The pro-life movement is a religion unto itself–I don’t think Jesus ever discussed the morning after pill.
Sleeper
I hate to be one of the predictably shrill lefties saying “Obama is betraying us!!!” but just once, I’d like a solid week to go by without another article detailing his constant triangulating, or restating his position in such a way that his original position changes entirely, or pandering to a constituency that is going to hate him anyway regardless of what he says. There’s no need to kiss the Pope’s ass on this. Most American Catholics don’t listen to Benedict anyway. And Obama has enough common ground with Benedict when it comes to global warming, the problems of unrestrained capitalism, Middle East interventionism, etc. Work with him on that, please. Stop empowering the douchebags who deliberately seek out jobs in the pharmaceutical industry so that they can deny rape victims and terrified teenage girls emergency contraception because Jesus would disapprove.
I’m almost afraid that Obama is on track to becoming the antithesis of Stephen Colbert’s description of Bush: a guy who on Wednesday believes the exact opposite of what he believed on Monday, even if nothing changed on Tuesday.
Just Some Fuckhead
I’d like to pledge my patronage to the first restaurateur that refuses to serve fat white Christian America her sumptuous Sunday meal because of a strong conviction against gluttony.
schrodinger's cat
Its Friday evening, and time for a post about the great Tunchinator, also known as Tunchus Maximus, complete with a photograph and a video.
Dennis-SGMM
The plaintiffs asserted that their Christian beliefs prevented them from
dispensing the pills, which can prevent implantation of a recently fertilized eggthinking .Fixed.
The Moar You Know
I’m 43 and don’t feel like working anymore, but don’t have anywhere near enough to retire with. All that’s gotta happen is that the Supreme Court needs to overturn this decision, then I’ll get a job as a pharmacist, then convert to Christian Science and tell ’em where to send the paychecks.
Bonus perk: denying lifesaving medications to GOP voters.
kwAwk
@mvr
Interesting point but I’d have to say that the purpose of a pharmacy is not simply to dispence one specific type of medication. I would also say that the purpose of a pharmacy is not to simply fill every prescription as prescribed. For example if a doctor is trying to prescribe Motrin for a 7 year old with a broken foot and accidentally prescribes Morphine, I would hope that the Pharmacist would recognize and question that.
I can see the grounds on which this could be overturned. Why is it the providence of the state legislature to determine for a pharmacy which medications they must carry and dispense? My wife takes a medication that isn’t available in certain pharmacies in the right dosage/pill count combination. When she is told that a given pharmacy can’t fill her order she simply goes elsewhere. Why is this any different?
Why is it the providence of the legislature to tell individual pharmacists that they must be willing to dispense each and every one of the thousands of available prescription medications if they choose not to?
You hold pharmacists to such high standards (or in such low regards I can’t tell) but would you feel the same way about a law that said that every doctor must be willing to perform abortions on demand or they can’t be a doctor?
Cpl. Cam
I’m a rastafarian. I can has farmicee? No tylenol but, here, smoke this.
JD Rhoades
My dad is a pharmacist (as well as a former member of the State Pharmacy Board). He’s slightly to the right of Pat Buchanan, but he was horrified and indignant that some pharmacists were refusing to dispense duly prescribed medications. His take was basically the same one as the title of this post. “You don’t like it, go do something else.”
Roger Moore
@Alan:
I don’t think that really matters. True Christian, approved by Jesus religious beliefs shouldn’t get any greater or lesser protection than modern, anti-abortion religious beliefs. Or, for that matter, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh, Hindu, Jewish, Wiccan, Pagan, New Age, Atheist, etc. beliefs. None of them should be allowed to justify denying people their valid prescriptions.
Joel
I’m going to drive down to Olympia and stock up on some emergency contraceptives!
Dennis-SGMM
Because the pharmacy is licensed by the state in which it operates. Dumbass.
rock
Yeah, that ruling is going to be overturned right quick by the SC.
They can do it on the grounds of religious freedom or build up a case that the state cannot tell pharmacies what to stock.
Don
The right of the pharmacy ownership to decide has never been in question. “Christian Pharmacies” are cropping up all over the place. The issue is whether someone can take a job and then refuse to do a portion of the job because they don’t like it.
Well, actually, any of us can do that. The question is why should this one class of person and one class of job get to play Bartleby and still get to keep their job? THAT is what this is about and it was a moronic anti-business decision from the get-go.
jl
@kwAwk: My two cents, yes, I would require every healthcare professional, doc, pharmacist, whatever, to provide services and goods that are part of the recognized standards of care when used properly
Maybe should give students a briefing before their professional school starts, and those that don’t like the idea can go do something else.
But, I admit, that I am very hardnosed about this, more than most, probably.
Tom Hilton
That’s a point I’ve made before: conscience is about your own conduct, not about controlling the conduct of others. The fundawingalists have misappropriated the word ‘conscience’ and applied it to things that have nothing whatsoever to do with conscience.
Punchy
Ho’es rejoice!
/wingnut
beabea
Meanwhile, here in central wingnuttia, Gov. Bobby Jindal shored up his wingnut cred some more by signing a “refusal of health care bill” the other day that allows exactly what the 9th Circuit struck down today.
Fundie pharmacists from Washington, come on down to Louisiana!
@schrodinger’s cat: King Tunchus Maximus of Futon. And yes, I too, wish for new pics of His Tunchiness and his canine comprade.
Delia
@kwAwk:
If you’re in a town or city with a lot of pharmacies this may make sense. If you live in a rural area you may have only one choice. And in any case, your closest local pharmacy will always order a medication for you that they don’t happen to have in stock, if that’s your desire. This is what they do. I’m not a medical professional, but I believe there are things like professional ethics, if not laws, that oblige them to stock the requirements of their trade.
Tongue of Groucho Marx
Luddites that thought this had a powerful message should also comprise the entire staff of Microsoft, Apple, General Electric, etc.
Llelldorin
@kwAwk:
Pharmacists are state-licensed, at least in my state. The state can set professional standards to maintain that license.
If you replace “doctor” with “OB/GYN” (I assume you don’t want abortions provided by cardiologists)? Certainly. Doctors are also state-licensed. (Your “on-demand” is misleading nonsense, of course; replace it with “if there is no valid medical reason otherwise,” just as for the pharmacist. No-one is suggesting that pharmacists have to ignore dangerous medical interactions, only that they can’t throw a loud snit about a patient’s sinful sex life when faced with a Plan B request.)
If not, you’re looking at false advertising: A store claiming to be a “pharmacy,” but refusing to do the job that that entails. Otherwise, what’s to stop me from buying a pallet of extra-strength Advil and hanging a “pharmacist” shingle?
General Winfield Stuck
@Tom Hilton:
Proselytizing by way of Pharmaceuticals. No more, no less.
Comrade Kevin
@kwAwk:
Yeah, you’re right. People oughta be able to go to a pediatrician or a podiatrist and demand an abortion.
Fulcanelli
Jesus-Moonwalking-Christ, now the pharmacists have their own Christian version of Going Galt(TM).
These ‘tards will be the next aborto-terrorists, killing people by giving them the wrong drugs in their prescriptions.
Does anybody know if Wal-Mart sells the morning-after pill in their pharmacies?
Dreggas
@kwAwk:
If the pharmacy in question does not stock said drug that is one thing. The main issue here is if a fundie pharmacist goes to work for, say, Walgreens and refuses to dispense a prescription, ie the morning after pill, on religious grounds and that is the only pharmacist for that store. Now if there was more than one pharmacist at the store in question then the pharmacist who refused should direct the customer to the other pharmacist or say “X can help you”. Of course that’s not what they do. See also the link above wrt Jindal and that stupid fundie law.
Dennis-SGMM
By the way, my church, The First Church of Duracell, believes that it is our religious duty to taser outspoken Christian fundamentalists until they soil themselves. It’s a matter of conscience.
MikeJ
Question yes. She should call the prescribing doctor and ask, “Is this what you meant?” They do this every single day. And if the doctor did in fact mean morphine, well, she’s the one who went to med school. She has a reason for writing the scrip.
The next-to-last samurai
The Tunch Bunch respectfully requests a Tunch n Lily update. Kthnxbai.
anonevent
@kwAwk: The difference between the motrin/morphine case and the Plan B case is that the pharmacist is determining the appropriate level of treatment for pain in the first case, but denying care in the second. If the pharmacist denied the child motrin for “character building” reasons it would be wrong, too.
General Winfield Stuck
The shitasses deserve it.
John Cole
I know I’m supposed to be more mature than this, but I’m seriously to the point that these guys can just choke on a bag of dicks. Against your religion to provide a certain prescription? Find another job. Period.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole:
We got a bunch of cool shit planned for The Tribulation.
Face
Have to agree the black robes in DC will reverse this in short order.
General Winfield Stuck
@John Cole:
Those are dispensed as party favors with no prescription required. Wingnut Crack.
A Mom Anon
@John Cole:
I swear,I think they took the damned job just so they could deny women healthcare.
I really fucking wish this culture could get past punishment as the answer to everything. That’s really at the heart of this fundie wingnut crap. There’s no compassion or empathy for anyone,they are devoid of any sort of concept of caring for others,they see these things as weaknesses. Sociopaths.
maya
You know this will come up at the Sotomayer herrings.
Dennis-SGMM
@A Mom Anon:
It’s the same old Dominionist bullshit newly repackaged as “conscience”. Just as Creationism was repackaged as Intelligent Design. I could give a shit less what these people believe as long as they don’t try impose their beliefs on anyone but themselves. They keep trying to do exactly that. For them, the Fourteenth Century was the The Good Ol’ Days.
Dreggas
@A Mom Anon:
Your swearing is correct. They do that kind of shit, ie go to school and become a pharmacist just so they can not fill prescriptions for birth control or plan B. It’s part of their stupid ass stealth takeover bullshit. If they had their way condoms would be behind the pharmacy counter just so they could refuse to sell those too.
someguy
I think that pharmacists who refuse to dispense contraceptives, whether abortifacient or prophylactic in nature, should lose their license. The government doesn’t establish monopolies for professions to permit them to withhold services. It would be like granting a person a driver’s licenses, then permitting them to ensure nobody else on their block gets to use the road at the same time. That pharmacist’s license is public property, bub, just like the road. We didn’t spend the public money to grant you special rights, in order for you to use it to deny others their rights.
The same rule should apply to doctors who refuse to perform abortions, and for that matter, lawyers who refuse to take a percentage of destitute clients, particularly destitute criminal clients.
You don’t like it? Fine. Go find another profession where the state doesn’t guarantee your monopoly over the type of service you provide, ya greedy wankers.
jcricket
@John Cole: Nope, that response was about right. They misrepresent what Plan B does so they can claim it’s like abortion and abortion is icky and they can’t be forced to participate in an abortion.
So the whole rationale is a lie, much like everything Republicans say (especially about sex, or gay people).
If this causes religious asshats to leave positions (which will then be filled with non-asshats) this is a good thing.
The more we can do to discourage these people from fucking up the world for the rest of us, the better off we’ll be. They can all move to LA and UT for all I care.
General Winfield Stuck
@maya:
Yes, to highlight the angst of white embryos getting thrown under the bus of reverse discrimination. They could’a been contenders and grown up to be smarterer firefighters, or something.
Bad Horse's Filly
@A Mom Anon: If by punishment you mean for being born female, gay or any color but milky white, then I think you’ve got it right.
Dennis-SGMM
What if they decide that they must, as matter of conscience, refuse service to anyone who isn’t a born-again Christian? As much as I despise slippery slope arguments it seems that if they do eventually get their way in court the door will be open to all sorts of shenanigans in the name of conscience.
Xel
This is a horrible slap in the face of all the American muslims who were hoping to become pig farmers without having to handle pigs.
Jackie
Professionals handle this quietly and arrange for someone else to take care of the patient if they feel they can’t. These people are grandstanding for street cred. They get to brag come sunday about how righteous they are.
Then they get to whine about how oppressed they are.
Martin
I can’t see that they would be able to. Any profession would be able to make similar claims and since there is no standard on religious beliefs, there’s nothing stopping a civil engineer from refusing to follow building codes on the grounds of whatever made-up religious conviction. It’d be a defense for any kind of incompetence.
Dennis-SGMM
@Xel:
So, no Jain cops?
Comrade Dread
Well, I know my reason for being Pro-Life isn’t because I think all human life is sacred, but is really because I am a evil misogynist who secretly wishes to lock every vagina behind an iron chastity belt, stick a toothbrush in every woman’s hand and make them clean the bathroom and kitchen linoleum/tiles.
Preferably, I will be standing over them cackling evilly.
/sarcasm
geg6
When will these assholes quit trying to climb into my uterus? All licensed professionals are granted a monopoly of sorts. As such, they have a higher responsibility to the public and their professional standards than those who are not granted such special rights. If their idiotic religious beliefs (or more likely paranoid obsession with controlling women and those women’s reproductive systems) don’t allow them to provide what my doctor has decided is in my best medical interests, then they can go find other work. And, yes, I feel the same way about any asshole OB/GYNs like Coburn who don’t want to provide the fully legal medical procedure of abortion. Religion, my ass. All this shit is about putting women in what they think should be their place. Fuck them with a rusty pitchfork up the ass.
dbrown
@someguy: Your first point is excellent and totally on; best defense I have read on the subject (or any medical ethical subject) in years and makes the case open and shut – your aurgument about doctors is dead wrong. You cannot force an MD to do any procedure that they are unwilling to do. Think about that – a doctor must do heart surgery because they are an MD yet has never done one before? Many doctors have never done an abortion (I am refering to OB/GYN’s) and to say you can force them as part of their job is nonsense. Knowning how is not in any way the same as leaning by doing and most never do. So, forcing them to perform surgical procedures against their will is a prescription for disaster … had to fit that pun in … sorry.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
but..but..but..it’s right there in black and white. Authoritarians 5:6, just after the part where Jeebus talks about the Pharmicees, and before the bit where he says that ‘Blessed are the morans, for they shall inherit the news media’.
Shygetz
@kwAwk: Can a Catholic City Clerk refuse to issue marriage licenses to non-Catholics because he believes such marriages are immoral and invalid? Can a Christian supremacist firefighter refuse to rescue a Jewish kid from a burning house because his religion says they deserve to burn? Can a Jehovah’s Witness surgeon refuse to allow blood transfusions in their OR? All of these people are only refusing to do SOME of their job, so it’s okay with you.
I think I’m going to become a priest and refuse to do anything but host potlucks. I’d still be doing SOME of my job, so that’s fine. Oh wait, I forgot…clergy jobs are too important to entrust to people who are morally opposed to doing their f*cking job, but you think pharmacists aren’t that important.
andrea
This kind of shit makes me want to go to pharmacy school so I can give out Plan B like candy. Or if I were criminally inclined, become the Proposition Joe of birth control distribution.
AhabTRuler
So you’d be Anglican?
Dulcie
@AhabTRuler: WIN
Mnemosyne
As always, Fred Clark at Slacktivist had something pithy to say about people who take jobs that they plan to fail at. There are some qualifications that are so basic — like a pharmacist dispensing medication to a patient — that no one bothers to ask if the person interviewing is planning to refuse to fill certain prescriptions. It just doesn’t come up … until it does.
Zifnab25
They’re not required to stock the drug, are they? I don’t think there is any law saying, “Company X must carry product Y”. So – from what I can conclude – they had the drug in stock, and if they stocked it they must have been selling it. So they didn’t object to distributing the drug. They just objected to certain individuals buying.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
Because, after all, there’s nothing more pro-life than making sure pregnant women die. If they didn’t want to die because no doctor would treat their ectopic pregnancy for fear of being accused of facilitating an abortion until it was too late, they shouldn’t have gotten pregnant in the first place.
Comrade Dread
Well, ordinarily I would say that taking a life in self-defense has always been a recognized right of human beings.
But since I’ve already come out as a evil misogynist who only wishes to enslave womankind and make them wear dresses, high heels, and makeup while they’re getting me a sandwich, I’ll just continue to sit here and cackle evilly.
Betsy
@kwAwk: Let’s put it this way. I’m a vegetarian. I have every right to open a vegetarian restaurant. I do not have a right to take a waitressing job at Peter Luger Steakhouse and refuse to serve customers their duly ordered porterhouse and not be fired. We clear?
asiangrrlMN
@Comrade Dread: Nope. You’re a misogynist because you put the “life” of some cells above the life above a woman. You don’t have to be an evil stereotype to be a misogynist.
As for the ruling, it’s about damn time. It’s a damn shame that so many people want to shove their beliefs down everyone else’s throats. And other places.
someguy
@ dbrown
They used to teach basic abortion procedures in med school, and the surgeons of my generation – all of them I knew anyhow, which is anecdotal but good enough for me – had to perform or at least assist in several procedures or they couldn’t graduate. It was basic lifesaving medicine in case a pregnancy went bad.
Then the christofascists got to the med schools, inflicted their “freedom of conscience” notion on the med schools, and it turned into an opt-in topic for doctors to learn about. And don’t even ask about it at the Catholic med schools (the teaching hospitals of which gladly accept taxpayer money).
Given that most med schools are operated on the taxpayer dime, and even the private schools are extremely grant-dependent, I see no reason why all doctors are not compelled to learn this procedure. And c’mon, it’s not open heart surgery. Almost all the procedures are really basic.
You don’t like it, find another profession suited to your outlook – like witch doctor, medieval monk, or dodo wrangler.
The Other Steve
I think the pharmacy should have the right as a whole to not carry certain drugs.
In particular say contraceptives and shit.
However by state law they should have to have a big sign on their front door that says “WE REFUSE TO SERVICE SLUTS ON THESE PREMISES.”
comrade scott's agenda of rage
There is no such animal. They discourage members attending college feeling that since the End Is Nigh, it’s pointless to waste time going to college since that’s a long-term prospect.
Oh yeah, these assholes need to have their licenses revoked. They can move to some Bumblefuck state (like TX and LA) to practice their shit.
Crashman06
A couple years ago, I remember reading some article about Muslim cab drivers (from Michigan, maybe?) who were raising a stink about not wanting to carry any passengers who had been drinking, since apparently that would be against their religion. Of course, the right-wingers were super offended by this, and thought that these cabbies should be forced to carry any passenger who flagged them down. Like all fundamentalist hypocrites, though, the righties don’t seem to have a problem when good Christian pharmacists deny Plan B to their evil, promiscuous patients.
Comrade Dread
My reasonable cover might have said something akin to human life is human life regardless of what stage of development it’s in.
But since I no longer carry that veneer, I will simply say that we should probably stop educating women too so they don’t git none fancy book-learnin’ iders in thar heads.
Llelldorin
@Comrade Dread:
And my reasonable facade might point out that that doesn’t comport with either historical tradition in this country (which considered quickening the point of ensoulment, not conception), or with the way people actually act (first-trimester miscarriages are not treated as comparable even with stillbirths, much less with deaths of children), and that pretending otherwise can and has had horrific consequences for women in bad situations. (What if death isn’t certain, but is a serious risk? What if the consequence isn’t death, but lifelong health problems? Ones that will make it difficult for her to raise the child?) What about rape victims? You realize that you’ll be condemning any woman who can’t actually prove rape (which can be very difficult) to have a lifelong relationship with her rapist? (After all, in the absence of a conviction he could sue for parental rights.)
Since you’re apparently onto me, I’ll admit that I just think that soylent green is really boring without condiments.
steve s
Yeah, I feel the same way as I do about those douchebag muslim taxi drivers who didn’t want to pick up fares who were carrying alcohol.
(voice: Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross:) “You don’t wanna do your job, LEEEEAAAAAAVEEEEEEE.“
steve s
Maybe it would be nice to have a question on the application:
18. My religious beliefs will prevent me from actually doing this job
___yes ____no
steve s
I’ve run into this kind of thing personally. I used to live in Durham, and took the Durham Area Transit buses around to get groceries, years ago. One day I got on the bus with my numerous bags, some of which had bottles of wine in them, because I like to drink like crazy, and after I sat down, the conversation went like this:
driver: You know I didn’t have to pick you up.
me: uh…what?
driver: I don’t have to pick up anybody carrying alcohol.
me: it’s groceries. It’s not opened.
driver: I still don’t have to pick you up.
me: Why wouldn’t you? I’m not drunk.
driver: I just don’t.
Now, the rules technically say the driver can refuse for any reason. But still, WTF? I don’t like plaid pants. If I got my CDL, can I drive around and not pick up Andre 3000 because of his sartorial choices? Maybe I could, but that would just indicate that I’m a humongous tard.
steve s
I’m a professional math tutor. It’s a tough business, not only because of the recession, but because tutoring hours are generally limited to between 4-7 pm monday-thursday. So one of the things I’ve tried to do to circumvent this is to advertise to the homeschool community, which tend to have freer schedules. The downside is that in the main they really don’t value education at all, and don’t like to spend a dime on it. Nevertheless, I do a lot of outreach and advertising to the homeschoolers, via churches, Yahoo groups, etc. Every few phonecalls I get are like this:
ring
me: Hello
some suspicious sounding dude: Hello…uh…this the math tutor?
me: Yes, it’s steve. How can I help you.
dude: my boy needs sum help in math. He’s takin’ al-jih-brah.
me: Okay, that’s most of the work I do, what grade’s he in.
dude: Well, first, lemme ask ya, what church you go to?
me: I don’t like to discuss religion, actually, I just do math.
dude: Yeah but I mean are you kris-chun?
me: Honestly, I don’t talk about religion or politics with students. Just math. I can help with math, if you need it.
dude: are you tryin’ to uh-void my question? I jess wanna know if yer kris-chun.
me: that’s really not a subject I discuss. I’m a math tutor. I talk about math, I don’t get involved with any personal subjects.
dude: uh huh okay I’ll think about it and call ya back
click
This might sound biased, I don’t care, but when I get a call, if it’s a woman on the phone, there’s a 40% chance I’ve got a new client. Jewish woman, 80% chance. Guy, 0% chance. Religion comes up, 0% chance.
Michael
The Cult of the Unaborted Fetus is very doctrinally precise.
Llelldorin
@Comrade Dread:
I’m now regretting my tendency for symmetrical flippancy.
The problem is that asiangrrlMN had a real point. You have to choose somewhere to draw a line and say “before this point, not a person yet, after this point, a person” somewhere between gametes and born baby. The Roe compromise effectively created a sliding scale where the developing zygote/embryo/fetus gradually acquires human status over the course of the pregnancy.
You want to replace that with a sharp, hard line at conception, based on your own aesthetic views. The problem is that drawing a line there has potentially horrifying consequences for many, many women. The fact that you consider your own aesthetic satisfaction worth those consequences is, at the least, distressing.
Michael
The Pharisees ended up winning. It’s all about the public show.
Llelldorin
@steve s:
Damn. Two decades ago that would have been the perfect straight line. Unfortunately, Professor Church of UCLA died fourteen years ago.
mvr
@kwAwk:
I think it is the prerogative of the legislature to regulate health care and set standards for its provision. Pharmacists are health care workers with licenses. Legislatures are smart enough not to pass legislation denying pharmacists the right to not dispense drugs that cause problems when taken together. They’re also smart enough to figure out that requring pharmacists to dispense prescribed birth control whether or not they like it leads to the more efficient provision of medicine than regulations that allow for personal ethical objections to such dispensation. Unless we have an objection to regulating the provision of health care as such, I don’t see a special problem here.
Furthermore, it is easy to say “go elsewhere for medicine,” in a larger city. But those of us who live in states like mine (Nebraska) could easily see the protection of such religious objections turning into 300 mile car trips to get birth control or whatever for citizens of smaller towns. (I believe we even have a law banning mail order pharmacy in this state, in order to keep small pharmacies in small towns in business, but the details are fuzzy so don’t take my word for it. If I’m right the argument is stronger yet. Not that NE would pass such legislation.)
mike in oly
I live in Oly and have been following this from the get-go. The typical attitude here in lib-leaning Oly is that if you can’t fulfill your contractual obligations get out of the the business. In order to operate as a pharmacy one signs a contract with the State agreeing to abide by the (secular) rules set up for all businesses of this type. Storman’s, after signing said contract and operating under it for many years, decided that they no longer needed to fulfill their obligations on religous grounds. In effect saying that the personal religious beliefs of the business’ owner are paramount to public contractual agreements already signed on to. When this individual sets themselves up as the moral guardians of the public they have reneged on their contractual agreement.
Where does this end?? If Storman’s decides that they cannot dispense anti-AIDS medications to their homosexual customers on the basis of morality do they have the right? If they believe it is okay to dispense condoms and Viagra but not female-centric birth control is that acceptable as well? If they feel that serving Jewish or Muslim customers violates their religious views is that acceptable? What if their religion forbids them to assist non-white people? Where do we draw the line? Either you are a public operation or not.
I’m glad to see the community standing up for their values and boycotting this business. I used to shop there weekly. I have not entered their store since this nonsense started and won’t as long as they continue this discriminatory line of reasoning.
Shell Goddamnit
“What church do you go to?”
“First Fundamental Pre-Christian Church of Things That Go Bump In the Night. And you? The same, I assume?”
Oh yeah: and what Lleldorin said.
rock
Clearly, the government needs to open up public pharmacies!
Ruckus
@geg6: #64
I hope you mean tines first not the handle.
PurpleGirl
This decision is from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and it pertains to a 1st Amendment claim to the free exercise of religion, which the 9th Circuit panel found was not applicable to the case in question. That means a further appeal by the store owners and the pharmacists can be taken to the Supreme Court. There are also other grounds for action, including the timeliness of getting the medication, which await further action by the court. (Information from LA Times article.)
BTW, the 3-member appeals panel was composed of 2 conservative judges appointed by G.W. Bush and 1 liberal appointed by W. Clinton.
OriGuy
@someguy:
A while back, some Muslim med students in the UK tried to get out of learning how to treat women, or alcoholism, saying that they would not be doing either. I don’t know how that ended, but I don’t think they graduated from med school.
I should note that mainstream Muslim groups did not support them. From The Times:
Irony Abounds
I wouldn’t be so sure the case will be overturned by the Supremes. Do you really think Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito want to provide ammunition to Muslims who want unlimited rights to practice their rituals whenever and whereever? Mark my words, fear of Muslims will temper the push by Christianists to inflict religious dogma on all of us.
LongHairedWeirdo
Hey, Dread…
Good point. I hope you never have cancer. It’s human, it’s alive, it’d be immoral to kill it.
Oh, and if someone is ever decapitated near you, with their skull crushed to jelly? You’d better be trying to stanch the bleeding and giving mouth-to-fucking-NECKhole resuscitation, because you don’t want the “human life” – read as, the headless body, just *swimming* with living human cells – to die.
Now, I’ll grant you, it’s *true* that you’re allowed to revere human life post conception or pre-conception for all I give a damn. But not when you’re trying to throw up barriers to other people trying to live their lives as they see fit. And that’s when you need more than “Oh, I just *LOOOOOVE* human life, even when it’s invisible to the fucking naked eye!” as justification.
Which is, of course, why Roe was decided as it was; come the third trimester, you have a clear cut case of a person the state can take an interest in protecting. Hell, push really hard, you might get it back to week 20. You could even argue for week 16.
But no one’s trying for that. And that should be a telling point. It’s not “when can we say there’s clearly a person here;” it’s “how can we argue that a fucking small clump of undifferentiated cells has rights that we *never* give to any other human being – the right to attach to another person’s body against that person’s explicit consent.
HRA
My question is if they refused to fill the script based on their beliefs, then why do they have it in their stock? It does not make any sense at all.
I worked in a small neighborhood pharmacy while going to school. There were 3 pharmacists and the owner who was also a pharmacist. Three were Catholics and one was Jewish. They never refused to fill any prescription. The only hesitation was when they could not read the doctor’s writing and had to call him/her to inquire about it.
These wackos who are becoming judge and jury need to either do their job or become missionaries. Jindal should become a missionary as well. I am done with having my religion taken over by the self righteous fringe. That is not how I see it.
Xenos
@Xel:
The funny thing is that there is a minority group in Somalia that considers fish eating to be taboo. For the last few hundred years they have been making their living as fishermen. If I remember correctly the story is that they lost all their camels in a war, and needed a new way to make a living. In any case, they are used as an example to argue against certain Marxist theories that people quickly adjust their cultural practices to accommodate economic realities.
kay
I think the free exercise tactic is a loser.
The first natural extension if this were to stand that comes to my mind is school teachers. Based on exactly this argument, they could refuse to address any part of the curriculum that departs from or contradicts their religious tenets.
This is endless. I think they probably cut it off quick.
kay
@Comrade Dread:
And, for what’s it’s worth, I don’t think you’re a misogynist, and we’re 180 degrees apart on this.
I think you made well-reasoned strong arguments in the murdered abortion doctor debate, for the pro-life position.
I have never before heard anyone raise self-defense as justification for an exception to the pro-life position on imminent threat to a woman’s life. It’s clever, and it makes sense. I’ve read both sides a lot, and that’s the first I’ve heard that. “Mother’s health and life” is the big conundrum in this balancing act and you’ve actually addressed it head on.
You’ve obviously given this a lot of thought, and labeling you a misogynist is sloppy and isn’t reflected in anything you wrote. IMO.
Wile E. Quixote
@Sarcastro
No shit! I am learning to really, really, really fucking hate Christians because of their incredible hypocrisy. Remember a few years ago the huge outrage on the right because Muslim cab drivers in Milwaukee were refusing to pick up certain passengers because of their Islamic religious beliefs? Well this is the same goddamned thing, these assholes want to impose their religious beliefs on others in the workplace. Well fuck you bible-thumpers! If your religion doesn’t believe in birth control then find a job where you won’t have to dispense it. If you don’t like then go cry to Jesus or whatever other imaginary friends you have, on your own time and not on the clock, and leave the rest of us the fuck alone.
The right wing has told us that we don’t want Sharia law in the US, and I agree with them, on the other hand I don’t want to be governed by Christian law either, which is every bit as intolerant, nonsensical and batshit insane as Sharia.
low-tech cyclist
The argument I think we on the left should be making is, why should a conscience clause be restricted to pharmacists or other medical professionals? If they have the right to keep their job while saying ‘no’ to some aspect of their job that they find objectionable, why shouldn’t every American have that right?
When you put it like that, of course the whole idea reveals its fundamental idiocy.
rob
As a father of a teen aged girl. I recently had to go out and buy Plan B.
The problem in my town was that no one stocked it. So it needs to be stocked, or they can get around the requirement to fill, by saying sorry we are out of stock.