Unconscionable
I received mail the other day from Planned Parenthood asking me to sign petitions/letters to the CEOs of Target, Winn-Dixie, and Safeway about their policies about filling prescriptions for contraceptives. (Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill is the hot button here, but that's not the way Planned Parenthood discusses it, nor is it the way the initiators of this action--those who don't want pharmacists to fill certain prescriptions--have framed it. They both know it's a slippery slope, and the latter like it that way.) Specifically, policies that may permit a pharmacist to decide he or she doesn't approve of a prescription and decline to fill it.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Everyone is entitled to act upon their views. If one has a moral objection to contraception, one shouldn't have to fill the prescription.
But one shouldn't be working as a pharmacist, where filling prescriptions is one's job, and judging prescriptions is not.
Do the companies that permit pharmacists to decline to fill prescriptions for contraceptives have similar policies for other viewpoints pharmacists might hold? A Scientologist pharmacist might then decline to fill prescriptions for medications prescribed by a psychiatrist. A Christian Scientist might be hired, and then decline to fill all prescriptions, directing customers to trust in God. Wildly implausible, sure, but just as reasonable as permitting a pharmacist to decide that a woman should not receive a physician-prescribed contraceptive.
The only reason for a person to take a job as a pharmacist if he or she is unwilling to dispense medications as prescribed is with the goal of wielding a moral hammer against some person, group, or issue. A vegetarian/animal-rights activist doesn't sign on to be a butcher except to exercise his or her views in opposition to butchering, and a pharmacist who takes a job and then decides his (or her, but mostly his) conscience doesn't permit filling certain prescriptions is no different; s/he didn't have this crisis of conscience suddenly last night. The butcher shop isn't going to keep the animal rights activist on the payroll; they're going to replace that person with someone who does the job of butchering. Pharmacies should be no different.
The only reason that pharmacies and the companies that own them aren't operating in accord with that basic bit of common sense is the cudgel wielded by those intent on enforcing their version of morality on everyone. They can't win the day through reason; instead they threaten corporations that they will be seen as un-Christian or anti-religious if they don't yield to one view of religion.
In the meantime, they threaten the health and the freedom of everyone else. And that I find unconscionable.
Everyone is entitled to an opinion. Everyone is entitled to act upon their views. If one has a moral objection to contraception, one shouldn't have to fill the prescription.
But one shouldn't be working as a pharmacist, where filling prescriptions is one's job, and judging prescriptions is not.
Do the companies that permit pharmacists to decline to fill prescriptions for contraceptives have similar policies for other viewpoints pharmacists might hold? A Scientologist pharmacist might then decline to fill prescriptions for medications prescribed by a psychiatrist. A Christian Scientist might be hired, and then decline to fill all prescriptions, directing customers to trust in God. Wildly implausible, sure, but just as reasonable as permitting a pharmacist to decide that a woman should not receive a physician-prescribed contraceptive.
The only reason for a person to take a job as a pharmacist if he or she is unwilling to dispense medications as prescribed is with the goal of wielding a moral hammer against some person, group, or issue. A vegetarian/animal-rights activist doesn't sign on to be a butcher except to exercise his or her views in opposition to butchering, and a pharmacist who takes a job and then decides his (or her, but mostly his) conscience doesn't permit filling certain prescriptions is no different; s/he didn't have this crisis of conscience suddenly last night. The butcher shop isn't going to keep the animal rights activist on the payroll; they're going to replace that person with someone who does the job of butchering. Pharmacies should be no different.
The only reason that pharmacies and the companies that own them aren't operating in accord with that basic bit of common sense is the cudgel wielded by those intent on enforcing their version of morality on everyone. They can't win the day through reason; instead they threaten corporations that they will be seen as un-Christian or anti-religious if they don't yield to one view of religion.
In the meantime, they threaten the health and the freedom of everyone else. And that I find unconscionable.
Labels: rights
posted by Maines at 10:01 PM
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