This oft repeated comment is actually pretty obnoxius. I know there are those who like to believe that women are the walking wounded who desperately seek and need love and support from people we do not even know (and do not want to know).

Speaking for myself I am not the least bit interested in getting love and support from strangers for choices I make .

Pretty ballsy arrogance.

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Blessings.

As an aside, Plan B is not an abortificant. Plan B makes it impossible for the egg to implant on the uterine wall. It’s basically a huge dose of the pill that renders the egg useless.

And yes, it’s very important for rape victims to get all sorts of counseling, but this option is something they should be told about immediatly and given access to immediatly if they choose to go with it (some don’t).

Blessings.

“Should they be compelled to violate that ethical position?”

Not Piny’s post, because well, I agree with everything that Piny just said.

Until we can ensure that all people will have coverage of choice - we need to draw the line. You point out the euthenasia example, well how about people who are against homosexuality or promiscuity and decide to deny AIDS patients the cocktail? It’s opening a door to moralizing in a way that should not be mainstream by any means, especially in a market driven society where people can and do control markets in many parts of the US.

No one’s arguing that a pharmacist should be forced to prescribe BC, full stop. The argument is whether they have the right to continue to practice if they won’t fill prescriptions. Should a pacifist soldier be allowed to continue being a soldier, if he refuses to pick up a gun?

It’s not an analogy–it’s one big reason why “conscience clauses” are such a huge problem for women. Being denied access to contraception–or being forced to travel out of one’s way for contraception–is unjustly burdensome. However, _emergency_ contraception is time-sensitive. Like Kim was saying, a woman who has been raped and who needs EC _does not have time_ to exercise her free-market right to find another pharmacy, preferably one in a major, liberal, metropolitan area. She needs to take EC immediately; if she does not have immediate access, she’s screwed. So this is entirely relevant: does a pharmacist have the right to force that woman to become pregnant?

Blessings.

The point is to make sure treatments are available with a good information system so folks can make educated decisions concerning their choices and health.

But this is what already occurs and what already is the responsibility of the pharmacist. Their job is to know the drugs and combinations of drugs, have a record of allergic reactions in the past, and to make sure that people get the drugs in the proper dose to ensure their health needs as indicated by a doctor.

Basically, though, they are asking for the right to play moral middle man in areas that they could easily create a block on the market from necessary medications. Some jobs force compulsory service that you may or may not agree with. Just because your job has a certain commerce angle to it doesn’t mean you don’t have an obligation to either provide the service or be exposed or stopped from practicing in a way that gets in the rights of others.

Anyways, we could find a way to seperate the moralist pharmacies from the full-service, and make sure that the full-service were the ones with the advantages, I’d maybe have less a problem with it, but as long as it’s under a haze where they can not only control the market, but also control the choices, they are under an obligation to provide those choices. If you see it as making them ethically work in an abortion clinic - well, perhaps they shouldn’t get a job in an abortion clinic.

I do not care for the rape analogy as it is loaded with all kinds of other issues that will pull us from the corps that I am trying to get a grip on and that is of the right to refuse to supply a good or service based on ethical compulsion. (It is however an area worthy of looking into itself.)

I believe the Gov. should compel services and goods in situations of race as in integration and in equal rights etc. I also see where this can be an issue of equal access as women are the group that are in question, needing or wanting access to the drug. (This troubles me.) The trouble comes from the imposition of ones needs over the right to not operate in the market as one deems fit as a result of an ethical position. If the good or service were so restricted and of such high necessity as to be required to survive then it seems to be reasonable that it be made available from as broad a spectrum as possible.

However the issue of contraception is a very personal one with as many folks suggesting that the drug is a good one as those that say it is not. I am leery of anyone imposing on the right to choose the care and direction of their body and spirit. By requiring a person to participate in what they see as ethically against their values, isn’t that what we are suggesting?

Blessings.

“The point is to make sure they provide what is needed, not to make sure they cannot provide.”?

The point is to make sure treatments are available with a good information system so folks can make educated decisions concerning their choices and health. The point is, that individual’s rights to choose a treatment do not imply they have the right to require that someone else participate in it involuntarily.

I do not see that it is anybodies business to require a privately held company provide a specific product or service. (Unless it is like airwaves which are technically speaking a public trust, and even then they only provide minimal access by the general public.)

Blessings.

I noted in your above post you seem to equate pharmacy sales to gun sales. I think it’s a sloppy comparison. Swallowing your gun won’t treat medical conditions that doctor given prescriptions will.

As far as dictating what pharmacists can or cannot provide, actually that’s also inaccurate. The point is to make sure they provide what is needed, not to make sure they cannot provide.

What you seem to be not grasping or seeing here is that this law might not make a huge difference in well provided areas where you’ll have some pharmacists that object and others that don’t, but instead in areas that aren’t large enough to support commercial choice.

When you end up with a lack of choice such as that, you run the risk of the pharmacist not only making her or his own moral decisions, but making decisions for the community she or he serves in a way that interferes with their rights to receive the medications prescribed to them.

In essence, pharmacists are providing a medical service of necessity, and at times urgency. Purely hypothetical here, but were I travelling cross country and somehow ended up getting raped and wanting Plan B, but rural town Joe Pharmacist has decided he morally objects to Plan B, I’m up shits creek without a paddle and Joe has just made the decision for me that I’m now going to have to get an abortion if pregnancy has occurred from the rape.

I guess for me, the only way I could see limiting such choices is to give pharmacists and pharmacies that refuse to offer complete services should perhaps be limited in whether they can bill insurances or be part of the ‘mainstream’ medical field, because their actions are removing them from the mainstream and setting them apart as activists in a certain area.

Let the full service pharmacies be the ones with the controlling options so that people have the medications they need available to them.

Honestly this issue baffles me to say at least. I have great respect for the work pharmacists do… But it is essentially a “middleman” work (or “middleperson”, considering we’re on a feminist blog) with obligation to deliver the prescriptions made by a doctor. To make an analogy, I wouldn’t use the shop and alcohol -example, I’d rather use a post office analogy. Pharmacists refusing to deliver something that they ought to deliver (not a letter-bomb either, but a very expected and welcome letter).

I cannot comment on the comparisons to entertainment industry… I live in Finland where health care is public (with a private sector tagging along for good measure) and responds to needs of patients. (I’m just curious about the other side of the pond, so to speak, that’s why I’m participating). Completely market-driven health care just seems… strange. But I am anti-censorship (of course, with clauses for material that was produced criminally), and I support the right for law-abiding citizens to own guns. But health industry, that’s different.

Invidual pharmacists rights comment… I meant that there is an issue of conflicting rights… The right of a woman to get the drugs she needs (this need is declared by her) from a nearby drugstore, for some it is probably very to difficult to hunt for another pharmacist, versus the right of a pharmacist to decide whether to fill prescptions given by doctors on behalf of the woman needing the drug. Obviously, I cannot deny that I am biased in this issue, but I meant to pointy out that it might not be entirely fair to declare “I support invidual rights, therefore I support the pharmacist/or woman on the other side”, meaning I don’t approve when my “posse” does that either. Especially considering Rights and Freedom are very basic, even sacred issues for Americans (and hey, they are great things, but debatable… :) )

Could be the cultural divide is big on this issue, but please don’t think I’m not willing to listen to differing opinions. That’s why I made the comment in the first place.

If a pharmacist were carrying the drugs, and dispensing them to only one set of individuals and not another, that would be a different issue. However if they choose not to carry them, I do not see where one can demand them to do so. The entertainment industry wanted to limit the editing of movies so that they were only sold uncut Free speech). The courts upheld the rights of business owners to sell them edited as long as they were not duplicated. There is a long history which supports business owner’s choices at how and what they market, the system does not seem to matter as much as the right to choose what one sells.

“I am a bit of an individual rights kind of person
Individual pharmacist’s rights, you mean.”? …and yours as well.

If we dictate to pharmacists what they can and can’t stock, where do you think it could lead? (That could depend who is in office.) Besides, I think most pharmacists are economically driven; there should be plenty that sell the drugs that are in demand. I believe availability should be made for people that have a need for meds via County or other resources as well, as usually it is the poor that are discriminated against the most. I do not believe in requiring an individual to carry what is to them unethical. I live in AZ where gun laws are lax to say the least; can they require that I carry ammo based on the Constitutional right to bear arms? Can I be forced to show films that objectify people because the right to free speech? Please, get a grip. There are greater ramifications when forcing people to anyone’s agenda, because we might disagree, doesn’t make us any better to do the mandating.
Take a higher road, and show folks where these drugs are available, and talk to those that do not agree with selling them and find some middle ground. Folks listen better when they think we are listening too.
Blessings.

I fully support a local pharmacist that refuses to carry magazines that depict men and women in pornography.

What the hell? Some pharmacist sell porn magazines? :-0

If I opened a store, I would not like to be forced to sell tobacco or alcohol; I base this on moral choices and beliefs I have. I see both of those as harmful and dangerous drugs.

This is quite different. Obviously, a “store” is a very broad concept, as is is the term “shopkeeper”. They operate (almost) completely off-limits, guided only by the owner’s choices and laws of economy.
Pharmacies on the other hand, are part of the health care system. They are places where a person gets his prescription drugs that she needs, that her doctor has declared the best for her. No one is asking the pharmacist to like filling those prescriptions… However it’s not unfair to ask a person to fulfill the obligations set up by a particular line of work. It has been said before… If you are severely unhappy about some medical drugs and how they are used (not misused, btw), don’t become a pharmacist.

I am a bit of an individual rights kind of person

Invidual pharmacists rights, you mean.