Anti-contraception insanity

I’m afraid we are going to see and more instances of this sort of thing in America, and I find it more than disturbing. It’s plain nuts. I live in a red state, and I’m wondering if I should move back to New York and hope that the Northeast secedes as soon as possible.

The Discussion: 11 Comments

I’m not entierly sure why you think that this is so disturbing. It addresses the fundamental right of everybody in America to say no as well as yes, and to say that they are anti pill as well as pro pill and the other issues surrounding contraception.

If you set a president by forcing a pharmacists to sell something that they are opposed to it would only be one more small step to forcing grocery stores to sell cigarettes or book stores to stock adult magazines.

If I ran a hardware store and refused to sell rifles in it you would congratulate me on my stand against gun proliferation.

If I ran a convenience store and refused to sell gum because I though that it was a nusance, you wouldn’t even notice.

I can understand the bit about refusing to give the form back, but a pharmascist shouldn’t be forced to hand over something that they don’t believe in.

Suppose I signed a law that forced you to post adverts saying that homosexuality was wrong, you would feel the same way as these pharmacists do.

We also know that except in a few medical cases, the pill is only one of many choices. if you can’t take it, abstain or use a condom.

Technically these new laws would also allow pharmacists to refuse to sell ritilin and other contraversial drugs, which might be beeficial to America.

It should be regognized as a fundemental human right that you can’t be forced to aid in something that you are opposed to

November 9, 2004 @ 10:11 pm | Comment

The fellow in question is being disciplined not for refusing to fill the woman’s prescription, but for confiscating it — something he had absolutely no right to do.

It’s one thing to ask not to be forced to involve oneself in something one objects to. It’s quite another to force that personal moral decision on someone else by preventing them from conducting a perfectly legal business transaction.

I just wonder what’s next. Will it be the pharmacist who won’t dispense someone’s pain-killer because it was manufactured in a country whose policies she morally disproves of? Because it’s manufacture involved animal testing? Because he thinks pain is inflicted by God, and should not be alleviated with man-made drugs?

One would think that if one had moral problems filling certain kinds of prescriptions that perhaps one should not seek to become a pharmacist.

Reminds me of bartenders who complain about cigarette smoke in their workplace.

November 10, 2004 @ 2:19 am | Comment

Afterthought: can a pharmacy-owner refuse to hire anyone who won’t agree in advance to dispense all legal prescriptions? Or would this be a form of discrimination?

November 10, 2004 @ 2:29 am | Comment

I bet that pharmacist has no problems dispensing Viagra.

November 10, 2004 @ 3:24 am | Comment

Richard, from your career background, you could have made a better point.

CVS is over a barrel on this one – with the desperate need for pharmacists, they couldn’t afford to fire her, but at the same time, CVS just got some terrible national press.

Thanks for the article – will make a good posting for my blog.

November 10, 2004 @ 12:26 pm | Comment

ACB, it’s not just the right to say no:

“Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill.”

Many Christian groups tell their followers that they have a moral imperative to force as many people as they can into their way of life. I don’t see why the law should protect them.

November 10, 2004 @ 1:08 pm | Comment

Right on, Devi.

Jeremy, good point on the PR. It looks absolutely atrocious. What ever happened to that old-fashioned notion of keeping your faith to yourself?? I mean, I can understand a doctor refusing to give an abortion — but filling a prescription for birth control pills? It’s going too far. What if someone’s faith teaches them Jews are subhuman swine not be dealt with; could a pharmacist therefore refuse to fill prescriptions for Jews? Has America totally lost its sanity?

November 10, 2004 @ 1:53 pm | Comment

My God! I agree with ACB. Must. Reboot. Brain. Immediately.

Confiscating someone’s prescription is out of bounds, and phamacies (etc.) should be able to refuse to hire anyone who won’t perform tasks that are part of their job, however, within those limits, people ought to be free to follow their convictions.

Say you owned a bookstore Richard. Freedom of Expression notwithstanding, you shouldn’t be compelled to sell, say, anti-gay literature. Well, this is an even more important prinicple because, to those involved, they truly believe that the pill can result in the killing of an unborn human being. You may disagree with that, but forcing someone to participate in what they sincerely believe is homicide is a hell of a thing.

November 11, 2004 @ 10:10 pm | Comment

D

“Yet some pharmacist have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill.”

I agree with you, this is wrong, maybe I wasn’t clear, I was saying that the people and the pharmacists both have a choice. The patient shoul dbe allowed her pills and the pharmacist should be given the right to say, “walk two blocks and turn left, there’re filthy killers there because the dispence this. Now get.”

Richard.

Legally a shop owner can refuse to sell anything to anybody I their own store (at least as far as I remember). I could refuse to sell grapes to a man with red hair or womens underwear to a cross dresser if I wanted. It’d be silly and I’d loose a customer but its a business owners right not to be forced to do business with somebody or to sel them something if he doesn’t want to.

The same laws would allow a store clerk to refuse to sell amunition to somebody he thought was a criminal or to sell childrens things to a sex offender.

There is such a thing as going to foar though when it becomes bigotry or racist.

November 12, 2004 @ 3:06 am | Comment

The problem I see with it is that it’s the pharmacist’s JOB to provide the customer with their prescription. By refusing to fill it and confiscating the customer’s papers so that she can’t get it filled somewhere else, the pharmacist is forcing their religious convictions on somebody else. THAT is wrong.

Besides, this pharmacist has no way of knowing what the birth control was going to be used for. Women go on BC for a lot more than just not having babies. Many use it to regulate their menstrual cycles because they have wacky hormones. I think it’s unfair to deny someone a prescription they need just because your Holy Book doesn’t like it.

December 4, 2005 @ 8:58 pm | Comment

If you follow this logic, the following things are conceivably wrong…

Plastic surgery

Make-up

Medicine

Hair-cutting

All of these things interfere with God’s image of us. So, we hit a paradox; the only way to not interfere with God’s plan at all would be to never interact with anything; ever. How do people know that contraception isn’t part and parcel of God’s future for us? Has God told anyone?

January 31, 2006 @ 12:52 pm | Comment

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