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No one said HE had to fill it. But he actively interfered with anyone else at that location filling it - that's the problem. He inserted himself into the transaction and refused to step back from it, which is the action allowed to him. He could have and should have stepped out and let another Walgreen's employee at that location handle the transaction. That is why this is a problem.
Honestly, the rest of it's a bit of a red herring. While I agree that medically, he wasn't facilitating an elective abortion, that's irrelevant. The policy is that yes, he's entitled to not fill a Rx if he has moral objections. But he's not allowed to prevent that transaction from occurring at all at the location he happens to work out. Yet that is what he did.
Actually, a number of people have said that. You can go back through the thread and find many examples. The problem is the pharmacist didn't follow the law, which, as was pointed out, says there are circumstances where he would have to fill it anyway.
ok, I was going over the line; : just trying to make a point. Most of us know that i was exaggerating. As for D&Cs there is a possibility of things going wrong in all surgery procedures, but they are rare. I am sure there are risks in taking the drug as well.
It was the idea of comparing the risk of surgery, even that which some people consider "minor" (though I learned in nursing school no surgery is minor to the patient) to going outside to get the morning paper, kind of blowing it off. I agreed that the risk of getting involved in an accident with a drunk driver is another risk many of us take daily.
The doctor gave the patient a choice, drug or D&C. She made her decision.
Actually, a number of people have said that. You can go back through the thread and find many examples. The problem is the pharmacist didn't follow the law, which, as was pointed out, says there are circumstances where he would have to fill it anyway.
I saw lots of people saying he SHOULD have filled it, saying because it didn't trigger application of his conscience clause because the medication wasn't being used to terminate an active pregnancy. But obviously, if he had just stepped back and let another employee hand over the already filled prescription, the entire thread would be moot.
I saw lots of people saying he SHOULD have filled it, saying because it didn't trigger application of his conscience clause because the medication wasn't being used to terminate an active pregnancy. But obviously, if he had just stepped back and let another employee hand over the already filled prescription, the entire thread would be moot.
OK, the below is what I was trying to avoid. Numerous people, including these quoted, said the pharmacist should have filled the prescription, should be fired for not doing so, and/or shouldn't let his personal beliefs interfere with filling prescriptions, not just this particular prescription.
It apparently came as some surprise to some posters that there are conscience laws in pretty much every state about not compelling health care providers to do things that go against their religious beliefs.
Also, some people seem to think that pharmacists should never question a prescription. Pharmacists have their own licenses to be concerned about; if they fill a prescription that they know is inappropriate (too high a dose comes up frequently, also interactions with other drugs) they can be sued.
I have already said I thought the pharmacist was wrong in this case, BTW, this post has nothing to do with my personal opinion of this case.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Luckyd609
Pharmacists that have ethical problems about filling certain prescriptions need to find another line of work.
Quote:
Originally Posted by annabanana123
I think the pharmacist was in the wrong. It is not our place to judge or decide. If you cannot separate your personal beliefs from your job then you shouldn’t be in that field. For example I am personally pro life and a Christian but I fully support the right to choose for someone else. Your beliefs are just that - yours - and not meant to be forced on someone else especially in this situation.
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Originally Posted by fred44
This pharmacist should be fired and license revoked! Who the f does he think he is judging people and denying them prescribed medicine! This is outrageous! Where does it stop, denying black people because of beliefs, how about Asian people, or the Irish, or Italians? WTF is going on in this country. Thank you trump for enabling crack-pots and trying to take away our freedom.
(As pointed out, these laws predate Trump, in some cases by decades.)
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Originally Posted by Mikala43
This. It is not his job to judge any medication that has be prescribed, his job is the fill the orders.
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Originally Posted by maciesmom
It is not his job to make moral judgements on the behalf of the client/patient. Particularly when he is not fully informed as to the individual situation. It IS his job to ensure the prescription does not conflict with other medications, that the prescription is legal and safe for the client.
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Originally Posted by markg91359
The idea of going to another pharmacist doesn't work.
In a small town, there may be a limited selection of pharmacies. They may not be open at the hours that are needed. There are reasons why pharmacists are a profession and are licensed as such. Certain duties go along with it. Those duties include serving all customers who come in the door and not simply those that the pharmacist likes or wants to serve. State licensing imposes duties on individuals that are not imposed on common laborers. A license should not be given to someone who will not accept that responsibility.
If a person has strong religious convictions about dispensing any particular medication than a pharmacy that serves the public is not an appropriate work setting for him/her.
Its not a question of choice when there may be no choice for some customers.
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Originally Posted by Delahanty
It has nothing to do with what century we're in.
He's a pharmacist employed by a store, and his job is to fill prescriptions ordered by physicians or other health care professionals. If he didn't want to do that, he should never have become a pharmacist.
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Originally Posted by MechaMan
Do your job!!!!
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Originally Posted by emm74
***If you don't want to do things that are against your personal belief system, then the correct response to that is to not pursue a career path that includes doing those things, NOT to subject others to your beliefs by refusing to perform lawful functions of your job to provide the services they are paying for and reasonably expect to receive.
The fact that the in this case, a wrong headed law gives him the right to force his beliefs on someone else doesn't change that.
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Originally Posted by Luckyd609
As one atheist to another I am going to claim BS on that argument. Also your using a false equivalency to make your point.
Denying people medical care on religious beliefs is a terrible idea. If a women needs an emergency abortion because she is carrying around a dead baby someone needs to provide her with the medication the doctor prescribed. This hypocrite of a pharmacist needs to look for another profession. I can pretty much guarantee he does all kinds of stuff that goes against his chosen religion. They all do.
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Originally Posted by blktoptrvl
So, if you allow this one pharmacist to illegally discriminate against a customer, what is to stop the one next door? This things need to be stopped where found.
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Originally Posted by hifijohn
Hes is entitled to his beliefs, but then stay out a job that requires you to be in conflict with them.It reminds of that stewardess that converted to islam then refuse to serve alcohol to some passengers.
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Originally Posted by Larry Siegel
I'm also a libertarian but nobody forced him to be a pharmacist. He took the job knowing what was involved. He should dispense the meds or his employer can find another pharmacist. He does not have the right to reconfigure the job on his own terms any more than I can pick and choose which of my company's needs to satisfy while I collect my paycheck.
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Originally Posted by PriscillaVanilla
If a person has moral issues with certain medications, why are they working in pharmacy? What about Viagra, does he dispense that too? Pain meds, what if the person he dispenses them to becomes addicted? Doesn't that violate his moral conscience? That are many moral issues surrounding drugs, but only the ones that women take seem to be issues for these religious folks.
Yes, "what about"? Let's move the goalposts. Pain meds now have lots of restrictions, btw.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ddm2k
The discussion of the treatment has already taken place between patient and doctor. The prescription is an authorization to dispense an approved medication and dosage. The pharmacist's job is to execute these written orders and dispense approved medicine to a patient.
The only reason a company would stand behind the pharmacist is if they believed they stood a better chance of being sued by the pharmacist than the patient.
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Originally Posted by Tominftl
Fire the pharmacist. He took this job knowing he may have to fill all prescriptions whether they fit with his religion or not. He is an obvious screwball, let him find some kind of work where he won’t be offended or have a conflict with his religion.
Finally, I'll close with this. I totally agree, BTW.
Quote:
Originally Posted by old fed
never say never. if i owned a compounding pharmacy in a death penalty state and was asked to compound meds for execution i would refuse.
having said that, this pharmacist failed the patient and knew he was supposed to find her an alternative way to obtain the drug but did not.
That may be your viewpoint, but the law provides otherwise. They aren't judging the ethics of the patient so much as they can't be forced to violate their own ethics.
I thought this was already decided law, Christian bakers, and all that. . .
A woman in Arizona needed to fill a prescription for a miscarriage and the pharmacist refuses to fill it because of his religious beliefs. The woman had already seen her doctor and her fetus had no heartbeat.
OK, the below is what I was trying to avoid. Numerous people, including these quoted, said the pharmacist should have filled the prescription, should be fired for not doing so, and/or shouldn't let his personal beliefs interfere with filling prescriptions, not just this particular prescription.
It apparently came as some surprise to some posters that there are conscience laws in pretty much every state about not compelling health care providers to do things that go against their religious beliefs.
Also, some people seem to think that pharmacists should never question a prescription. Pharmacists have their own licenses to be concerned about; if they fill a prescription that they know is inappropriate (too high a dose comes up frequently, also interactions with other drugs) they can be sued.
I have already said I thought the pharmacist was wrong in this case, BTW, this post has nothing to do with my personal opinion of this case.
(As pointed out, these laws predate Trump, in some cases by decades.)
Yes, "what about"? Let's move the goalposts. Pain meds now have lots of restrictions, btw.
Finally, I'll close with this. I totally agree, BTW.
None of that is inconsistent to me, because I still think that he shouldn't be in that job, at all. I can acknowledge a law exists and still consider it bad law, which I do.
I would also say that I think the argument people were making was to say that the conscience clause doesn't get triggered in a case where the medication is used to expel the end results of a spontaneous, naturally occuring fetal demise rather than to cause an elective abortion. Under those circumstances, than yes, he "has" to fill the Rx because he has no justification for not doing so.
But in any case, the Rx was already filled in the sense that it had been dispensed into a bottle, with a label printed. All that was left was for someone to hand it over to the customer and take her money. We know this because she got an email saying it was ready to pick up. So in this case, no, this individual pharmacist wasn't even being asked to fill the Rx. He just had to follow company policy to involve another employee and then stand aside while someone else served this customer. He chose not to do so - so he was not exercising his conscience clause, he was actively prohibiting someone from getting a prescription he happened to not like.
Maybe Arizona will wake up when California sobers up.
Huh? No idea what this is supposed to mean, or what it has to do with the topic at hand.
In response to KW's post above I do personally feel the pharmacist should fill the script. He is not privy to each individual situation (although as has been mentioned numerous times if he was concerned, he could have called the prescribing physician prior to filling it) and he is not personally making the decision to ingest or administer the drug in any event. Clearly the law allows for him to step away. It is his employer's policy to make the script available without inconveniencing the customer or shaming her at the pharmacy window, yet that is what happened. If the policy had been followed the customer would not have even known it was an issue because it would have been handled and a plan for distributing the drug would have been made before she arrived. This guy felt it his duty to humiliate the woman because he assumed she was lying. Completely unprofessional. I think Walgreens has reason to fire him for that reason if they choose to do so.
None of that is inconsistent to me, because I still think that he shouldn't be in that job, at all. I can acknowledge a law exists and still consider it bad law, which I do.
I would also say that I think the argument people were making was to say that the conscience clause doesn't get triggered in a case where the medication is used to expel the end results of a spontaneous, naturally occuring fetal demise rather than to cause an elective abortion. Under those circumstances, than yes, he "has" to fill the Rx because he has no justification for not doing so.
But in any case, the Rx was already filled in the sense that it had been dispensed into a bottle, with a label printed. All that was left was for someone to hand it over to the customer and take her money. We know this because she got an email saying it was ready to pick up. So in this case, no, this individual pharmacist wasn't even being asked to fill the Rx. He just had to follow company policy to involve another employee and then stand aside while someone else served this customer. He chose not to do so - so he was not exercising his conscience clause, he was actively prohibiting someone from getting a prescription he happened to not like.
There is very little disagreement with that statement. However, there seems to be great disagreement with the "conscience clause" in AZ (and other states') law. However, as old fed indicated, one should "never say never". As a holder of a health professional license, I am glad for such clauses, though I have never invoked them myself. The other issue is that many people seem to think the pharmacist is a "human robot" who is just supposed to follow orders and not use professional judgement him/herself.
How do we know this? We only "know" what the patient has said and apparently that Walgreen's is investigating. Like many stories causing mass outrage here on CD and elsewhere, we don't know all the facts.
Quote:
Originally Posted by maciesmom
Huh? No idea what this is supposed to mean, or what it has to do with the topic at hand.
In response to KW's post above I do personally feel the pharmacist should fill the script. He is not privy to each individual situation (although as has been mentioned numerous times if he was concerned, he could have called the prescribing physician prior to filling it) and he is not personally making the decision to ingest or administer the drug in any event. Clearly the law allows for him to step away. It is his employer's policy to make the script available without inconveniencing the customer or shaming her at the pharmacy window, yet that is what happened. If the policy had been followed the customer would not have even known it was an issue because it would have been handled and a plan for distributing the drug would have been made before she arrived. This guy felt it his duty to humiliate the woman because he assumed she was lying. Completely unprofessional. I think Walgreens has reason to fire him for that reason if they choose to do so.
I would agree the pharmacist did not follow proper procedure. Firing might be extreme, certainly a reprimand and remedial education would be in order.
There is very little disagreement with that statement. However, there seems to be great disagreement with the "conscience clause" in AZ (and other states') law. However, as old fed indicated, one should "never say never". As a holder of a health professional license, I am glad for such clauses, though I have never invoked them myself. The other issue is that many people seem to think the pharmacist is a "human robot" who is just supposed to follow orders and not use professional judgement him/herself.
How do we know this? We only "know" what the patient has said and apparently that Walgreen's is investigating. Like many stories causing mass outrage here on CD and elsewhere, we don't know all the facts.
I would agree the pharmacist did not follow proper procedure. Firing might be extreme, certainly a reprimand and remedial education would be in order.
Which is why I said I thought Walgreens *could* rather than *should*. I don't know enough about this particular situation or others in his past, to have an informed opinion. In general, humiliating customers is not good business practice.
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just trying to make a point. Most of us know that i was exaggerating. As for D&Cs there is a possibility of things going wrong in all surgery procedures, but they are rare. I am sure there are risks in taking the drug as well.
