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For what you suggest is not going to happen - and you know it.
I live in a town of 2300 people. Until last year, only one place to get your prescriptions filled. There is a mother of two who lives one street away from me. She doesn't have a car, or a phone or a computer with internet access. She walks each day to two full-time minimum wage jobs to support herself and her children. If the one pharmacist in town last year had denied her a prescription because of moral considerations, she would have been out of luck. Is that compelling enough for you?
It's not up to that pharmacist, IF HE/SHE OWNS HIS/HER OWN PHARMACY, to ensure that the local citizens have access to ALL medications. There is no law forcing this private owner to carry medications they don't want to for whatever reason. This is the beauty of private enterprise; no government intrusions!
If a citizen lives someplace where there is just ONE pharmacy for dozens of miles and that pharmacy is privately owned and doesn't stock certain drugs for whatever reason, then the onus is on the citizen to find their drug elsewhere or move. While I severely doubt there is such a case, the individual should take necessary steps to ensure that they have birth control BEFORE having sex.
Now, once again, if the pharmacy is a retail pharmacy, then I would expect that retail pharmacy to carry all types of medications regardless if some of their pharmacists object to filling birth control requests. Like you said, if they have such strong personal convictions relating to medications, then maybe the best place for them to work is not in a RETAIL Pharmacy
The instance in the link above happened at a retail pharmacy.
I'm going to respond you just this final time, because I have no interest in exchanging insults with you. There are two people in this situation, a pharmacist and a women trying to get her prescription filled. As I have stated repeatedly on this thread, I haven't any issue with the pharmacist refusing to fill that prescription as long as the woman has a reasonable alternative way to get that prescription filled. It is only when she doesn't that I have a problem, because at that point you are pitting the rights of two individuals against one another. You seem unable to see that the woman has a life she wants to live as she pleases, just as the pharmacist does. You prefer to enforce his rights over hers, even though enforcing his rights can harm her. Birth control pills aren't just prescribed for birth control, they are hormonal medications that treat a range of problems. The pharmacist doesn't have any knowledge of what problem the birth control pills are supposed to address. So I think in a health matter, I would side with the person who is trying to protect their health, not the person who doesn't care about the patient.
You speak of rights. What about the rights of the pharmacist? Do you think that even if the pharmacy is privately-owned that it should be forced to dispense drugs that it has objections to?
1) 1st minority viewpoint -- pharmacy employees have a legal right to refuse to dispense medications stocked by employer for moral reasons
2) 2nd minority viewpoint -- all pharmacies should be required by law to stock and dispense all legal drugs
3) 3rd majority viewpoint (the only reasonable one) -- pharmacy owners have the right to stock their stores as they feel fit and should not be required to stock any particular drug
Those subscribing to the 3rd viewpoint may differ as to whether a customer should be able to sue the pharmacy which stocks a certain medication because the employee at the time refused to fill a doctor's prescription. I take the view that it's best to regard this a matter of customer service and let the market take care of it, which it eventually will. I can certainly understand the viewpoint that customers should be able to sue in these instances of very bad customer service. If a court ruling in favor of the customer were to specifically state that the customer has a legal right to purchase medication at pharmacies where it is stocked and that such a ruling does not in any way imply a legal obligation to stock a certain medication, then that is something I could support.
Finally, for those who want to force pharmacies to stock all legal medicines, the only just way to achieve such an outcome would be to either nationalize the pharmaceutical business (will never happen in this country) or to provide serious tax benefits and subsidies to such businesses.
You speak of rights. What about the rights of the pharmacist? Do you think that even if the pharmacy is privately-owned that it should be forced to dispense drugs that it has objections to?
As I posted earlier, if there is ANY alternative I'll side with the pharmacist. I do think the pharmacist has an obligation to inform the medical community and his customers about his policy, but as long as the customers can get their drugs with reasonable access, I'll support the pharmacist's rights. If the situation is that the pharmacist is the only reasonable access. then I have to side with the sick person. This discussion has been about an emergency birth control method. But it could just as easily be about HIV medication and be a matter of life and death.
But I want to question something, is it the drugs the he objects to, or the people buying the drugs? Is the decision about denying anyone access to birth control because birth control is bad which means no condoms, no spermicides and so on, or is it about punishing a woman for not behaving the way the pharmacist thinks she should? I think it's this question that is at the heart of the pharmacist's rights versus the customer's.
1) 1st minority viewpoint -- pharmacy employees have a legal right to refuse to dispense medications stocked by employer for moral reasons
2) 2nd minority viewpoint -- all pharmacies should be required by law to stock and dispense all legal drugs
3) 3rd majority viewpoint (the only reasonable one) -- pharmacy owners have the right to stock their stores as they feel fit and should not be required to stock any particular drug
Those subscribing to the 3rd viewpoint may differ as to whether a customer should be able to sue the pharmacy which stocks a certain medication because the employee at the time refused to fill a doctor's prescription. I take the view that it's best to regard this a matter of customer service and let the market take care of it, which it eventually will. I can certainly understand the viewpoint that customers should be able to sue in these instances of very bad customer service. If a court ruling in favor of the customer were to specifically state that the customer has a legal right to purchase medication at pharmacies where it is stocked and that such a ruling does not in any way imply a legal obligation to stock a certain medication, then that is something I could support.
Finally, for those who want to force pharmacies to stock all legal medicines, the only just way to achieve such an outcome would be to either nationalize the pharmaceutical business (will never happen in this country) or to provide serious tax benefits and subsidies to such businesses.
Just for the record, I don't think that pharmacies should be compelled to carry all legal medications. I think that it is fair to presume that the most commonly prescribed medicines will be available at a pharmacy, and birth control pills certainly fall into that category. So I don't really think your summary of this discussion is complete or fair.
Just for the record, I don't think that pharmacies should be compelled to carry all legal medications. I think that it is fair to presume that the most commonly prescribed medicines will be available at a pharmacy, and birth control pills certainly fall into that category. So I don't really think your summary of this discussion is complete or fair.
So what's your point, and, more importantly, what's your solution if one my three options doesn't work for you?
The only other option that I can possibly think of to resolve this situation is to completely deregulate all sales of all birth control medication, including Plan B. Let any grocery, convenience, internet outlet, whatever sell it.
I'm not offering a solution. I think our society already provides a solution when two individual's rights are pitted against each other. And I think that the reasonable court decision will be that there is no need to compel every pharmacy to provide medicines which the pharmacy owner or operator has a moral conviction against, but that the pharmacist must make the medical community as well as his customers aware of his decision not to provide certain medications (he shouldn't have to explain why), and that it will then be up to the medical providers or the community to find a way to meet the needs of the citizens. If that means that the community passes ordinances compelling the pharmacist then it will be up to the pharmacist to adapt or move on. If that means that the local veterinarian steps up, then so be it. If that means that the mayor gets a pharmacist's license and dispenses from his office, then okay. But I do think that the citizens of this country should have reasonable access to healthcare regardless to what economic, social, geographic, racial, sexual class they fall into, and that being able to get physician-prescribed medications does fall under the access to healthcare.
The instance in the link above happened at a retail pharmacy.
Then I would support the company if they fired the pharmacist. Actually, I will take it one further by saying that the company should have had a second pharmacist working alongside that has no objections to dispensing the birth control if they knew of the other pharmacists convictions. Either way, they shouldn't have hired him in the first place and he should know that if he does want to work there, he will have to do it by the company's rules.
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