So, there is apparently this whole debate about access to the "morning after pill" in pharmacies across America. I read a short piece to Christie in the Wall Street Journal about how Wal-Mart will now start offering this product in all their stores -- right now it's only offered in Illinois and Massachusetts where it’s required by state law -- and oh the uproar!
The debate, depending on your point of view, is either, “do (or should) pharmacists have the right to refuse to provide the morning after pill based on moral objections,” OR “should pharmacists be allowed to refuse a legal medical treatment to women.” If Christie and I are any guide, then bridging even this gap is a trial. How can we address the underlying issues if we can’t even agree what the underlying issues are?
For my own place, I fall firmly in the first camp: pharmacists should have the right to make individual choices about the services they provide and the products that they distribute. It’s a question of basic liberty. These are adult human beings and should be accorded the fullest possible respect for their individual views, and they should suffer the consequences of them, whether that is the loss of a customer or loss of a job.
Of course all basic liberty arguments need to be tempered somewhat by social boundaries, harm to others, and simple practical reality. You can make a basic liberty argument for running down the middle of I-5 with nothing more on than your birthday suit and a pair of dirty white socks, but that’s not going to get you very far in my book.
So, how can we evaluate if a pharmacist should be allowed to refuse service:
- Does it fall within general social boundaries? Well, I certainly don’t agree with it. Any pharmacist who refuses to provide something as innocuous as the morning-after pill is just silly. (I know what innocuous means and I realize that perhaps it’s not particularly apt, but there you go, it’s out there.) Given that this debate can be somewhat polarizing -- with some crazies referring to it as an early abortion – I don’t think that we have a general consensus one way or another. Anyway, I think these people, if they choose to refuse service, are wrong. But I will still defend their right be wrong.
- Does this impose harm to others? Well, if somebody doesn’t get a morning after pill when they need one, it can have a significant impact on their life, no question. But they can just go to another pharmacist. In America there are 71 per every 100,000 people, in the trivial case, we expect the average smaller-city like Burns, Oregon (population 3000) to have two. A problem with access is possible, but few places are so far remote.
- Is this limited by practical reality? No, not at all. FedEx goes everywhere. There are some people who will be impacted, especially the very poor … although you know ‘impacted’ is too harsh: it’s probably more accurate to say the other remedies aren’t convenient. They can’t drive to another town (too expensive), order online (no computer) or whatever else. These are important cases to be sure, but if we are concerned about marginal cases we should address them as marginal cases and not with a blanket rule.
Now, my lovely wife disagrees with me. Our discussion got me pretty fired up. I feel better now.
1 comment:
The pharmacist can have all the moral objections he/she wants. If the pharmacist morally objects to the morning after pill, or birth control in general, that's fine. The pharmacist can make that decision for him-/herself and choose not to use those medications that are, for now, still legal to dispense and use in this country. However, I draw the line when the pharmacist's moral objections are given the authority to block me from receiving the treatment my doctor and I have decided upon. It is the pharmacist's job to dispense medication, not to judge the prescription with his/her own moral compass and only dispense the medications that pass his/her moral test.
Even though this is a perfect example of the Slippery Slope Fallacy - Logic 101, I'm going to write it -- What happens when the cashier at the grocery store decides she morally objects to the obese lady in line buying Twinkies and Doritos. If refused, that woman could just go to another store and buy her junk food, just as the woman going into the pharmacy could find another pharmacy, one that will give her the medication her doctor has prescribed. The store then has the decision to support the cashier and/or pharmacist for having the fortitude to stand up for what he/she believes in or fire him/her for refusing to perform the duties for which they were hired. There's the rub, though. The government is now enacting legislation to protect the morally righteous.
I'm not concerned with the people who have the means to get around and can take days off work when needed, who have resources, who have support, and who just might file lawsuits if they found themselves victims of someone else's morality -- I'm concerned with the people who don't have those things. I'm concerned that some young girl who has just been raped is going to go to the pharmacy counter, have some dillhole tell her "Sorry, I can't give you this medication because I morally object to it," and be so overcome by the humiliation and the shame and the fear that it won't even register there's a pharmacy in the Walgreen's at the other end of town that she could go to. I say, if there is anyone who should be protected it is this girl. The pharmacist can morally object his ass to the bank to deposit the check he received for doing his job.
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