Pharmacists should NOT be able to pick and choose which drugs they dispense. That's not their jobs, they aren't doctors prescribing drugs. They are pharmacists who dispense the drugs. That's ALL their job is, other than making sure the doctor didn't somehow miss a potential bad reaction to other meds and explaning the proper way to take the meds. If they are uncomfortable dispensing abortive or birth control drugs, SO WHAT? How many other people in other lines of work get to choose which orders to follow?

In this setup, the Doctor is the pharmacists BOSS. The Doctor, who is TRAINED to do so, decides which drugs are needed and he INSTRUCTS the pharmacist to dispense them. There is no choice, and unless the pharmacist wants to go into a new line of work, that's how EVERY prescription will work. It's not the pharmacist's job to decide who gets what and why. They are NOT doctors. They are pharmacists.

If a nurse refused to take an order from a doctor and a patient suffered or died, they would be fired and sued. Period. I see no difference here. This isn't a principled stance, it's a way to restrict the flow of drugs you disagree with IDEOLOGICALLY. The FDA has deemed them safe, and the Dr has deemed them necessary, but YOU deem them unsavory and against your PERSONAL beliefs. So what? Dispense the drugs the Dr prescribes or get a new line of work.

I agree, although I wish you wouldn't use ALL CAPS FOR EMPHASIS (DILUTE! DILUTE! OK! OK!). The whole concept the pharmacist as a co-equal with the doctor is pretty outdated. The only time I have an interaction with the pharmacist is if the techs are too busy to handle the drop-off window. The pharmacist checks the prescription to make sure that the stuff in the bag is the same as the stuff on form, and that's it.

I once took two prescriptions that together risked elevating my blood pressure. The pharmacist didn't say anything, of course. She just checked to see if the the form matched what was in the bag. If she had, I'd have been annoyed, since I already talked about it with my doctor and we decided, since my blood pressure is usually lower than normal to do it. Why you would want medical advice from someone who doesn't know your vitals is beyond me, anyway.

So what the hell business is it of the pharmacist's what prescriptions anyone gets filled. If he objects that much, he can just have one of the techs check to see if what's in the bag is the same as what's on the form, and he'll never get his hands dirty.

Forgot to add, those Pharmacists for Life don't seem to know the difference between birth control and abortion. If having a Pharmacist's License requires any knowledge of biology, theirs shoudl be yanked. I'd side with the governor if he did it, even if he is addicted to abortohol.

"If a nurse refused to take an order from a doctor and a patient suffered or died, they would be fired and sued. Period. I see no difference here."

Yes, you have absolutely nailed it. Their job is to dispense pills, not medical or religious advice. These people have the equivalent of an Associate's Degree, not even pre-med degree. In my opinion, Saletan is talking out of his religious conservative ass yet again.

These pharmacists need to go into another line of work. Maybe phsychology or the priesthood, where their opinion on birth control and women could be dispensed freely.

Not so fast...if a superior officer ordered a soldier to torture an innocent civilian does that soldier need to comply? What if he orders him killed? The superior soldier is the BOSS in this situation, according to the army he knows what's best, so why shouldn't the subordinate comply? By your logic he is compelled to...no matter how unethical he sees the order as being.

I think you're probably letting your view on abortion cloud your judgement of what the pharmacist should do, but maybe I'm wrong.

Pharmacists are not inscripted into service. Neither are they being called upon to perform cruel and unusual acts in the line of duty. And should they deem the dispensation of birth control and other legal potential abortaficients as cruel and unusual, they have ample opportunity before completing certification to opt out and choose another line of work.

Also, that soldier's duty, as it is explained to both him and the superior, is to disobey the order, on the grounds that the order is illegal.

Birth Control is not illegal.

It also has nothing to do with killing innocents.

Of course, that may just be the abortohol talking.

I agree that the soldier analogy misreads the principle at issue. The pharmacists are not being asked to perform an illegal act; they are being asked to dispense a legally prescribed drug. They simply disagree with the law and think that birth control *should* be illegal, not that it is, in fact, illegal. A soldier may refuse to perform an illegal act ordered by a superior officer, such as killing a civilian. A soldier may not refuse to perform a legal act ordered by a superior officer because he disagrees with it.

"Also, that soldier's duty, as it is explained to both him and the superior, is to disobey the order, on the grounds that the order is illegal."

Yes, I'm sure that's the part they really emphasize. Stroll over to the main Slate page and read todays article on Rumsfeld authorizing torture.

"It also has nothing to do with killing innocents."

But abortofactants do. Even on the birth control front is the law all we're concerned with here? I thought the important issue was whether the pharmacists were doing something wrong. Doing something illeagle and doing something wrong are obviously two different things.

So here's another case. What if a newspaper orders a reporter to give mis-information about a public health issue. Fox ordered reporters to change their story on the negative effects of bovine growth horomone because the Monsanto corporation threatened to sue. It turns out there is absolutely nothing illeagle about newspapers publishing things they know to be false, so no law was going to be broken. Are you all saying the reporters should have complied? There boss told them to do something, absolutely nothing illeagle was being asked of them and had they read the law on journalism they should have known this type of thing was possible before they took the job.

It's not that I agree with the pharmacists, it's just that the issue has implications that stretch far beyond the one case.

"It also has nothing to do with killing innocents."

But abortofactants do. Even on the birth control front is the law all we're concerned with here?

......

*sigh*.

It should suffice to say that the issue of when exactly human life begins-- whether/when exactly abortion constitutes the murder of an innocent human being --- is the grand debate after all; one can't simply state that abortion simply is or is not murder without encountering a firestorm of opinion to the contrary.

That said, I see no reason to sanction banning all birth control as a pro-life stance, unless one's pro-life stance happens to be: "life begins when the man unhooks the woman's bra."

Interesting conception of personal responsibility and liberties some of these writers have. I wonder which strongly-held values they would sacrifice at the order of a right-wing court, or whether they would abandon their professions. People like this end up supporting the repression of the personal rights of those fellow-citizens with whom they disagree - and then, invariably, get hoist by their own petard. That's the story of some of the pathologies of postwar middle-class liberalism, where so many liberals I've known (in my lifetime) suddenly turn conservative when the same sorts of thinking and actions as used against Pharmacists for Life are employed against them. The pro-life movement isn't going away, as its continued strength 35 years after Roe vs. Wade suggests. For one thing, it is intellectually idiotic - I wonder what the male supporters of existing abortion laws tell their own sons about their right of privacy against paternity testing, or their reproductive right not to be forced to be a father.

It's not enough to be pro-choice on abortion anymore (as in fact I am); apparently; you have to be coerced to be a party to it or else give up your liberty to purse your livelihood with as little interference from the same type of busybody who is on the other side of this issue as possible. Americans are not as docile toward their firm, paternalistic state as Europeans or Canadians, so this is not likely to happen. Of course, such authoritarian tactics wouldn't be tolerated for an instant among our smug, self-righteous middle-class liberals if used against them by their opponents. Some people are shrewd about everything except themselves. Maybe some of the sniveling trendies above should get used to some things, too.

I suppose I shouldn't have assumed people would read that with the qualifier that it's the pharmacists, not I, that think abortofactants kill human beings.

The issue actually isn't about abortion at all. The issue is whether or not people have the right to say "no" to something they feel is unethical, regardless of how crazy those beliefs may be. We could just as easily (in a sense) discuss whether or not Jehovas witnesses can deny blood transfusions to their children based on their religious beliefs (yes...they do that). Except for the child/parent relationship it's still basically the same case, it's about the autonomy of individuals to make choices versus the rights of other individuals.

It seems to be that if you let your pro-life agenda interfere with your ability to dispense medicine, what's to stop other prejudices from interfering with one's work?

I'm not going to give that herpes medicine to that woman, because she's a sinner and she must be sleeping around (never mind she may have caught it while her husband cheated and then sleot with her after contracting it).

I'm not going to give those fertility treatment drugs to that couple, because God obviously doesn't want them to have children.

Etc. etc. ad nauseum. Besides which, not all women take birth control simply as a means of contraception, but for other conditions as well: it helps with the symptoms of endometriosis, it eases menstral pain and regulates one's cycle, it helps clear acne.

I don't understand why these people, who know nothing of the patients condition or why she takes a particular birth control pill. Even if it's the morning after pill...what if the poor woman was raped or it's a child who is a victim of incest? Do they deserve to go through the hell of not only being violated, but having to bear the child of that violation? Are you going to force them to produce documentation that they were raped?

These people need to come back to Earth. Their views are impractical and have no place in the medical field. The medical field is one that requires compassion and a willingness to help the patient for the sake of patient's own welfare, and not to give some preachy religious prig a soapbox to dispense their dogma.

Of course they have the "right" to say no. A pharmacist can refuse to dispense any drug he or she feels like, and then can live with the consequences. The issues are whether such conduct is consistent with the obligations of the profession, and whether such conduct should be consequence-free for the pharmacist.

The job of a pharmacist is to dispense prescribed drugs. Does it constitute interference in the doctor-patient relationship for a pharmacist to interpose his or her personal beliefs by refusing to fill a valid prescription on the grounds that he or she believes that it would be immoral for the patient to take the drug? Why does the pharmacist's personal belief that the drug is immoral trump the doctor's and the patient's belief that it is not? Does it change the calculus if the patient lives in a small town and there are not other readily accessible pharmacies that will fill the prescription? What if, as has happened, the pharmacist not only refuses to fill the prescription, but refuses to return it to the patient because he or she believes that the drug is immoral? May a pharmacy fire a pharmacist for refusing to fill such prescriptions?

All good questions. Here's a few others.

What if a doctor prescribes diet pills to a women who weighs 90 pounds? What if the doctor prescribes Vioxx even after the FDA ruled that it has highly negative side effects and other drugs are just as effective?

"Their views are impractical and have no place in the medical field. The medical field is one that requires compassion and a willingness to help the patient for the sake of patient's own welfare, and not to give some preachy religious prig a soapbox to dispense their dogma"

The hippocratic oath explicitly bars the giving of abortion inducing drugs to women. So according to that oath, doctors would be breaking their own word, not the pharmacist. The idea of "doing no harm" is entranched in the oath as well.But that obviously works just as well for the mother as the fetus.