Conondrum

K.O. sent us this link.  This isn't new news, but it certainly is an ongoing issue.

Yet another moral dilemma.  Whose rights should prevail? 

Some pharmacists refuse, for moral or religious reasons, to fill prescriptions for birth control or emergency contraception.  Target has supported pharmacists at its stores who refuse to fill certain prescriptions. 

Yet these prescriptions are legal and commonplace.  While the refusal of one chain to fill contraceptive prescriptions is not likely to create a baby boom, on an individual level, it would certainly be inconvenient and demeaning and irritating to have someone refuse to fill a run-of-the-mill script.

Should an individual's right to have a common, legal prescription filled trump an indivudual pharmacist's right to refuse to fill a prescription?  What if a pharmacist has a child who abuses narcotics.  Can he or she then decide they won't fill pain prescriptions for cancer patients or post surgical patients for moral reasons?

One answer would be to require stores to hire based on whether or not pharmacists would fill all legal prescriptions.  Asking questions about religion would likely fall on the wrong side of the legal line, but the hiring institution should have the right to know whether a prospective employee is willing to serve all their customers, or even most of their customers (98% of women use contraception at some point in their reproductive years).  They could make sure all shifts included someone who could fill all prescriptions, and pair them up with those who only filled prescriptions which met their litmus test.

This is, in some ways, not far from the idea of some hospitals and physicians performing abortions for termination of pregnancy, and others refusing to do so. Many hospitals have religious roots and have policies against doing these procedures.  Some OB/GYN physicians won't perform them, and some anesthesiologists won't anesthetize patients for these procedures.  How awful for a woman who has already had to make a painful decision to terminate a pregnancy to discover that she can't get good medical care for a still legal procedure, or that she can't go to the hospital of her choice to have it done.

Having said that, I don't have good answers.  Pharmacists and physicians are people too, and have strong feelings about all sorts of things.  Should they be required to perform all duties that legally fall under their purview?  Should institutions take steps to provide all services that are legal?  I am inclined to think they should, and that they should consider such issues as they hire and prepare staffing plans. 

[Illustration from Tulanelink.com]

Comments

[LC]

OK, so where does it stop? Does this mean that at work I don't have to help people whose religions I dislike? Or politics? Or looks? Will doctors and nurses be next? Your garbage man? Your mail carrier? We are NOT allowed to pick and choose these we are paid to serve. Those Target parmacists should be fired. I think I'll write to Target and say so!