Prescriptions and Persecutions

If you don't like cutting down trees, don't become a lumberjack.

I cannot recall who expressed this thought in a conversation on whether or not pharmacists should be allowed to not fill prescriptions based on moral reasons, but it adaptly fits my feelings on the matter. If a person feels that it is morally wrong to fill a prescription for, say, birth-control pills, then perhaps they are not in the right career.

It's easy to say that the customer should simply go to another pharmacist, but what if that is not an option? What if they are travelling and are in an unknown town? What if they live in a very rural area where there is only one pharmacy? What are they supposed to do when the pharmacist not only refuses to fill their prescription, but will not return the 'script so that they can have it filled somewhere else?

What if said prescription is being used for something other than the popular usage? For example, I have a prescription for birth-control pills that has nothing to do with sexual activity and pregnancy prevention. My hormones are off balance, and, as a result, I do not get a period if I am not on birth-control pills. If a woman does not have a period at least once every three months, the lining of the uterus begins to harden up and puts the woman at a higher risk for developing cancer. My prescription has nothing to do with birth-control, and everything to do with cancer prevention.

Since it has become legal for pharmacists to not fill medications for moral reasons, we've seen a lot of people suffer as a result. Of course, denied prescriptions are mostly birth-control, emergency contraception, and whatnot, but where will it end? And why should I have to live by someone else's beliefs?

Walgreen's recently fired some Illinois employees for refusing to fill a customer's prescription for moral reasons. The company offered to help them relocate to Missouri (where their actions would be legal) and find them new jobs. Instead, the three ex-employees have decided to take them to court.

Unsurprisingly, their fees are being paid for by none other than Pat Robertson.

The "Christian pharmacist" groups and their backers say that not only should they be able to refuse to dispense medications they find immoral, but that they should have the right to refuse to help patients find other pharmacists who will help them. In fact, some claim they have the right to sieze the customer's prescription, and say that returning it to the patient would be tantamount to collaborating in a murder.

That's a very severe belief, but it's one they have every right to have. Being true to that belief, however, should demand something of them - that they choose not to be pharmacists in a civil society that practices freedom of religion. After all, Thoreau and Gandhi went to prison for their beliefs. All that these fundamentalist pharmacists' consciences ask of them is that they quit their jobs at Rite-Aid or CVS.

(source)