Could u imagine a retailer working in a clothing store refuse to take a customer’s money because she wants to purchase some lingerie. That retailer would be fired regardless of the retailer’s personal feelings on it.

From what i’ve read, these pharmacist’s opinions on birth control are a bit one-sided. Not all women use birth control to prevent a pregnancy. My sister gets birth control to regulate her period. Polycystic ovarian syndrome is a health issue and her physician prescribes birth control for her. For any pharmacist to simply refuse to fill out the prescription would undermine the relationship with physician and pharmacist. The decision to refuse to sell birth control has nothing to do with the actual prescription or the health of the customer.

I think if they don’t want to sell birth control, they should find a position in a pharmacy that doesn’t carry it. I’d post more but i gotta eat now. =P

Pharmacists are now supposed to have the “liberty” to deny someone birth control pills. But somehow it’s okay that I’m denied the liberty to buy birth-control pills from the manufacturer, or to start my own competing pharmacy? If pharmacists don’t like being in a government-protected oligopoly, they’re welcome to find a career in a non-government-protected oligopoly.

I’m completely okay with that. I am quite persuadable to that point of view, actually, even though it is problematic and always has been (a right to inclusion is always eventually insisted ipon where those advocating the right in the first place never intended).

I think they came to the wrong decision. But they did their job, it was their job to do, not mine.

A restaurant could decide to not serve fat customers. They may or may not be sacntioned by law for doing this, depending upon whether preventing such discrimination is thought to be in the public’s best interest. In the case of racial and other forms of discrimination, it is.

One thing in arguments I see from both the left and the right that I object to very strongly is the assumption that all rights (both in the legal and wider contexts) can be absolutely protected because rights don’t come into conflict. Rights do inevitably come into conflct; and both in our personal lives and in the public sphere we have a responsibility to attempt to resolve such conflicts as justly as possible.

A) That all members of a certain profession should have the legally guaranteed right to refuse to do something that is (strongly) arguably fundamental to their job, regarldess of their employers’ thoughts on the matter; or,

B) That all members of a certain profession should be legally required to do something that is (strongly) arguably fundamental to their job, regarldess of their employers’ thoughts on the matter

I know that the extreme partisans on both sides are arguing one of those two positions. But a position against one of those two positions is not a position in favor of the other. I oppose both.

You do realize that you haven’t actually provided an argument in the last sentence or for the last sentence, don’t you?

What are the legal, ethical and social implications?

Or, if you prefer: “I’ll be happy to fill your Viagra prescription, as soon as you show me your wedding ring.”

1) That jobs are embedded in society. These arguments talk about licenses, which is a weak form of making this argument.

2) That jobs are the “property” of the holder, who may do as he/she wishes with them. These arguments talk about “conscience” and “moral reservations.”

While making the second argument relative to pharmacists, Tracy recognizes that it will not work for all professions.

Sometimes, obviously, people have to be required to do things as a condition of employment. Most obviously, police officers cannot pick and choose which laws they enforce without destroying the rule of law.

We are arguing 1) and 2) in the United States on all sorts of issues. After a period of time when individual pleasure was glorified, it becomes easier to accept individualistic arguments like “conscience” and “moral reservations.”

But professions are societally constructed, and the strong form of “conscience” involves deciding which societally constructed profession fits one’s preferences. If one changes one’s conscience while in a profession, it may be necessary to change one’s profession as well. If one has “moral reservations” about dispensing birth control measures, then one should not be a pharmacist.

If a person has “moral reservations” about parts of a profession and goes into it anyway (or stays in it), then that person has decided to impose his/her “moral reservations” on others. In other words, to use his/her embeddedness in society as a lever on others. Individualism is invoked in the service of a societal ideal not shared by the larger society.

Further, in the case under discussion, the individualistic arguments are being put forth by groups that have used societal pressure in the past. Look at the current availability of abortion. Not very widespread, almost absent in some states, and the reason is societal pressure, sometimes in the strong form of death threats. So we can reasonably expect that similar societal, pressure (from a narrow segment of the broader society) will be applied to pharmacists who recognize the embeddedness of their profession in the larger society.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a hypocritical argument. It should be recognized as such, however, particularly by those of us who believe that if you’ve been born, raised by a family, and used any of the products and protections of society, you have some obligations beyond “conscience” narrowly defined for the purposes of political gain without societal consent.

The state doesn’t give you a license to play god. It gives you a license to dispense medication according to a physician’s recommendation and your best scientific judgement.