While that point is disturbing, it does sound like urban legeng and or a misinterpretation of a complicated medical situation. Legally after the fetus is viable they must make an attempt to save the fetus.

While it may seem like a minor quibble this is a very slippery slope where we suddenly override the rule of law and legal reprocussions for not doing your job with a blank cheque for the moral minority to act in whatever way they feel fit. The stroy you tell would go from an urbal legend to openly stated policy with 0 legal recouses for those unfortunate enought to have only christan hospitals in there area.

If you believe in a magical God-king who lives in a mythical paradise in the clouds, then don’t go into medicine. In fact, don’t do anything which involves people. And don’t ever buy a gun.

On this issue the war was already lost, regarding Catholic hospitals, which I have vowed never to patronize should I ever intend to become pregnant. If anyone can reassure me that this policy is an urban legend I would be very happy to be mistaken, but my sister (an OB-GYN) tells me this policy is real.

Being unable to obtain morning-after pills due to pro-life Christian pharmacists seems like a minor quibble in comparison with this.

H Luce, you are still ignoring the meat of the argument. [b]The pharmasist is not in an informed position to dictate medical treatment for an individual.[b] Especially when the witholding of that medication seriously hurts the chances of the success of that treatment. Dispite the common belief otherwise being pregnant is many many times more dangerous to the woman’s health that not being pregnant, and unfortunatly abortion is still safer than carrying the child to term ( by a factor of 2-5 times safer ). So pregnancy is a dangerous proposition for a woman, although the pharmasist may disagree, if they have the pills they need to dispense them.

Your argument boils down to… A private company can discriminate against anyone it wishes to. Unfortuanly that idea went out of style in the 60’s civil rights movement. A store open to the public cannot arbatraily discriminate against any adult who is not breaking any law. Why don’t we just allow christian hospitals to stop serving jews and muslims? they are private institutions you know.

Your solution is almost as amusing as your argument! Just let almost anyone buy drugs on an open market, sure that will make everything better. If you want a silly, but reasonable solution, I say just make the pharmasist legally responsable for the child support!

2. Let’s not even get into “maybe the pill is for another medical reason.” The pill is not abortion. It prevents sperm and eggs from starting the process. Even in the case of emergency contraception it is prevents the potentially fertilized egg from meeting the wall, stopping the process before conception.

The important word being “potentially.” Let’s be honest here:

a) These Christian nuts are anti-science morons.
b) They’re real belief is all sex should result in conception.

3. Why have we not heard about Christian pharmacists refusing to sell Viagra and condoms. Two things which are also meant for satanic sex for pleasure? Oh yes, that’s because they’re almost all men and they all hold a misogynist double standard.

4. Or maybe that’s the next step. Soon we’ll hear of advocates saying no cashier should be forced to ring up Astroglide if it violates their beliefs. I’m not making light here, I’m sure it’s in the Christian Taliban handbook.

On the same note, pharmacists may pick and choose with whom they will do business. They are not obliged to serve any customer for any reason which they may choose (except on grounds of racial, ethnic or other prohibited forms of discrimination). Also, the employers of pharmacists may hire and fire their employees for any reason they choose, right, wrong, or none at all, if the employment is “at will”. Pharmacists are perfectly free to not fill prescriptions on “moral grounds”. They are not free to retain your property (the prescription slip). You paid for that permission slip, and it’s yours.

The solution is to abolish laws which require the licensing of medical doctors and pharmacists, to make it possible for common people to go out and buy medicine as they please without first seeking and obtaining permission from a state authority. As long as it is necessary to get permission from the state to buy medicine, this kind of political meddling will continue to occur.

PS - Most reasonable people would seek the advice of a doctor and a pharmacist before buying and taking medicine. Unreasonable people would probably shorten their lifespan…

1) this applies to people of the medical profession, police, firefighters, and other people who server the public at large with necessary services.

2) It is wrong for anyone to deny emergency care for any moral reason.

3) Only a doctor with a full medical record is legally and ethically in a position to determine emergency care.

4) Only the patient or thier health care proxy can refuse care.

Therefore

A) It is not ethical for people other than the Dr to decide that a treatment is no an emergeny.

B) It is not ethical for anyone but the patient to decide not to pursue a course of treatment.
—-

A morality objection for pharmasists is not ethical based on those criteria. The only reason for a pharmasist not to dispence is if they do not carry the medication and then they are ethically required to help the patient secure the perscription from another facility.

You only back up my point. The pharmasist is not in a position medically OR MORALLY to decide what is an emergency. To claim that emergency contreceptives are somehow diffrence from a medical condition that poses a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of the patient is not sound.

Also, no one forces the pharmasist into a position of public service either, so to say that we are somehow forcing them against thier wills of doing a job that they have studied for and done ( sometimes for years ) is also specious.

If I have a moral objection to the turn signal does that mean that I don’t have to use them? No one forced me to drive my car. There are some things that people do not becuase they believe, but because there are legal and social reprocussions.

Otto, how do you respond to another point that Eric raised: the fact that birth-control pills are often prescribed for other purposes than contraception? Should pharmacists take it upon themselves to interrogate customers in order to reassure themselves that the pills they prescribe will be used only for purposes they approve of?

What other jobs do you see this kind of self-selection into the job followed by “principled” refusal to do the job? Are members of PETA joining the meat-cutters’ union in droves, or members of MADD becoming bartenders? Or is it just anti-choice loons becoming doctors and pharmacists?

Alas, the bigoted nature of the local population is not a good reason for requiring those who have intense moral objections to certain practices to be commandeered into performing them.

Elective sugery is diffrent than emergeny sugery. In a small town a Dr cannot claim moral objection to an emergency abortion. To do otherwise they risk loosing their license.

Elective perscritions are easy to make the user get somewhere else, EMERGENY perscriptions the pharmasis should be required to fill if they have it.

Also there is the problem of the tyrany of the majority, even in larger towns it does not mean that a user will be able to find a pharmasist willing to distribute controversial drugs. Especially in the “bible belt” how will reasonable people avoid the bigoted BELIEFS of the majority?