Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedShould pharmacists be forced to violate religious beliefs by selling the morning after pill?
Results so far:
| No | 41% | 409 votes | Total: 989 votes | |
| Yes | 59% | 580 votes |
No
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesEthics and integrity are two words that have for the most part been forced from the common diction of everyday life it seems. Personal ethics and the ability to even attempt to live to a standard which remotely resembles integrity is not very popular when that integrity pushes against another person's desires for their own values.
Isn't it ironic that in today's society of 'tolerance' and the professed desire to 'live and let live' that we have a paradox such as this? It has become prevalent for those who scream about tolerance to be absolutely intolerant towards someone else's beliefs if those beliefs happen to interfere with what in their perception will make them happy. This is bigotry. In essence one is saying to the other, "My happiness and values are more important than yours."
Another way of putting this would be to say that it goes beyond intolerance to a form of fascism when one group of people enforce their demands for behavioral standards on another group of people based simply on their selfish desires and aims for comfort, whether or not they cause emotional turmoil in the other group who do not intend to interfere with them at all.
To say that I do not have the right to not participate in something that I find simply wrong and is against my values is no different than a religion forcing the rest of the population to profess faith in something they do not believe in for the simple right to continue being a part of the community. If you are an atheist, deist, gnostic, wiccan or what have you, stop to think about how that would possibly make you feel before condemning others for being uncomfortable with unreasonable and uncharacteristic expectations put upon their behavior. Disingenuous participation for the sake of acceptance is hypocritical no matter what the situation is.
There is another aspect to this argument though. Simply put, logic dictates that we cannot say that all pharmacists are ethically constrained by their conscience against providing this pill to those who wish to use it, as not all pharmacists hold to the same religious beliefs. Therefore, if it is impossible to say all avenues are closed against the acquisition of this pill, then it is equally impossible to say that the objection to their wish to not participate is an insurmountable road-block to the people wanting it. It might make finding the pharmacy that stocks or sells the pill a little more inconvenient, however if the person(s) wishing to use this pill are responsible, they will have made arrangements to have it available "the morning after" instead of having to rush down to the corner drugstore and find they might not carry it after a night of 'spontaneity.' Of course many pharmacies and chains will simply make it company policy to carry it, and thus eliminate it as a contentious issue for everyone save those who's conscience it violates.
What this all comes down to is the dreaded ideal of legislating morality, or immorality as the case here may be. For many years now there has been an outcry against religious influence in the content of legislation because it may violate the conscience of those who disagree and also because of the false-quote attributed to the First Amendment of a separation of church and state. Yet, once the social pendulum has swung around to the other direction and those who would like to uphold ethical standards and moral conduct in the culture find themselves on the outside looking in at the newly established influences of our society, we have the reverse in affect: Those in favor of lax standards are intolerant of those wanting to act out their moral standards and have begun to turn society against those who simply want to live their lives apart from an outside influence that they see as unnecessary and intrusive. For those of you who complain about religion and "Bible Thumpers", does that sound familiar?
Fairness is an objective standard which no one agrees on because what is fair is ever changing like the people who put arbitrary definitions upon it. Accusing people who want to live by a standard that is different from your own as intolerant is in itself intolerant, not to mention moronic.
Pharmacists or environmentalists or democrats or libertarians, the label does not matter when bigotry against someone's beliefs and enforcement of your own against them is the norm. So you want the morning after pill, fine call the local pharmacies before you need it and find one that provides. Otherwise stop your moaning unless you're going to volunteer to do something you find abhorable tomorrow.
Learn more about this author, Jeff Seiffert.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Yes
This issue ranks up there with that of the person in military service who, at the advent of open combat, announces that they will not go to fight, because they only joined up for the paycheck, and didn't expect to have to go to war.
The disingenuous excuse in the case of the outraged pharmacist is that the oath sworn to one's god takes precedence over that sworn to humanity (in the form of the Pharmacist's Oath, which can be found here, in conjunction with the Pharmacist's Code of Conduct: http://www.uspharmd. com/rxcode.htm.) I highly recommend taking a look at this, it really makes the illegitimacy of the Christian pharmacist's position very apparent.
In reality, it is a case of the selfish and self-righteous deciding on their own what is best for others, and, because they deem themselves special, they are able to justify their irresponsible, immoral decision to jettison their compact with humanity so as to spare themselves feeling icky.
What amazes me about this issue is that someone so narrow-minded, prudish, and generally unsympathetic to the vast array of ailments that people find themselves subject to could actually make it all the way through school and become a pharmacist in the first place. How could someone possess the mental acuity to tackle such a difficult course of study, and yet utterly lack the ethical where-withal to consider what dilemmas might await in his future career?
In any case, by the time our good Christian stands up to take his oath, it's too late for this whingeing nonsense. Even if he couldn't figure it out beforehand, by the time he comes to read through the Pharmacist's Oath the night before his investiture, he should be pretty damn sure of the problem.
Admittedly, one might not be so keen to throw away many years of difficult study at the eleventh hour, but then why should others be made to suffer as a result of his lack of foresight? How dare this pretender insinuate himself into a position of power over others who are by definition in desperate straights, and then decide, on a personal whim, to disregard his responsibilities?
The American Pharmacist's Association should be utterly clear in its position, as if its oath were not clear enough: any pharmacist who does not wish to follow the guidelines that he has previously agreed to is disbarred from practicing pharmacy, and is free to go on to something else that he finds less onerous to his medieval piety.
Learn more about this author, Andrew Heffron.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Politics, News & Issues (Other)
- Should the US government regulate population growth?
- Was President Obama right to order closed the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay?
- Should the US government fund new lines of embryonic stem cells?
- Should a Super 7 Expressway be built from Danbury to Norwalk?
- Do you favor the 50 percent income tax increase proposed by Gov. Pat Quinn?
- Do people tend to base election votes more on emotion or reason?
