by dafsdf

Created on: April 20, 2008

A persons' stance on this issue should have nothing to do with their views on whether or not the morning after pill is moral, or compatible with their religion. Unless you believe the morning after pill should be outlawed entirely, this argument simply comes down to the issue of freedom of business. There are two major contexts in which this issue could arise. Either an individual employee of a pharmacy refuses to sell the pill, or the owner of the pharmacy (perhaps a pharmacist or the only employee) refuses to stock and (thus sell) the pill.

Let's say a pharmacist is an employee of a pharmacy that sells the morning after pill. Yet that individual pharmacist has made a personal decision to not sell the pill to any of this pharmacy's customers. Regardless of the reasoning behind this decision (whether it's moral, religious, or otherwise), this pharmacist should have every right not to be forced to do so. On the same token, this pharmacy should have every right to fire him or her for this decision. If the business has decided they wish to sell the morning after pill (which is a perfectly legal business decision), there's no reason they should be obligated to hire (or not fire) people who refuse to do the job they wish to hire them for.

A common argument against this is that the pharmacist's freedom of religion would be violated. What if the manager of the pharmacy believed in a God that commanded him to do all he could to prevent against unwanted pregnancies? Wouldn't his freedom of religion be violated if he was forced to hire people that refused to do this? If freedom of religion is granted to one employee, it should be granted to all employees. Additionally, if a police officer refused to fight crime because prosecuting criminals was against his religion; or a doctor refused to cure patients because he believe one shouldn't "interfere with God's will", it would be ridiculous to argue they should be allowed to keep their job due to freedom of religion. The exact same principle applies here, only on a smaller scale.

Another context of this same issue is that of the pharmacy as a whole refusing to sell the morning after pill. This could be because the owner of the pharmacy refuses to sell the pill, there is only one pharmacist employed and he or she has refused to sell it, or a single pharmacist is the owner and sole employee. In any case, the issue here is whether or not the government should be allowed to force a business to carry a specific product. Nobody in

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