Revisiting the pharmacist/birth control script refusal debate (sort of)

[chobie]

(grabbed from another thread...)



Selective morals? Sure, why not?

Control freaks? Perhaps, but not always.

I'm against abortion *NOT* because I want to exert some sort of control on women just because I'm a control freak, I'm against it because I want protection for the other life inside her. I consider it a life, other see a clump of cells.

T

This was put on a no debate thread for a reason. Start another thread if you want to debate abortion.

 

[lovemygoofy]

I would love to know the origin of this one. Please advise.

Just a few moments I'm trying to find the article that was passed onto me from someone that is trying to help me with my decision about natural family planning. I'm still hunting it down and trust me I took that statement with a whole lot of doubt considering I think the source was a Catholic doctor but I'll be back with it.

 

[Crankyshank]

People who use NFP due so in many cases, if not most, because of religious/moral opposition to birth control. I'm guessing the low divorce rate has more to do with their religious/moral opposition to divorce than because of anything else.

 

[chobie]

People who use NFP due so in many cases, if not most, because of religious/moral opposition to birth control. I'm guessing the low divorce rate has more to do with their religious/moral opposition to divorce than because of anything else.

Excellent point.

 

[Figment]

I honestly don't mean to get personal,

I don't mind...I stand by my words

and I am sure that you are just the nicest person.

You are correct.

So are you saying that after ten years your marriage will become celibate and thats why you won't have any more kids?

No, I am saying that I will exhibit self control..trying to be as delicate as possible...when I am in that situation. Believe me, our relationship is anything but celibate. it is better in that area than ever before.

So how is it possible to NOT procreate without it? I mean if the couple does have sex? Should they just keep having kids?

The man needs to learn some control. It all comes down to putting the needs of his partner 1st, then it becomes easy to control things.

It is our right.

but, it is not the duty of a pharmacist to give it to you if he/she is morally opposed to it.

 

[minniepumpernickel]

I will admit that there is a little bit of bias on this thread. I certainly associate a pharmacist who would act this way with scary evangelical beliefs. I come from a place where having many children without sufficient financial resources, because "this is what God wants", is seen as a relatively trashy and selfish thing to do, whereas birth control is seen by many as a savior of women and their goals/dreams, for what it's worth. This is where a few of the earlier posters are coming from with the "deny birth control = demeaning to women" point of view.

I actually just talked about this with my grandmother, Grandmere - she's 75. She was the first female five-time Jeopardy champion. She's brilliant. She got a degree in 1949, got married, and had six kids with an alcoholic before she became a subject in one of the first clinical tests for BCP, back when it had something like ten times current hormonal levels. She was desperate for a safe method to stop having kids. In raising all of these kids and managing a family that held on by a string, she was never able to have a job or go to graduate school, either of which I know she would've loved. She feels that she was in the last generation of women for which uncontrollable fertility curtailed most dreams/goals that take place outside the house. I think deep in her heart, if she'd been born today, she might've gone into academia and never had kids at all. The gift/power that birth control gives me as a woman to set my own destiny - for someone to deny me that, over the orders of myself and my doctor, and inconvenience me for the sake of their moral comfort, is actually fairly offensive. It's not the hallmark of a civilized people, I guess you could say.

There is the sense that the cross-wavers who live more like the way women HAD to live in 1900, packing many kids into a small house, with unstable incomes and unpaid bills, are putting their families and their kids at a huge disadvantage, and are in a sense turning their backs on a hundred years of feminism and medicine in favor of religious adherence to procreation. This is made more amusing by the fact that Jesus felt no command by God to procreate, did he.

Another point: you don't see that "big family stigma" when there's a common belief in the community that the family that had all those kids can afford them. Can you think of the family in your town with a lot of kids and a lot of money? Do you think of them differently than you might if they were collecting benefits from the gov't? There's a sense that those women say "God wants this" because all of those babies give them a sense of purpose in their lives, more of a personal gain and automatic identity than most of them might be willing to confess. In short, you get the luxury to say no to birth control when you have cash and resources to cope with the consequences. These pharmacists know nothing about that for any of the individuals that they deny.

This is such a good post! It really deserves to be quoted!

My grandmother ended up becomming a seamstress, and opened up her own dress making shop. Just listening to her stories about the old country was really heart breaking!

I think that I'm going to print out your post, and repost it when ever I'm tempted to get into one of these arguments again!

 

[GoodFairies]

I will admit that there is a little bit of bias on this thread. I certainly associate a pharmacist who would act this way with scary evangelical beliefs. I come from a place where having many children without sufficient financial resources, because "this is what God wants", is seen as a relatively trashy and selfish thing to do, whereas birth control is seen by many as a savior of women and their goals/dreams, for what it's worth. This is where a few of the earlier posters are coming from with the "deny birth control = demeaning to women" point of view.

I actually just talked about this with my grandmother, Grandmere - she's 75. She was the first female five-time Jeopardy champion. She's brilliant. She got a degree in 1949, got married, and had six kids with an alcoholic before she became a subject in one of the first clinical tests for BCP, back when it had something like ten times current hormonal levels. She was desperate for a safe method to stop having kids. In raising all of these kids and managing a family that held on by a string, she was never able to have a job or go to graduate school, either of which I know she would've loved. She feels that she was in the last generation of women for which uncontrollable fertility curtailed most dreams/goals that take place outside the house. I think deep in her heart, if she'd been born today, she might've gone into academia and never had kids at all. The gift/power that birth control gives me as a woman to set my own destiny - for someone to deny me that, over the orders of myself and my doctor, and inconvenience me for the sake of their moral comfort, is actually fairly offensive. It's not the hallmark of a civilized people, I guess you could say.

There is the sense that the cross-wavers who live more like the way women HAD to live in 1900, packing many kids into a small house, with unstable incomes and unpaid bills, are putting their families and their kids at a huge disadvantage, and are in a sense turning their backs on a hundred years of feminism and medicine in favor of religious adherence to procreation. This is made more amusing by the fact that Jesus felt no command by God to procreate, did he.

Another point: you don't see that "big family stigma" when there's a common belief in the community that the family that had all those kids can afford them. Can you think of the family in your town with a lot of kids and a lot of money? Do you think of them differently than you might if they were collecting benefits from the gov't? There's a sense that those women say "God wants this" because all of those babies give them a sense of purpose in their lives, more of a personal gain and automatic identity than most of them might be willing to confess. In short, you get the luxury to say no to birth control when you have cash and resources to cope with the consequences. These pharmacists know nothing about that for any of the individuals that they deny.

I've read quite of few of your posts and I think we would get along pretty well.

 

[Charade]

But for some people it's absolutely impossible to live a normal life without bcp. How is it ok to deny them that?

But on the other hand, people here are telling the pharmacist they should have chosen another career or fill the script regardless. Why should these people be denied the right to work in whatever field they want or be forced to compromise their beliefs? Terms of employement are between the employee and the employer. Not between the employee and the customer.

It's not like someone is trying to make BC illegal. If I can't a certain product (that's legal to sell) from a particular store, I go to one that does sell it.

 

[Teejay32]

Teejay.. I agree with your answers and the pharmacist should do precisely what you wrote. However, b/c or viagra or AZT kinds of medications are in a different class to me. I know the 1st two are not addictive and the last one someone who does need it would be crazy to take it. So to me the refusal would be on 'religious' grounds. That is where the issue lys.

While it is currently legal to do so, I believe it is forcing your choice on others. In the ideal world as some write, there would be 'other' pharmacys or pharmacists available. But 'we' live in the 'grey' world where in some towns locations choices are not available or choices might be monetarily prohibitive, ie. one pharmacy is covered by your plan (but refuses to dispense) and another is not (will dispense). The cost deferential could be significant.

Most of my job at the time entailed that grey world. Mom & Pop drugstores were closing. (They really don't exist anymore.) We were absorbing those closures. Meanwhile the state was encouraging seniors to mail away for their meds; HMOs were contracting with select chain stores and not with others. Pharmacies closed or left the area all the time. We used a term for all this made famous by George Carlin. I really, really loved my job; I left it altogether because it became insane, more about cost control than anything else.

I still don't think it's good to further the idea that people have a "right" to something a doctor writes down on a script. I never saw refusals on religious grounds; the only questionable personal-ethics matters I paid attention to were the pain meds and diet pills. Some pharmacists refused to fill prescription diet pills outright. Period. AZT = you can easily get around the morality of this by not having it in your inventory to begin with, and for what it costs, no one can really give you a hard time about that. Viagra = I used to get emails all the time, people wanting me to order Viagra. If you can't get Viagra today, you must live in Guatemala. BCPs = no idea why morning-after pill situations can't be handled within a doctor's office. Not a lot of people are refusing to fill BC prescriptions anyway. This delimma looks manageable imo.

 

[Puffy2]

I read a case about this where the pharmacist not only refused to fill the perscription for the woman HE KEPT HER PERSCRIPTION SO SHE COULDN'T GO ELSEWHERE. I'd sue him and the company he worked for for stealing.

In Georgia, our moronic representatives in our legislature actually tried to pass legislation protecting these pharmacists. It was Senate Bill 123. Failed to pass, thankfully. Does anyone else recognize that this sort of thing resembles the makings of a Taliban government?

 

[Galahad]

Can you think of the family in your town with a lot of kids and a lot of money?

Yes, many. Though some might wave crosses, I don't know......

 

[chobie]

(grabbed from another thread...)



Selective morals? Sure, why not?

Control freaks? Perhaps, but not always.

I'm against abortion *NOT* because I want to exert some sort of control on women just because I'm a control freak, I'm against it because I want protection for the other life inside her. I consider it a life, other see a clump of cells.

T

Rather disingenuous of you to pull something from a no debate thread and throw it into another one just to start an abortion debate. Have you started a separate thread yet?

 

[Crankyshank]

They're not being denied the right to be a pharmacist. You can be a practicing pharmacist and not dispense medication at your local pharmacy.

But as I've said twice now and have gotten no responses about - BCP have been legal for almost 50yrs now. Unless you're living in a rock in the middle of the prairie somewhere you should have some sort of inkling that bcp is a popular prescription. Why take a job at a pharmacy where you'd daily be forced to deal with something you're morally opposed to? It's not like he said to a co-worker that he can't do it so the co-worker needs to fill the script. It's not like he gave the script back to the customer so she could go elsewhere. He sat in moral judgement and denied her right to fill her prescription

 

[AllyandJack]

They're not being denied the right to be a pharmacist. You can be a practicing pharmacist and not dispense medication at your local pharmacy.

But as I've said twice now and have gotten no responses about - BCP have been legal for almost 50yrs now. Unless you're living in a rock in the middle of the prairie somewhere you should have some sort of inkling that bcp is a popular prescription. Why take a job at a pharmacy where you'd daily be forced to deal with something you're morally opposed to? It's not like he said to a co-worker that he can't do it so the co-worker needs to fill the script. It's not like he gave the script back to the customer so she could go elsewhere. He sat in moral judgement and denied her right to fill her prescription

Exactly....when I was in law school, I knew I could never defend a sex offender. I just couldn't do it. So, I didn't go into criminal law. Simple. If your religious beliefs are THAT important, you need to make decisions about the rest of your life. If your dream of being a pharmacist has to take a back seat, so be it. Your religion is more important and that's fine. But, don't make me suffer. There is ONE drugstore within an hour of my house. Just ONE. If I can't go there, I'm driving 2 hours. So, it's more than just walk up the street to the next place. Plus, what if your insurance won't let you go somewhere else? It's not that easy to just switch pharmacies because one person took a job he couldn't completely perform.

 

[chobie]

They're not being denied the right to be a pharmacist. You can be a practicing pharmacist and not dispense medication at your local pharmacy.

But as I've said twice now and have gotten no responses about - BCP have been legal for almost 50yrs now. Unless you're living in a rock in the middle of the prairie somewhere you should have some sort of inkling that bcp is a popular prescription. Why take a job at a pharmacy where you'd daily be forced to deal with something you're morally opposed to? It's not like he said to a co-worker that he can't do it so the co-worker needs to fill the script. It's not like he gave the script back to the customer so she could go elsewhere. He sat in moral judgement and denied her right to fill her prescription

Well according to some people we do not have the right to have legally prescribed prescriptions filled, that is a privilege to which pharmacists are allowed to grant or not grant based upon their whims.

 

[BuckNaked]

Brenda, this is really not hard to understand, and I'm befuddled as to where you're stuck with it. It's forcing a belief in terms of mandatory inconvenience, in that one person's morals force a change in the behavior of another.

"Mandatory inconvenience" I'll have to remember to complain about that one the next time I have to go to the DMV.

In a sense, when they have to go to another pharmacy, it's a half-hour of their life wasted by another person's moralistic superiority complex.

I agree, it would be an inconvenience. But I don't recall a Constitutional prohibition against inconvenience, whereas I do recall such a prohibition against federal interferece with the free practice of religious beliefs.

This is a country implicitly built on the idea that we protect everyone's right to an individual moral code - you can be as morally superior as you want, for yourself, and the others around you must deal with it - but we draw the line at the idea of one person's morals negatively impacting another's behavior.

This is where you and I disagree. I don't believe that a pharmacist IS negatively impacting a patient's behavior by refusing to fill a prescription (again, with the caveat that he will refer the patient elsewhere). He isn't saying the patient can't do whatever they please, he's just saying that he won't help them do it.

 

[AllyandJack]

Well according to some people we do not have the right to have legally prescribed prescriptions filled, that is a privilege to which pharmacists are allowed to grant or not grant based upon their whims.

I wonder if everyone felt like that. Say...the butcher in town decides it's OK to eat chicken, but not steak. You go there and he refuses to let you have steak, but you have the option of going to some chain supermarket where you're unsure of the quality, pay twice the price and drive to who-knows-where.

What about your dentist? He's really annoyed at you for eating sweets...you get a cavity and he refuses to fill it for you because he wants to teach you a lesson about self-control.

Where does it end?

 

[BuckNaked]

Ideally, yes. Religion and profession should not mix.
Of course, non-religious ethics are another story. But surely no one ever thought that OB/GYN was simply bringing precious babies into the world.

I find this interesting...are you saying that someone should be able to refuse to do their job based on their ethical beliefs, so long as those ethical beliefs aren't grounded in religious faith?

 

[Puffy2]

And, good grief, what exactly is their freaking "delima" anyway??? Birth Control Pills are OFTEN perscribed to correct menstral periods that are irregular, menopausal symptoms, to regular young girls who have not started their periods by a certain age and many, many other reasons. Who the he!! are these holier than thou 'pharmacists' that second guess a customer's private life? And worse, shame on any legislature that tries to "protect" them.

Maybe I need some laws made to protect me when I refuse to give medical care to these jerks when they show up in the ER since it would compromise my beliefs to save a dumb donkey.

 

[chobie]

I wonder if everyone felt like that. Say...the butcher in town decides it's OK to eat chicken, but not steak. You go there and he refuses to let you have steak, but you have the option of going to some chain supermarket where you're unsure of the quality, pay twice the price and drive to who-knows-where.

What about your dentist? He's really annoyed at you for eating sweets...you get a cavity and he refuses to fill it for you because he wants to teach you a lesson about self-control.

Where does it end?

Yeah, what if the guy at the deli is Muslim and does not think you should be eating ham products. Are we infringing on his religious beliefs to make him serve a ham sandwich?