1115.org

Imagine that you are in a strange town and need a prescription filled. You head to the local pharmacy, where the white-coated gentleman behind the counter takes one look at your doctor’s instructions and decides that he won’t provide you with the needed medication because it offends his moral sensibilities. As for getting your prescription, too bad. Better luck somewhere else.

If the preceding paragraph sounds absurd, then you haven’t been following the recent debate over “pharmacists’ rights”. Across the country, certain pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions if it interferes with their own moral or religious beliefs.

That is what happened to Kathleen Pulz and her husband, who panicked when the condom they were using broke. Their fear really spiked when the Walgreens pharmacy down the street from their home in Milwaukee refused to fill an emergency prescription for the morning-after pill.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Pulz, 44, who with her husband had long ago decided they could not afford a fifth child. “How can they make that decision for us? I was outraged. At the same time, I was sad that we had to do this. But I was scared. I didn’t know what we were going to do.”

The Pulzes aren’t alone. Instances of such meddling has been reported in numerous states, with pharmacists arbitrarily deciding that their moral objections trump the decisions of doctors and patients. Some pharmacists have even refused to transfer the offending prescriptions to more tolerant drugstores.

Brauer, of Pharmacists for Life, defends the right of pharmacists not only to decline to fill prescriptions themselves but also to refuse to refer customers elsewhere or transfer prescriptions.

“That’s like saying, ‘I don’t kill people myself but let me tell you about the guy down the street who does.’ What’s that saying? ‘I will not off your husband, but I know a buddy who will?’ It’s the same thing,” said Brauer, who now works at a hospital pharmacy.

The scary thing is that this behavior is gaining legitimacy. At least 11 states are considering “conscience clause” legislation to allow pharmacists to decline services, joining four states that have already passed such laws. And even though pharmacists can’t be treated like machines, allowing this kind of nonsense to continue is a very slippery slope. Pharmacists have no right to arbitrarily override a doctor and patient’s wishes, and if they can’t be relied upon to provide needed medication they should look for another line of work. While most of the cases so far involve access to birth control, where does it stop? If pharmacists can refuse to supply the morning-after pill because of their objections to birth control, what will stop someone from—for example—not providing AIDS drugs because of moral issues with homosexuality?

It’s a scary trend, one that is only going to get worse as it spreads to other elements of society. Imagine if the same “moral objection” loopholes were applied to other necessary community services, such as police and fire departments….or even doctors. Actually, that one is already in the works — It’s been reported that Michigan’s House recently passed legislation that would give health care workers the right to refuse treatment to anyone on moral, ethical or religious grounds.

What progress.