Should states be permitted to force doctors to help perform executions?

[dsc]

Several states have had to temporarily end executions for a lack of doctors being willing to help perform executions. If a state doesn't have a compelling interest in making sure that a punishment they have on the books is able to be carried out, then I don't know what would be a compelling interest.

For the record I oppose capital punishment and am glad doctors are helping to shut it down.

This is precisely why I oppose giving the government the power to make private people do things based on licences without their being a real demonstrated need. Power given to the government for one purpose can be used for another purpose. I fail to see the principled difference between requiring private store owners to carry birth control and making doctors help perform executions. I don't think the government should be doing either one.

On edit a principled difference isn't we agree with the result of A but not of B. If it were all about results then the answer is clear. Make all stores not just drug stores, dispense bc and forbid anyone, not just doctors from performing executions. The fact is that drug store owners who don't wish to carry bc are no less sincere than the doctors who refuse to perform executions. The fact we don't agree with the store owners and do with the doctors isn't a principled difference.

[PDJane]

1. No. eom.

[mzmolly]

2. Why of course. But, pharmacists should not have to administer birth control.

:sarcasm:

[Avalux]

3. NO. The thought is absolutely appalling.

I understand your concern about the government having power over individuals who hold licenses, but I have a problem with your comparison of providing birth control to actually being the person responsible for another person's death.

It is completely unethical and downright criminal to require a physician to perform an execution when he/she has taken an oath to do the opposite. How can someone who's been trained to save lives be forced to kill?

[jarab]

6. How would you feel about the required presence of Jury foreman

or the appeals judges, etc? They're sworn in their duty, which isn't complete until the final breath.
...O...

[Avalux]

10. It's not the same thing.

Speaking as a medical professional, being forced to administer a drug to end a person's life goes against everything I believe and would be completely unbearable. I would be damaged for life - it would ruin my life.

[TechBear_Seattle]

13. Everyone who condemned the person to death should....

Be on the firing squad, or its equivalent.

Put every last person on the jury, the judge and everyone involved in the prosecution into a large room. One wall of the room is two-way glass (no comfort of a one-way mirror) looking into the empty execution chamber. They must be present when the condemned is brought in, strapped to the table and hooked up to the IV. Give each of them identical electronic buttons. One of those buttons will be the one that starts the fatal IV solution dripping into the condemned's veins; it will be a double blind so neither the people in the room nor the people who give them the buttons will know which one is fatal. They are told to press the buttons.

They want this person to die: they should be the executioners. If you can not stomach murdering someone, you have no right to order that someone else do it for you.

[Horse with no Name]

4. "First do no harm"

can hardly be applied to administering death.

[Katherine Brengle]

5. No one should be forced to end another person's life - that's fucked up.

[femmedem]

7. Killing people goes against a doctor's oath.

I would hope that all doctor's would refuse to help execute people. I don't think the State has the right to turn doctors into executioners.

As for birth control, which today has to include a discussion of Emergency Contraception, you may think I'm inconsistent on this, but I think that if a store has a pharmacy, they should be compelled by the state to offer birth control. Otherwise not only would some store owners refuse to carry birth control because of their own beliefs, but they could also be pressured into pulling birth control off the shelves by fundie protests and boycotts. In either case, poor women w/o transportation could find themselves without reasonably easy access to birth control.

I don't think anyone has the right to execute someone else. But I do think people have a right to basic health care, and I consider birth control to be basic health care.

One might counter that if enough women want birth control in any given community, someone will offer it. But I don't believe birth control access should be determined by the market.

[Orrex]

11. You're right of course, but...

That same "against a doctor's oath" argument is misguidedly used by the Anti-Choice crowd, on the basis that the doctor performing an abortion is "murdering" a "person."

[Pithlet]

17. Yep, and it's a dumb argument.

They know it's a part of the job before they even become a pharmacist or open a pharmacy. If birth control is baby killing in their minds, then they know that part of the business of being a pharmacist or owning a pharmacy is killing babies. If they don't want to kill babies, they don't have to become a pharmacist, and leave the business to rational folk who actually understand how birth control and the reproduction system work. I think that argument is simply too complex for them.

[Orrex]

18. Once again I agree!

Their entire position is nonsensical, but they couch it in "for the children" language and make it seem like a noble quest rather than a attempt to force their selectively applied morality to society as a whole.

[Pithlet]

40. II know. I don't get why they think they have the right

to step between me and my doctor. Why anyone would support that right. I believe in freedom of religion. I don't believe in the right to use that belief as a weapon against others to whittle away at their rights.

[alarimer]

16. The pharmacist is really only there to carry out the Dr.s orders

They do not practice medicine themselves and to interfere in that process makes them guilty of malpractice or the equivalent for pharmacists. The doctor makes the prescription based on what he thinks is best for the patient and what the patient wants. Good pharmacists can and do find mistakes prescriptions or potential interactions with other medicines but their personal beliefs should notcause interference in that process.

[fishwax]

108. pharmacists have a much more important role than merely following orders

[datadiva]

8. NO n/t

[Orrex]

9. Of course not. And capital punishment should be banned, too.

But at the very least, no one should be compelled to participate in the execution.

[hlthe2b]

12. IT is NOT the job of a physician to KILL... It IS the job of a

pharmacist to fill physician-prescribed legal prescriptions. It is NOT the job of a pharmacist to substitute their judgement on the care of the patient for that of the patient's physican.


How could there be a perception of similarity in the situations? :shrug:

[Crandor]

Why do they need a doctor?

Are they afraid if a lethal injection is administered improperly, the "patient" might die as a result? :shrug:

[dsc]

21. federal judges have been requiring doctors to be sure the prisoner isn't suffering

California, Missouri, and North Carolina have all stopped capital punishment pending coming to some sort of arrangement regarding doctors.

[Bluerthanblue]

14. what would the state do if they refused? Kill them?....

I do believe a pharmacist should be ready to lose their job if their own personal beliefs make them un-willing to carry out all the necessary aspects of their job.

What about anti-depressants? If a 'Scientologist' were to get a job at a pharmacy, should they be allowed to refuse to fill prescriptions for the medications they deem 'against their religion'?

Birth control is not executing a living breathing person. Most birth control has no effect on any potential 'un-born' human being. A healthy couple has only a 15-20% chance of becoming pregnant each month even if they are actively trying to conceive, and 15% of all pregnancies end in miscarriage.

The idea behind birth control is PREVENTING a possible conception. Selling someone a means of protecting against a pregnancy when it is not desired is no where near comparable to taking actions which directly end the life of a person who is presently living,breathing and even conscious.

The difference between a potential life, and an actual life is pretty profound.

Like the difference between buying a lottery ticket, and winning the lottery.

[Control-Z]

102. Indeed

'The difference between a potential life, and an actual life is pretty profound.

Like the difference between buying a lottery ticket, and winning the lottery.'

[Pithlet]

15. The two issues aren't remotely the same.

Dispensing prescription birth control is a basic function of pharmacies. Before a proprietor even goes into the business, they know that. Before a person finishes studying to become a pharmacist, they know that. Doctors aren't supposed to execute people. It goes against their ethics code. A medical student does not go into the profession knowing it is a possible expectation or responsibility of the job. Telling someone they have to fulfill a basic requirement of the job if they want that as a profession, or as a business is entirely different than forcing someone to perform a function that isn't even a part of their job, let alone something that most people would shy away from even if they support it in theory.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

19. I'm struck by how many people clearly haven't read the OP.

If you read it through, you'll see that (s)he isn't advocating forcing doctors to perform executions, they're using that as an analogy for forcing pharmacists to prescribe birth control.

For what it's worth, I think that the state should refuse to employ or do business with anyone who wants to refuse to do so, but that they shouldn't prohibit such people from running private businesses.

[dsc]

20. that is exactly my position

[mondo joe]

23. The analogy doesn't hold up. Pharmacists who refuses to dispense stocked

legal medication for reasons other than the patient's health are obstructing a person from receiving medical care.

Pharmacists don't practice medicine - or they're not SUPPOSED TO anyway. They are supposed to carry out the physician's orders, and that is what they are licensed to do. Failure to do so interferes with a person's right to medical care.

The state has no authority, however, to tell a physician he or she has to perform a service.

[Katherine Brengle]

25. Oopsie, my bad.

In that case, blech.

Giving people the medications prescribed by their doctors is the job of pharmacists - they can suck it if they think differently.

Maybe the fundies could establish their own pharmacies and stop mucking up the system with this kind of crap.

[VelmaD]

22. so you don't see a real, demonstrated need...

for women to obtain birth control?

Your analogy is based on the faulty premise that the desire not to execute a human being is analagous to not wanting to provide birth control...as if the two things were morally equal. They are not. Most opposition to providing birth control is not about "fetuses" or "killing babies" or whatever...it's about controlling women. It's about forcing their religious views down other peoples' throats. If it was really about their morals or what's in the Bible then they'd refuse to sell condoms or Viagra to unmarried men and they'd refuse to sell AIDS drugs to homosexuals. But they don't. They single out women. Gee...I wonder why that is? *snort*

[dsc]

24. No other ethical exceptions are judged on moral grounds

We have a right to practice religion in this country not practice religion that is moral or pleasing. But I don't see any principled difference here. You agree with the doctors but don't agree with the store owners. That isn't principle that is expediency. As for your other comment, I have asked, repeated, iterated, and reiterated for one example where a person was denied bc by a pharmacy, didn't have the script taken (which I do think should be forbidden) and couldn't get bc. Not a single, solitary example has yet been provided. Sorry, but this comes across as a non existant problem. BTW I have repaeatly said, as in atleast a couple dozen times, that I don't favor anyone but store owning pharmacists refusing bc. I don't think the government should carve out an ethical exception for people who don't want to do what their boss tells them to.

[mondo joe]

26. But a pharmacists job is to carry out the physician's orders.

Refusing the prescription to which they control access interferes with a person's medical care.

[dsc]

29. If a store carries the drug it must dispense it

and yes I have said that over and over and over again. But I don't think any store should be told by the government what to sell. If a store owner has a moral position against bc, and is willing to state so publicly and above board, then it should be permitted to not sell the drug. I fail to see any principled difference between compelling stores to carry bc and compelling phycians to help executions. In both cases people have ethical problems with carring out the duty and in both cases the state is telling them that the state knows better.

[mondo joe]

32. I think that's arguable. Here's why:

Pharmacies exist to provide an access point to controlled substances, as a critical link in the chain of health care.

As such they are licensed by the state - not for the fun of it, but to ensure that access point meets certain restrictions and expectations.

I have little trouble with the state requiring a minimum formulary in order to get the license, in the interest of meeting the healthcare needs of the people in that state.

[dsc]

52. Then why not require that doctors

help execute to get their licence? Both help the state get something done which they want done.

[mondo joe]

55. Again, the analogy fails.

No one has suggested the state just grab anyone with a pharmacist's qualifications and force them to fill prescriptions -- they have to be in the business of filling prescriptions in a licensed pharmacy, and someone has to come to them with a legitimate prescription and the means to pay for it.

You seem to be suggesting the state can just grab a physician and force him to do business at the bidding of the state.

The one way you'd have a legitimate point would be if a physician takes a position that includes assisting at executions. If that's part of his or her job, then they are expected to do it.

[Katherine Brengle]

37. Because women have been granted the right to access to birth control --

say there is only one pharmacy in a very small town and that pharmacy chooses not to carry birth control - that means that the women who live there are out of luck.

It's a slippery slope.

The difference is that no person's rights are being infringed by a doctor who chooses not to perform executions.

[dsc]

53. The right of the whole state is being infringed

states have decided, unwisely IMO, to have capital punishment, doctors are defact shutting it down. And if a problem developes then I would be willing to investigate solutions. So far, I have seen a problem develop.

[Pithlet]

59. How are they shutting it down

By refusing to provide a service they were never meant to provide in the first place? That's like saying hair stylests who refuse to fill cavities are impeding dentistry.

[Katherine Brengle]

65. I see where you are coming from a logical debate standpoint --

In my personal opinion, the death penalty needs to be shut down period - but I do understand the argument and the analogy as far as individual rights go.

So I guess the real question is, whose rights supersede? Is a woman's right to birth control greater than a pharmacy's right to deny it? Is the state's right to execute a criminal greater than a doctor's right to refuse to perform it?

I think the big difference is that the state is, in reality, not a single individual entity, nor is the pharmacy, whereas a woman or a doctor is an individual entitled to the rights of an individual.

[mondo joe]

70. The situations remain unalike anyway.

Pharmacies are licensed TO complete the sequence of medical care.

If you want to run a pharmacy, you do it for the reason intended.

No one is suggesting rounding up anyone with pharmacist qualifications and forcing them to dispense meds.

If someone takes a job as the state's execution physician, it would similarly be in their responsibilities to assist in an execution.

But to otherwise have the state pick some physician and force her or him to perform some task at the behest of the state is just slavery.

[Katherine Brengle]

71. Excellent points. nt

[Pithlet]

39. They absolutely can and should be told what to sell

If they want to be a pharmacy. If they want to serve in that capacity to the community. Just because they own it and profit from it doesn't give them the right to tayler that service based on their own personal beliefs to the detriment of the community. The community (government) is telling them they can provide that service by granting them license to do so. There's absolutely nothing wrong with telling them they have to fulfill certain basic requirements with that service. If they don't want to provide that service for whatever reason, religious or otherwise, they can find another business to profit from.

It in no way impedes anyone from freely practicing their religious beliefs. Anyone is free to practice any religious beliefs they want to, as long as that doesn't prevent me or anyone else in the community from exercising our own rights. That includes inserting themselves into a position of power to block others from exercising their rights. Your right to your religious beliefs end where my right to obtain birth control starts. It's really that simple.

[Katherine Brengle]

28. Here are a few examples:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/o/content/oh/story/opinions/columns/2007/01/22/ddn012307mary.html

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-11-08-druggists-pill_x.htm

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101040607-644153,00.html

This may not seem like a real problem to you, but things like this have a habit of spreading and becoming much, much worse.

The anti-choice faction in this country has been steadily gaining power for a long time now, and these rights we've taken for granted CAN be lost.

[dsc]

36. At most one of these examples fit

and I am unsure of that one. In the second and third link the script was taken, something I explicitly said I would ban. In the first one the woman got it filled the same day at another pharmacy. The only story that might have counted was the missed pill case and I honestly wasn't sure given the wording why the 24 hour wait occured.

[VelmaD]

30. way to avoid every question I asked in my response

There have been many threads posted on DU over the last couple of years related to pharmacists refusing to provide BC and even a couple of situations where they wouldn't return the prescription. Go use the search function. Or google. You'll find plenty of stories about the hell some pharmacists think they have the right to put women through. The first one who tries to quiz me on my sex life or marital status or who refuses to fill my pills...I will rip their arm off and beat them to death with it.

I suppose it feels like a non-existent problem if you aren't the one who might get pregnant. :eyes: It's a problem because no woman knows when a pharmacist will refuse to fill a prescription. You can go to a pharmacy for years with no problem and then one day...some pseudo-moralistic mouth-breather can refuse to do their fucking job.

They don't have to post on the door of the pharmacy that they won't do it. I wish they were forced to because I'd damn sure take ALL of my business elsewhere.

On edit: Here's a link to a story I found in 30 seconds on google that includes the name of a pharmacist who took took a woman's prescription, wouldn't fill it, wouldn't transfer it to another pharmacy, and wouldn't return it. And that took only 30 seconds.

[VelmaD]

35. and here's another link

the stories start on page 2
http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/PharmacyRefusals101_11.28.06.pdf

[dsc]

38. I honestly don't know how many times I can utter the words

PHARMACISTS SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO TAKE SCRIPTS and have people like you ignore it without thinking that ignoring is totally willful. I have said it no fewer that 20 times including just a minute ago to you, and still you refuse to accept that I believe that PHARMACISTS SHOULDN'T BE ALLOWED TO TAKE SCRIPTS. I hope you get it this time. I don't know how to make it clearer. I really and truely don't.

[VelmaD]

41. It's kinda like talking to a brick wall

You have reduced everything down to one point that you care about. Of course pharmacists shouldn't be allowed to take and keep scrips...any scrip. But you are completely clueless when it comes to the bigger issue of pharmacists refusing to do their jobs and serve their female customers. Their job is to fill legally prescribed drugs. Not to moralize. Not to practice medicine without a license. To dispense legally prescribed drugs. Period.

But of course, it's not your body so it won't matter until they do it to you. When a pharmacist refuses to fill a Viagra prescription for an unmarried man or quizes a married man to determine whether or not he's sleeping with someone other than his wife...then maybe you'll start to get clued in.

[dsc]

44. Actually it was AIDS drugs which were the first problem

and those were in the late 1980's. Also men often still can't get vascetemies without shopping around, again something that has been true for decades. As to your other point. I have stated, restated, iterated, and reiterated, that I have a huge problem with the government getting involved here on either side. They shouldn't be requiring stores to honor pharmacist's moral reasoning nor should they be requiring stores to carry products. Stores should have the option of carring bc or not carrying bc but not have the option of carry bc and giving it only to certain people. I have asked, reasked, and asked some more for examples of this being a real problem barring the taking of scripts WHICH NOT ONLY DO I THINK SHOULD BE ILLEGAL BUT IS ILLEGAL. And despite these repeated requests I haven't seen a single example where that wasn't part of the problem.

[VelmaD]

90. Do your own damn homework

You may not think it's a big deal when a woman in need of emergency contraception, which is TIME SENSITIVE, is forced to go to another pharmacy to get it because a pharmacist won't fill the scrip...but it IS a big fucking deal to a lot of women. Many rural women have few options...some little towns have only one pharmacy and getting to the next nearest one involves quite a drive. Or what about poor women in urban areas...do you think they have all day to run around town, often on public transportation, looking for a pharmacist who won't moralize at them during an already stressful situation. But I guess making women's lives miserable doesn't mean much to you.

And what do I do if I live in a little town where the only pharmacist won't even fill my regular birth control pill prescription? There are pharmacists who won't even do that. That's how fucked in the head they are. And apparently that kind of situation just doesn't have any impact for you.

[dsc]

95. Give me a break

For the last time, since you apparently won't read, I have said repeatedly, over and over, that stores which refused to sell bc would have to state it up front. Assuming this woman can read she would know what store to go to as it would be clearly marked. So urban woman wouldn't be going all over. As to this one store stuff. Again, I have asked, over and over and over again for one, just one, clear unambiguous example, of people following current law making women not get bc. And over and over again, you can't come up with that example. It seems to me that before we give the government a massive power we should have evidence of a real problem, not a made up potential one. Incidently, mail order drugs would work with regular prescriptions. I presume you get mail.

[Pithlet]

45. I think we get that.

It's just not good enough. Birth control should be readily available to all women everywhere. Any means of causing an impediment to that is not acceptable. You're willing to concede that bare minimum that individual pharmacists shouldn't be able to take the prescriptions away, and that's good. That's more than many on your side are willing to do. But, it's not enough. Communities where access to birth control is severely limited and made difficult to obtain will suffer. Your one concession doesn't do anything to prevent that scenario. The women and those who care about them in the community have rights, too. Supporting the right for pharmacies to refuse to carry birth control is supporting their right to block the community from access to something they have a right to. It doesn't matter if that's not the reason you're supporting it, and some other principle is behind it. The results are the same.

[dsc]

49. actually that is all I concede and yes I have stated the rest before

several times as well, I also don't think individual pharmacists should be able to tell their bosses what they will and won't do. The only right I think anyone has here is pharmacist store owners who have two choices, either carry bc and sell it to one and all or don't carry bc and don't sell it to anyone. If you choose not to carry you must prominately state such on your front door and tell any doctor who call in a script that you don't sell bc. Now if after that, you can show me that there is a real, not imaginary potential, but real problem with people not getting bc when they need it, then I would consider giving the government some role. But again, I have asked, reasked, and asked some more for examples where this has been a real problem barring already illegal conduct on the part of pharmacists and they haven't appeared. I live in a region that would be way, way, way, more likely to compel doctors to help execute than pharmacists to sell bc.

[Pithlet]

56. How does one link to the fact

that there are rural communities where there are only one pharmacy for many miles, where many of the residence are poor and may not have means to travel farther distances? Do you deny that they exist? Particularly the states on the red end of the political spectrum. Allow them the freedom to not carry any birth control, and you've effectively shut out whole communities of women. And for some principle that companies should be able to do whatever they please? You do realize that private corporations are told what to do by the government (us) all the time? If a business practices hurts individuals or a community, governments have stepped in before to impede their freedom of how they practice their business.

You're arguing for the right for companies to block women from access to birth control in practice, even if that isn't the principle you're arguing. It's just like the people who argue that businesses should be able to serve whomever they please in place of laws that abolished Jim Crow. They argued to support a business practice that caused great harm to the community. But businesses simply do not and likely never will have complete control over how they do business. What particularly makes your argument weak is you're defending a specific type of business that is given license by that very same government (us) to provide those products you say they shouldn't be forced to provide. It makes no sense.

[dsc]

62. The very same red state governments that you wish to give this

huge power to are the ones you think are going to force stores to carry bc? With all due respect, what makes you think this would happen? I have a fairly good idea of the likelyhood of say Mississippi requiring drugstores to carry bc and it isn't high. As to the laws about public accomodation, that is a very different thing. No one, not even the right to life pharmacists, are arguing that bc should be able to be sold to person A and not person B. I have a real problem with government action here because the record of government isn't so great.

[Pithlet]

68. The record isn't that great? I'm not sure what you mean by that.

We still have a way to go, but there have been plenty of successful laws that have made progress in areas of equality, civil rights and human rights. A lot of red states have been digging their heels in on such matters for many years, and that hasn't stopped the progressive movement, has it? And I don't get what you mean by the Person A bur not person B. Who on the side of women is arguing that pharmacies can choose who to sell BC to? I think the argument is that all women should be able to get it if they're holding a prescription for it, and if the pharmacy has none in stock they have to order it. I'm certainly not arguing otherwise.

I don't doubt that the red state governments won't want to pass such legislation, and it would be particularly hard there. But that's not a reason to be against such legislation. It certainly isn't a reason to give up. I live in a red state. I don't think we women who live in the red states should be forgotten. I'm also not against federal regulations regarding this matter, if red states don't want to get with the program.

[dsc]

80. In comparision to large corporations, governments have been awful

in terms of gay rights to name one simliar issue. Over half of all fortune 500 companies have domestic partner benefits. 6 states out of 50 have some form of them. My sister literally didn't know that people could be fired for being gay because every single private sector job she has had, was for a company that included sexual orientation. I have worked for only one such school district.

I think giving government power here is a really bad idea. After all MA and CT banned contraception sales as recently as the 1960's.

The person a vs person b things is in reference to the race issue you brought up. It is a wholly different thing to refuse to serve a class of people instead of refusing to carry a product.

[mondo joe]

81. But when you talk about a drug that only one class of people use - and

rather widely at that - the product vs class of people is blurred.

[dsc]

83. to some extent it does

and if, and this is a big if, if I see a huge problem then I will rethink this. I don't favor giving the government power in this area without a demonstrated need.

[mondo joe]

86. Doesn't government have plenty of power here to begin with?

Government decides who is licensed to run a pharmacy, what pharmaceuticals they can sell, etc.

[dsc]

88. Not state governments

The FDA decides a drug can be sold and that is that. Yes, states licence pharmacists but must use neutral criteria to do so.

[femmedem]

99. How do you define "'huge problem"?

Is it a huge problem if poor women have to waste time and gas looking for someone to fill their bc scripts? Or does it only become a problem if they can't find someone?

Is it a huge problem if pharmacists become vulnerable to protests, boycotts and vandalism from activists who oppose bc? (You are only thinking of this in terms of protecting pharmacy owners' right not to carry bc, but you are not taking into consideration the rights of pharmacy owners who would like to carry bc, but who may become subject to harassment if this becomes a personal, rather than governmental decision.)

Is it a huge problem if even one rape victim carries a rapist's baby to term because she couldn't get emergency bc easily and quickly? It's a huge problem for her.

Why do you insist the problem has to have already occurred and been documented? Why not concede that laws which grant pharmacists the right to determine which scripts they will and won't fill is likely to compromise the public health?

If I sound snarky, it's because I don't appreciate your edited OP saying that my position is unprincipled. Say you disagree, fine, but don't make accusations about my principles.

[femmedem]

92. You sound as if you believe that if a woman was denied birth control

and wasn't able to easily obtain it elsewhere, she would necessarily go to the press. That is not realistic.

I live in a city of about 25,000 people. We don't have a pharmacy downtown. Our mass transit sucks. There are three pharmacies in the city limits, none of which are within a mile of each other. The poverty rate in my city is 15.9%. There are a lot of women here without cars. I am one of them. Do I need a newspaper story to make you understand what a hardship it would be for a lot of women if their nearest pharmacy wouldn't sell them BC?

[dsc]

98. You at least would need evidence that one of those stores isn't selling bc

that seems to be a fairly minimal requirement.

[Lautremont]

100. This is a hypothetical situation,

and the poster above has provided a (real) situation in which the policy you advocate would mess with the ability of some women to access birth control.

The question is, what if one of these pharmacies in this town got on its high horse and refused to stock birth control? What then?

[SemperEadem]

106. evidence

http://www.prochoicetexas.org/s09issues/200504011.shtml

In March 2004 in a suburb of Fort Worth, Texas, a CVS pharmacist refused to refill a woman’s birth control pill prescription because of her own personal opposition to the pill. The chain’s policy is that pharmacists may decline to fill prescriptions, but they should ask another pharmacist to fill it or refer the prescription to another store. CVS delivered the pills to the woman’s home the next day.

In Fabens, Texas, the only private pharmacy in a small town, the Medicine Shoppe, refuses to fill prescriptions for birth control pills for contraceptive use, or carry EC, because the pharmacist personally opposes the pill.


In October 2004, a Walgreen’s pharmacist in Smyrna, Georgia refused to refill a woman’s birth control prescription because the pharmacist personally opposes birth control. The woman was told to come back to the store when another pharmacist would be on duty, but the store manager assisted her by referring her prescription to another Walgreen’s store.


why you couldn't just do a google search and find this very information illustrates either your laziness or the weakness in your entire position. It's out there. Too bad you can't be bothered to educate yourself.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

27. Sorry, but it's not the same at all.

A pharmacist trains to dispense medications and takes a job doing so, knowing that that is what his job entails.

Unless you are talking about a doctor who has applied for and gotten a job acting as an executioner for a state and then refuses to peform certain executions, you are talking about two completely different circumstances.

You cannot equate your two scenarios two at all. :shrug:

[uppityperson]

31. IF a doctor is hired to perfom executions, dr should have to do them.

There is no difference, if you are hired to do that job. The difference I see is that pharmacists are hired to dispense legally prescribed medicine and most doctors are not hired to perform executions. If a state can not find a doctor willing to be hired for this position, that is their problem and no, they should not be able to require anyone to do it.

[MyNameGoesHere]

33. My first instinct is to say no

but maybe not only doctors but normal people should be required to perform executions. Far too long people have supported this with no clue of what it involves. The killing of someone. If the people are forced to get their hands dirty a little maybe they will stop supporting the idiots that keep this state sponsored murder legal.

[Porcupine]

34. Surely they can find a doctor with no morals......

I always can. Just about every time I go to one.

Got health care?

[BuyingThyme]

42. They should force the children of the people who support

the death penalty to perform executions.

[Solon]

43. I don't remember doctors being required to perform executions...

Is that in the Hippocratic Oath, or listed on their Medical License?

[Left Is Write]

46. No.

[LeftishBrit]

47. Yes, it's a principled difference.

A decent, literally 'pro-life', society will ensure that all have access to birth control and will not have capital punishment. If that sounds dogmatic, perhaps it is. But those are my principles.

How the access to birth control is provided could be a matter for debate and discussion. Perhaps by requiring private pharmacies to provide it (after all there are some regulations even on private organizations); perhaps by establishing state-run pharmacies to do so. However, no woman who needs or wants birth control should need to depend on the lottery of whether the local pharmacists do or don't believe in birth control.

It has nothing to do with whether the people concerned are 'sincere' enough; it is a matter of whether they are harming or endangering the welfare of others.

[mondo joe]

48. There is only one instance in which a physician helping perform execution would

be comparable to a physician providing medication: if the state hired a physician who understood that his or her job would include providing any medical service the state requested of him or her.

That person's job would include assisting an execution, as a pharmacist's is dispensing prescribed pharmaceuticals.

[citizen snips]

50. I thought that doctors did not perform the execution

but instead checked to see if the inmate is dead or not.

[NoSheep]

51. No.

[Warren DeMontague]

54. A pharmacist signs up to fill prescriptions. Not to pick and choose.

If the doctor was working for the prison system, and part of the job description was to be involved in the capital punishment process? Yeah, then the state could fire the doctor for not doing his job.

Likewise, if a state-licensed pharmacist finds filling birth control prescriptions, (or, as more likely the case, filling the birth control prescriptions of "unmarried sluts" who sorely need a lecture about Jesus and keeping their legs crossed) too conflicting with his or her belief system, he or she can find another gig.

A much more apt analogy is, if you think it's okay for pharmacists to play this kind of church lady moralizing game, is it okay for them to refuse to fill anti-AIDS medication prescriptions for gay people (you know, because "God" wants them to die) or, is it okay for them to refuse to fill prescriptions of Jews or Black People on the basis of their anti-semitism or racism?

That's what you're essentially arguing for. I know the whackjob Xtian fundamentalist crowd thinks using the birth control pill is morally equivalent to murder, but I don't normally expect to find that sort of "logic" here. :eyes:

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

57. Dispensing birth control is an expected normal part of being a pharmacist. Executing people is NOT

a normal duty of a physician, in fact physicians are enjoined to "do no harm".

I have no problem with pharmacists not doing things they don't believe in.

What I DO have a problem with is legislation that proposes to prevent such pharmacists from being able to be fired by their employers for not carrying out expected, legal, duties.

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/health/conscienceclauses.htm

[Warren DeMontague]

58. Make the Birth Control Pill Available OTC, and this won't be a problem.

If stores don't want to sell it, that's their right. Let Costco carry it in bulk.

Then everybody would be happy- except, of course, for the "Jesus Needs You To Stop Fucking!" Crowd. :eyes:

[dsc]

60. I tend to agree

I fail to see why bc isn't over the counter.

[Pithlet]

61. But it's not. Only pharmacies can carry it.

Which is exactly why they need to be forced to carry it if they refuse. They are granted monopoly on providing that product, so they need to provide it. Since they're the only ones that can carry it, they need to carry it. If they don't, they're impeding women from their access to it, particularly in rural areas where there is little choice. If there is such a huge push in the pharmaceutical industry to not have to carry birth control, then perhaps they should join the fight to make it OTC, and then it's out of their hands. Except most of the very same people in the industry who don't want to carry it, don't want to carry it because they don't want women to have it, not because of some freedom of stock movement. I'm willing to bet it isn't some economical Libertarian ideal spurring THEM on. So they're probably not going to back groups who are pushing for that, are they?

[dsc]

64. What other drugs should they be required to carry?

AZT was really hard to get for quite sometime. Oxycotin is hard to get. I am quite sure pharmacists for life wouldn't support making bc over the counter but I hardly care. I just don't trust government here. They have a crappy record.

[mondo joe]

67. It wouldn't be hard to determine a mimimum formulary of the most highly prescribed

medications in a given area.

Government already regulates pharmacies anyway.

[Pithlet]

76. Any legal prescription drug that they refuse to carry.

This wouldn't even be an issue if there wasn't an organized movement against prescription birth control. Oxycontin is hard to get not because pharmacies refuse to stock it or pharmacists refuse to sell it, but because doctors are reluctant to prescribe it. It's also much more heavily regulated than prescription birth control, and is more targeted by criminals so pharmacies won't carry large stocks of it to attract the criminals. But if they're out they'll get it if someone is holding a legal prescription. If the religious right gets it in their head to start targeting oxycontin and start refusing to stock or fill the prescriptions for oxycontin, then add that to the list along with prescription birth control. Same with AZT. If they're refusing to stock it and fill prescriptions for it, force their hand. You don't trust the government? Or you just don't trust the government when it's a law you don't like? You're awfully vague, there. There are minimalist government Libertarian boards that would likely welcome you with open arms if it's the former. Just know that you have rights that you probably take for granted and never consciously think about that that government you don't trust has protected for you by passing laws in your interest, even if they've failed you in other areas. I'm a woman for crying out loud. We still don't have an ERA. I certainly don't' think the government is perfect. But that's no excuse to turn your back on people who need the protection of the law, and side with the people who are fighting to impede their rights.

[dsc]

82. I am by no means a libertarian

but I have seen the comparitive record of public vs private when it comes to these kinds of issues and private has done vastly better. Government is great on things like enviromental regulation, education, policing criminals, and a whole host of other collective duties. Government is lousy when it comes to regulating competing moral conflicts. For every Illinois which winds up requiring pharmacists to sell bc there will be two or three states such as Virginia, South Carolina, or Texas banning bc if we start giving states back this kind of power.

[Pithlet]

87. Your argument sounds extremely Libertarian in nature.

It isn't giving states any more power than they had before. States were already regulating many aspects of business. This in no way makes it easier for them to ban birth control. If they're going to ban it, they'll do it whether they tell pharmacies they have to actually do their job or not. If there were a significant correlation between regulated commerce and legislating away our rights, we'd all be living in Stepford. The state telling pharmacies they have to perform the very task they are meant for isn't some huge, sweeping alteration of the function of government. Libertarians are always using the exact same slippery slope argument you are using in this instance to argue for less government.

The government is lousy at legislating competing moral conflicts? What the heck was the laws enacted during civil rights era all about? What is the fight for civil rights for minorities, including women and gay people all about? Why are we even here? What is the point of being a progressive who cares about or is active in politics and government if we aren't going to use our influence get the state to enact laws regarding moral conflicts? So they haven't been perfect. All the more reason to keep up the fight! Not throw up our hands and say "Boy, the government sure is lousy, no point in fighting for any of our rights. Let's let corporations stomp all over them. Wouldn't want to get involved in those moral conflicts!"

[dsc]

91. frankly I am a bit tired of waiting

I would love to see civil rights laws updated and surely am working to do that. But in the meantime I sure am not going to work to give the government massive powers that I think they will proceed to misuse. As to banning bc the only reason places like MS aren't doing so is because the Supreme Court won't let them. I honestly think minorities are best off going to the SC not the legislature for rights.

[Pithlet]

96. I don't blame you.

Where you're wrong on this particular issue is that such legislation isn't ratcheting up the power given to government by any meaningful amount. I mean, they license people who cut hair and require a minimum amount of education for that, even though it's a private business. They tell restaurants what kinds of kitchen equipment they have to have. They aren't free to use any old stove they want, even though it's their own private business. And then there are all the safety regulations that most businesses have to adhere to, depending on the type of product or service they provide. I don't get how telling a pharmacy they have to provide the very service they're granted a special right to provide is a big stretch from any of that. It's not your average retail transaction where you just walk in, pick out what you want, and the merchant sells it to you. It's much more than that. While they profit from it, it's actually a step in a transaction that begins and ends outside of the pharmacy. The pharmacy is really only there as the middle man, so to speak, as an aid to ensure the requirements of regulation are met. By refusing to sell any legal prescription, they aren't just refusing to sell a product, but they're obstructing the whole process, which goes against their purpose.

I'd thought of bringing up that states can't ban birth control even if they wanted to to begin with, but I wanted to focus more on your argument that this would be granting the state too much power. I want to clarify that by the state I'm not merely talking about actual state governments, but I'm referring to government in general. It seemed that you were arguing against such a law no matter who enacts it because it is infringing on the rights of pharmacies. Your arguments seemed to be in defense of their right, and are now shifting toward an anti-big government stance.

[femmedem]

93. The public sector is better than the private sector

when it comes to regulating businesses in order to protect the public's health. Government should step in when people's greed causes them to compromise the public's health. Likewise the government should step in when a person's religious beliefs or ethical beliefs causes them to compromise the public's health.

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to open a pharmacy. If someone don't want to be in the business of filling prescriptions, they can open a laundromat.

[LeftyMom]

63. Two reasons (neither all that great, but there the two usually given)

1. It's a good way to get women in for the their annual lube, oil and filter job.

2. There are side effects and counterindications that might not be observed in OTC use (for example, smokers over 35 shouldn't use the pill due to elevated risk of heart trouble.)

[dsc]

66. I think there are ways around those

Warning labels etc.

[Katherine Brengle]

74. Warning labels are all well and fine...

but what if you are a woman who does not know that she has a good reason not to take bc pills? Having to get a scrip from a doctor requires you to have a checkup at least once a year to make sure everything is kosher - if there is a reason for you not to take the pills, you are more likely to find out and not put yourself in danger.

[LeftyMom]

89. yeah, but people manage to kill themselves or their kids every year by accidental tylenol OD

People won't read warning labels on things they regard as harmless.

Also, some hormonal contraceptives, even many of the safest ones, need a periodic blood pressure check, and most people aren't really set up to take an accurate on at home (and those who are tend to have issues that preclude contraceptive use, or are too old to need them.)

I'd be cool with some sort of system where specially trained pharmacists can dispense w/o a prescription after screening and consultation, similar to what we have in CA for Plan B.

[Katherine Brengle]

94. Like those OTC behind the counter medications - no scrip needed, but you have to ask --

of course the problem with this is that you still need the pharmacist to hand it to you, and why would s/he if they won't with a prescription?

[Katherine Brengle]

72. BC it's hormonal and can have very severe negative health effects if used

incorrectly or by the wrong person.

I'd like it to be available OTC myself, but I can understand why it isn't.

[Warren DeMontague]

75. Talking real-world solutions, however, I think making it avail. OTC makes the most sense.

There are certainly a number of products available OTC which can screw you up if used incorrectly. Birth Control Pills are safer and have been used successfully for a longer period of time than many other OTC medications. I happen to think the fact that it's prescription only has more to do with so-called "morality" reasons than anything else.

[Katherine Brengle]

84. I can agree with this --

and as I said, I would much rather be able to buy them OTC myself than run to the OB everytime I need them.

Of course, here's a sticking point - if the pills become OTC, do insurance companies still have to cover them? Probably not. Well, they're damned expensive when not cut down by insurance payouts...

?

[Pithlet]

79. I can, too.

I don't have a problem with BCPs staying prescription for those reasons as long as the Religious Right's movement to quash it is kept at bay.

[SemperEadem]

107. because we're talking about hormones

which are different for every woman, hence her needing a doctor's prescription. When hormones are out of balance, they bring on a myriad of health issues.

but after observing your posts in this thread, I'm not surprised by the point you've conceded.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

69. dsc, do you think that pharmacists should be protected from being fired for not doing

their expected job? THAT is where I have a problem.

There's generally no law that compels you to do anything.

As a doctor, there's no law that forces you to perform necessary lifesaving surgery that is part of your job description, when you're on call... however, if the things that you do (or don't do) fall outside the professional standards of what's expected by the licensing board, by your specialty, your medical community, or your hospital's medical staff committee, you could lose your job through any one of those means.

For instance, if you were an emergency room doc who was a Jehovah's Witness and let some patient bleed to death because you refused to give them a blood transfusion because of your religious belief (when they might easily have been saved otherwise), you can do that, but then the hospital can kick you off their staff, and the state can revoke your license, for a breach in the standard of care.

The problem with "conscience" laws (a good resources with many links is in my post earlier in the thread) is that many seek to prevent the employee from suffering any consequences like getting fired.

[dsc]

73. No, and I have stated that repeatedly, no employee should be permitted

to tell his or her boss which parts of a job he will do and which he won't. I don't want government involvement at all here.

[Colobo]

77. Force?

Nah... if anything, they should provide very good economical incentives that would persuade some doctors to participate in such "exercise"...

By the way, I favor Capital Punishment in certain cases. Anyone that rapes and/or kills children should be executed.

[aikoaiko]

78. No, but they should let others do the deed if needed.

[Madspirit]

85. Laughable Comparison

An employee being told to do the duty their job requires is not the same thing as forcing someone to murder someone. This is a laughable comparison. A doctor's primary order of business is "First Do No Harm". If you were ordering the pharmacist to abort a woman's baby with his/her own two hands, I wouldn't support that either. I am pro-choice but I wouldn't force any doctor who is ethically opposed to abortion, to perform one. Your imaginary pharmacist is just selling birth control pills. The woman takes them herself.
I can't even take this comparison seriously.
Madspirit

[madrchsod]

97. no-

[damntexdem]

101. Nonsense! Being a druggist and operating a drug store ...

mean proclaiming that the public's healthcare needs will be met with regard to prescribed pharmaceuticals. There is no inherent right to refuse to provide such pharmaceuticals. Concern for technical problems in prescribing and using drugs (e.g., drug interactions) is within the pharmacists purview. But if a pharmacist or pharmacy tries to interpose ideological and/or moral beliefs between a physician's prescription and a patient's attempts to comply, there should be immediate punishment, at the very least including loss of the professional license.

[SemperEadem]

103. the demonstrated need is determined by a medical doctor, not a pharmacist

a pharmacist taking upon him/herself to determine need without any information regarding the patient's medical history is called negligence as well as practicing medicine without a license, and that is against the law.

Birth control prevents conception, it doesn't interfere once conception takes place--that is the hole your argument fall into, thus it is non sequitur to state exectutions. The fact still remains that a pharmacist must direct the customer to another pharmacy that will fill the prescription or have someone on duty who will do it. But they cannot practice medicine without a license and expect to get away with it.

Pharmacies need to make it abundantly clear when they hire a pharmacist who selfishly places their religious views before their obligation to their job duties, which they signed an agreement to do when they were hired, so that customers can make an informed choice about spending their money in that pharmacy.

[spanone]

104. No, Never. I don't want my doctor practicing death.

[Vidar]

105. No.