This issue has been bubbling for a while. I know
Planned Parenthood and other groups have been tracking it:
Pharmacists have been
refusing to dispense birth control pills due to 'moral' objections.
Now, I can understand the argument by doctors who choose not to perform actual abortions. It is a specific procedure they refuse to perform. However, pharmacists are there to provide medications prescribed by physicians and approved by insurance companies (who are a whole other kettle of fish). There is no question that they have forced this item on a customer. Somehow by filling the Rx, this translates to 'condoning' certain behaviors? I don't get this.
In the case of doctors providing abortions, the patient might (!) have other options for getting that procedure, but many pharmacy customers can ONLY use one pharmacy in their region, because their insurance companies limit them to contract locations. So what if you're in a small town, with one pharmacy (not unusual) and a druggist who refuses to fill your Rx? And in some cases (as discussed in the article) who refuse to hand it off to another druggist to fill (???!). Even if there is another druggist at the same location who will fill it, what if they're not working today? Or what if they feel harassed in the workplace to NOT fill such prescriptions? Then it becomes a labor issue.
I'm taking this to extremes, but as we seem to be heading that direction, let's look at this: what if you had a pharmacist, or some pharmacy tech, who had recently converted to Christian Science? In this religion, use of any medication is proscribed in deference to prayer. They could just refuse to dispense potentially life-saving medications alltogether. Never happen, you say? Wanna find out? I don't. Would these pharmacists also balk at filling prescriptions for Viagra or methadone, for instance, as they're used for (or as replacement for) potentially sinful behaviors?
This quote interested me: "In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide." They mention assisted suicide, which requires a combination of heavy sedatives, for instance. So...if you take Rx sleeping pills, they could refuse to dispense because you
might use it for committing suicide? They would have records that, say, you took Prozac some years ago, so could be potentially suicidal. Again, this is a not-entirely-illogical extreme.
Big brother mentioned it earlier.
and also to commune with some fellow GenXers. A term I hate, but it fits the crowd. 
