Tuesday, July 26, 2005

This (Pharmacists) Madness Must Be Stopped

Several states allow pharmacists to decline to fill prescriptions based on their conscience. Other states are trying to require that pharmacists provide medicines that doctors have prescribed. Now federal lawmakers are holding hearings on so-called 'duty to fill' laws.
So went the introduction to a story on NPR's Morning Edition I listened to this morning.

In my mind this debate can have only one outcome: the doctor/patient relationship should be upheld in every case. No third party should be allowed to insert their moral judgment into the doctor/patient relationship, period, unless invited to do so! Pharmacists, like the rest of us, have a right to their opinions, however misguided, but they should not be allowed to let those opinions adversely affect the people they are supposed to be serving. And yes, they have a right to their individual principles, but those principles should not be allowed to interfere with patient care.

And make no mistake, they are in the service industry, all they do it dispense drugs, and occasionally dole out advice. Pharmacist, though a valuable link in the chain medical chain of care in America, are not indispensable, and are certainly not specialist, like doctors. Who, after all, is a Pharmacist to substitute his or her judgment for that of the doctor or the patient? Frankly, I find the whole business of refusing to dispense drugs because of you religious beliefs repugnant and just another sign of how far the falsely righteous will go to foist their belief system on us all.

If they are morally opposed to birth control and might be required by their employers to pass out prescription birth control pills or the morning after pill, then their professionalism and duty to their customers should prevail. If they still object, then they should find another profession, one in which their conscience will not be overly burdened. Or at least have to decency to refer the customer to another Pharmacist whose brain is not clouded with self-righteous religious dogma.

Will a bill pass out of Congress that will end this madness once and for all and compel Pharmacist to fill prescriptions or find another job? Its doubtful, and even if the a Bill did manage to pass both houses with its common sense still intact, Bush would never sign it into law because he lacks; well he is just lacking so much its hard to know where to begin.

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