The Last Amazon and I rode together on the subway this morning - as is our habit. Her outrage of the day is a story about a pharmacist refusing to fill a birth control prescription as it contravenes his religious beliefs.
She feels this is the tip of the iceberg. If this pharmacist is allowed to get away with this behaviour, before you know it, we will all be living in a theocracy. My position is no matter how repugnant you may personally find his views he should be allowed to live out his life and his livelihood according to his conscience. She feels that the pharmacist is far too moralistic and he does not have the right to impose his morality on the general populace. I say; let the market decided. She thinks there ought to be a law.
Maybe I should have given her the collected works of Ayn Rand rather than the Alias DVD’s she wanted for Christmas. Next year will be different.
5 comments:
I think you just touched on an interesting thought - Conservative value books for children and young teens - the real Hardy boys! I bet that could be a goldmine.
The "collective" works -- them's fightin' words!!
Never mind her, I think I really should read them again if I am writing collective rather than collected. Must be a liberal influence.
I think the state licensing board found a good balance between freedom of conscience and welfare of the patient.
The pharmacist ought to at least have referred the patient to another pharmacy where the prescription could be fulfilled -- that's an obligation of the job whatever his moral scruples about the drugs themselves.
Having his license limited is a good non-legislative step. If you screw up in your job, you deserve to face appropriate consequences.
Chris, so nice to see that you are still getting around. I miss your blog. Things aren't the same without you.
That said, I agree somewhat with the licensing board. For the life of me, I could not understand why the pharmacist didn't just give her back her prescription and tell her to go somewhere else.
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