On Pharmacists and Pro-Choice

I read some curious news the other day - about Pharmacists in the USA, Canada, and Australia refusing to fill prescriptions for Birth-Control and Morning-After Pills. Because, so they say, it goes against their personal religious and moral beliefs to dispense such medications. I had no idea Pharmacists were employed to dispense unsolicited moral advice. The countries mentioned above are 'free' societies where - so I assume - most of these Pharmacists sought their jobs of their own free will, nobody coerced them to swallow the Pharmacy Oath. However it's a job that requires that they perform according to policy, not free will - they are here to serve the needs of their customers and not their own. - if there is a prescription to be filled, they need to fill it, not stand at moral judgment. If they find this impossible, they should be out looking for a new career - possibly in the pulpit.

I've been reading about women - one that was raped - being denied the pills and being reduced to tears by a lot of haranguing instead. In cities you can always find another Pharmacy without a nut-case tending the counter, but that's not possible in small towns where perhaps there might be just this one dispensary. So what happens here? Big Brother Pharmacist makes the personal decisions for everyone?

The amazing thing is that instead of being dismissed outright from their jobs as they ought to be, these extraordinary people are actually receiving due consideration - on the grounds that they are human beings and not automata. So who said they were automata? Nobody is arguing about their right to have their own personal opinions about anything - the problem starts, like in this instance, when they begin imposing their personal opinions on other people. I think 'on religious grounds' is a terrifically poor excuse. Do you have any idea how many religions there are, not to mention how many different varieties of personal moral opinions? If it's okay to pander to one, you need to pander to all. Do you know that there are certain sects that don't believe in seeing a doctor or taking medication for any reason whatsoever? What if the Pharmacist belonged to that brigade and refused you your heart medication? Would you be willing to die to serve his or her religious aspirations? Would you like it if a Muslim or Hindu Doctor refused you an emergency operation because you were a Christian or a Wiccan and they had a personal problem with your beliefs? What if you were turned away from proper treatment because you had AIDS and in the opinion of the medical personnel it was a punishment you needed to suffer for your sinful life-style?

And where are all these 'Right to Life' supporters when certain soldiers refuse to serve in immoral wars because they don't believe in murdering innocent civilians? What happened to the 'Right to Life' or 'Refusal to kill' in those cases? You need to be consistent, you know. Or keep your personal beliefs personal if you want to fit in with the larger fabric of society.

And if you want to stick to just Christianity, you should perhaps take another look at the Bible. Christ said, "Render unto Ceasar that which is Ceasar's". If the prescription is legal - and the above mentioned prescriptions certainly are - then the Pharmacist, who by the way doesn't usually have an inkling of the customer's medical history, should leave off pondering over the reasons behind the prescription and just fill it.

If you want to go further back to the Old Testament, I've been reading some interesting things here -

"Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy [1] everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." - (I Samuel 15:2-3)

"...I will raise up evil against you out of your own house; I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the light of this sun." - (2 Samuel 12/ 11)

"Pass through the city after him, and smite; your eye shall not spare and you shall show no pity; slay old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women..." - ( Ezekiel - 9 / 5,6)

"The people of Samaria must bear their guilt, because they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by the sword; their little ones will be dashed to the ground, their pregnant women ripped open." - (Hosea 13:16)

Doesn't sound particularly Pro-Life, Anti-Abortion to me. Or very high up on the Moral Front.

But anyway.

I personally consider this trend of refusing medication on the Pharmacist's personal whim a dangerous throwback to those dark times when a woman had no say over anything related to her own body. Well, we don't live in those times any more and my body is my own. What I chose to do with it is my own personal choice and I highly resent and oppose anybody telling me otherwise. If I choose to use Birth-Control or have an Abortion, I don't offer any excuse for it - that's my own personal business. After all it is me personally that has to live with the choices or decisions that I make. Not these Activists - they are too busy making loud publicity noises to take responsibility for the decisions they are trying to impose on other people.

If they are so eager to 'prolong life and fulfill God's will', are they as eager to ensure the quality of that life? Are they personally willing to take in, baby-sit, and look after in every way necessary every single child that is abandoned or unwanted? Or do their ‘personal ethical reasons' not extend to that extent?

By the way, I haven't heard of Pharmacists rallying together to make a big hullabaloo about Viagra sales? Why is that? Doesn't clash with personal morality?

The 'rights' of the Pharmacists shouldn't even be an issue - like I said before, they can always leave the job if they can't do it - it's the right of the patients or customers that's the only thing that matters here.

Otherwise it becomes just another example of religious extremism - certainly not, like these people would like to believe, a sample of their higher morality.