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Wednesday, January 23, 2008

On Pharmacists: Miraculously Missing the Point

Want to see an illustration of how liberals can't comprehend the truth, even after you've made it clear enough for a 5-year old to get?

Go over to DakotaWomen and read Anna's post on my comments yesterday regarding SB 164, the bill that intends to force pharmacists to violate their conscience or lose their job.

Amazingly, not only is the author of this bill completely oblivious to the fact that pharmacists are not "government entities" and therefore cannot commit "government intrusions" into people's private lives, but apparently Anna is equally oblivious.

In fact, in not selling contraception to a customer, pharmacists are not intruding into a customer's private life at all. After all, the customer is the person coming to the pharmacist asking for contraception. If their life is really that private, maybe they shouldn't ask for contraception at all. Government isn't forcing anyone to do anything when a pharmacist exercises his conscience and decides not to sell birth control.

It is, however, a "government intrusion" into the moral conscience of a pharmacists who believes it is immoral to sell contraception, if government tells him he must sell it or get another job.

Pharmacists aren't robots and they aren't dispensing machines. They bring their values and ethics to the job just like the cop, the waitress, the pilot, the doctor, and the computer programmer. Does any customer really want an immoral cop, waitress, doctor...or pharmacist? Not only is it unrealistic to ask a pharmacist to leave their morality at home, it's also a very dangerous proposition for their employers and customers.

But consider again the point Anna is missing here about what is being forced upon whom.

What kind of an upside-down fantasy world do liberals live in where they not only can't grasp the difference between a government entity and a private (i.e. not government) entity, they can't deduce that NOT selling a customer a product isn't forcing any morality on that person (the customer isn't being forced to perform any act, recite any creed, or change any way of thinking)...but FORCING a pharmacist to sell someone something is indeed forcing someone else's morality on that pharmacist, because the pharmacist is being forced to do something that violates his sense of morality in favor of someone else's sense of morality.

Some days when I listen to the liberal chatter in the news and on the blogs, I feel like I'm in a strange dream where reality is all out of whack, or that I woke up in some weird alternate dimension. But I guess that's to be expected in a society where all-too-many people are no longer grounded in absolute truth.

Anna apparently doesn't even recognize proper grammar when she sees it. The only grammar problem is how she combines her comments with a quote from me.

I'm really not trying to be a jerk, here. But if I couldn't do any better than this, I think I'd stay out of the public eye and quit embarrassing myself...


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"After all, the customer is the person coming to the pharmacist asking for contraception. If their life is really that private, maybe they shouldn't ask for contraception at all."

Um, how exactly are women supposed to obtain prescription contraception except by going to a pharmacist? Who else do you suggest they get their prescriptions filled by?

Bob Ellis said...

First, Erin, your question presumes the customer only has access to one pharmacist. This is not the case.

If the customer is in a town of some size, there will be multiple pharmacists nearby.

Even if there is only one pharmacist nearby, they can still order their drugs over the phone or the internet. I've been ordering my allergy medicine over the phone and internet for nearly four years (it's cheaper).

We don't need to force someone to choose between doing what they believe is right, or giving up their job by demanding the most immediate and self-centered convenience.

Anonymous said...

"First, Erin, your question presumes the customer only has access to one pharmacist."

My question presumes no such thing. You stated that maybe a person should not ask for contraception at all if she is concerned about privacy issues. I was pointing out that it's impossible to obtain contraception except by asking for it from a pharmacist. Whether the pharmacist is in the same town, on the other end of the phone, or on the other end of the Internet connection is irrelevant. A prescription must be filled by a licensed pharmacist. I inferred from your statement that if a woman does not wish to have a pharmacist make judgments about her use of contraception, she should go without prescription contraception. Do you really mean that?

Bob Ellis said...

Erin, I thought you were talking about ACCESS, which seems to be the heart of the matter here.

As to privacy and whether it's a "private" issue, I was making the point that once contraceptives moves out of the realm of the two people using them, it becomes less private--such as when you ask a doctor for a prescription. It becomes even less private when you ask a pharmacist to fill that prescription; you've gone from involving two people to three and now four.

And as for the pharmacist "make[ing] judgments about her use of contraception," every pharmacist always makes a judgment about her use of contraception. He makes one on the basis of whether it's safe for his customer (pharmacists sometimes catch drug interactions and other problems that a doctor might miss). And the pharmacist also automatically makes a moral judgment, too, whether it be a judgment that there is no moral concern in giving this customer contraception or whether there IS a moral concern involved.

No matter what you do or where you go, a moral judgment is always made, whether in the negative or the affirmative.

Actually I think you’ve brought out the thing that is perhaps at the heart of this whole issue: all the angst over pharmacists being forced to sell contraceptives against their conscience really isn’t so much about ACCESS as it is the attempt to escape exposure to MORAL JUDGEMENT.

I was already reaching this conclusion yesterday, but now I’m more convinced of it than ever. If you can get your contraceptives from another pharmacist or order your drugs through the mail as I do, then this really can’t be so much about ACCESS as it is being stoked about someone making a moral judgment about you.

Isn’t that what this is really about?

Anonymous said...

On several occasions in my career as a medical doctor I have seen women requesting a pregnancy test and when told that it was positive have been asked to make a referral for an abortion. I always respond calmly and politely that I do not approve of abortion and do not make such referrals, but, I would be happy to put them in touch with an adoption service.

In these cases I made a decision based upon my moral convictions and usually this was contrary to what the woman wanted. Is this scenario any different than the issue of pharmacists exercising their right to act upon their moral beliefs?

Pharmicists make decisions everyday about the appropriateness of a particular prescription and this provides another layer of safety for patients and society. (Its hard to believe, but doctors sometimes make mistakes.) I do not want to erode that authority and that is what this legislation would do. Women have alternatives, and some of the best ones don't require a doctor or a prescription.

Dakota Voice
 
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