(no subject)

[drewbear]

Apparently there's a bill before the Senate to change federal law so that anyone involved in health care, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and health insurance companies, can refuse to have anything to do with abortions if they suffer from moral or religious objections. Here are some useful links:

• Ginmar's journal entry where I first read about this.
  
• The CNN story
  
• Text of the bill and analysis
  
• Example of "Pharmacists For Life" in action
  

As someone else pointed out, it's like the scene in Monty Python and the Meaning of Life where the Irish Catholic family sings "Every Sperm Is Sacred".

Isn't. That. Just. Ducky.

Comments

[drewbeartx.livejournal.com]

My base objection here isn't that they want to follow their moral code and/or religious beliefs; I consider that admirable. My problem is that they're trying to impose their moral code or religious beliefs onto other people. Objecting to abortion on moral grounds is fine; don't get one. But refusing to give medication to someone who doesn't share your religious convictions is not acceptable.

There have been two cases in my area (one was referenced in one of my original links) where pharmacists refused to dispense medication that had been properly prescribed by the women's doctors. One was for a "day after" abortive/birth control pill for a girl who had been raped, and the other was for a woman's regular birth control pills. In both cases, the pharmacist felt that the drugs were against their personal moral beliefs.

Again, having moral or religious objection to a procedure or drug isn't a problem unless performing that procedure or dispensing that drug is a part of your job. If you truly feel that strongly about it, don't enter the field. Become a pediatrician instead of an OB/GYN. Join or form a privately-owned pharmacy instead of working at Eckerds (which is where on of the aforementioned refusers worked at the time).

And as for the Big Three (rape, incest, save mother's life), they aren't necessarily different cases. As in my earlier example, some of the "conscientious objectors" don't include these as allowable exceptions.

Again, while I'm firmly pro-choice and I admit that that is part of my outrage, another significant part is that these people are refusing to do their jobs, and by so doing, forcing their views onto other people.

[blufiction.livejournal.com]

Such people, like most people who have deep-running convictions based on religious tenets or precepts, do not feel that they are with-holding anything or are not doing their jobs. In fact, they may feel they are doing their job by conscientiously objecting to certain scenarios. So while I do see your point and understand where the frustration is coming from, I think it still remains a very subjective stance. In saying to someone "You are wrong for what you do or believe," one is essentially engaging in hypocrisy because while one claims not to want anyone else forcing beliefs on another, in making an implication such as that the same IS done to others. Regardless of which side of the fence one sits on.

You feel that they are not doing their job, or that they should not be in such a field if they have such strong reservations about the medication they are handing out. This is a valid opinion. They feel that they are doing their job, in the right field of work, and on a fundamental level. To their minds, that opinion is as justified as yours is in your mind.

I do agree that someone who is considering going into pharmacy, if they feel so strongly, should not, or should go into an area where they will not be in direct response of administration/prescribtion.

Personally I would not with-hold medication. I have serious reservations about abortions and about the ways in which some people obtain their prescriptions and the reasons for which they do so, but with-holding medication is akin to putting a band-aid on a broken knee. Laws need to be changed in order for abortion to change. I would rather focus my energiues there, as most people would, on both sides.

By the same token, I don't like having other's views forced on me. So were I in such a position and someone came in and began telling me I was evil and deficient for my pro-life stance I might have a bit of a problem in deciding whether or not they were any better than myself for their being such a hypocrite.

The problem with abortion is that it comes down to fundamental beliefs formed very early in life or as a result of major events or paradigm shifts. Semantics can be argued back and forth yet, like politics, one side will always see things differently than the other, because neither side ever feels as if they are in the wrong, and both sides always feel that the other side is somehow deficient in their thinking processes. It's human bias.

Anyhow now I'm moving off the topic.