Can a Pharmacist Refuse To Dispense Birth Control?

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D_Quintero

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What do you think?
I am undecided about this.
Even though contraception is wrong. It is still legal. It Is still the pharmacist obligation to do their job. To me, It all boils down to “should you follow the law even if you know it is wrong”?
 
I think the question should be asked:

Should a pharmacist be forced to choose between his/her job or becoming an accomplice in chemical abortions and the shedding of innocent blood?

You ask “should you follow the law even if you know it is wrong”?
Some laws of man will violate God’s Law. We have an obligation to not follow laws that go against God’s Law.
 
D Quintero:
What do you think?
I am undecided about this.
Even though contraception is wrong. It is still legal. It Is still the pharmacist obligation to do their job. To me, It all boils down to “should you follow the law even if you know it is wrong”?
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How did the situation arise? Say you apply for a job that you know will require you to dispense a certain product. I wouldn’t take that job if I were going to refuse to do it. It seems to misrepresent yourself to the future employer.

So, what if you are already stuck in the job because of a previous decision? Then quit or dispense the product, unless you can arrange to have your employer remove that from your list of duties.

I am considering the situation of that of an employee, not an owner of a pharmacy.
 
I think the position of many pharmacists in today’s world requires them to work for large companies, all with policies against their morals and ethics.

A doctor is not required to act against his conscience. A pharmacist is not either. A pharmacist can refuse to dispense a valid prescription, for instance, to someone he’s seen come in with three different scripts from three different docs for narcotic drugs. Why? Because he is following his conscience in not feeding a possible drug habit. So too can he refuse to dispense a drug which he believes would implicate him in an abortion.

With that said, all birth control prescriptions will not equal contraception, much less abortion. The church allows for viable uses. Is the pharmacist then in a position to question why each person requires the drugs? I do not believe he is legally allowed to do so. If I were a pharmacist, I would most likely still dispense birth control with a silent prayer for the recipient.

I do believe that a pharmacist should be allowed to refuse to keep on stock or dispense drugs which he believes might lead to a person’s death–legal or not. This includes drugs for euthanasia and abortion. The pharmacist took an oath to protect life and health. He should not be required by his corporation to break that oath.

(FYI: I saw a young woman ask for the morning after pill at our local grocery store pharmacy. My pharmacist said that she is the one who chooses which drugs to order. She would not special order the drug, but offered to call other stores for the woman. She said that she knows one pharmacist always stocks it and sent her there instead. I thought this a wise corporate policy; to allow the pharmacist in charge to decide whether or not to stock it.)
 
What i’m wondering is if you think people were wrong to not turn in Jews during Nazi Germany? Or to turn in people who helped runaway slaves during our pre-Civil war days? There are some things that warrant civil disobedience, and the murder of innocent children and blatant violation of our religious freedoms qualify. We cannot let society get to the point to where Catholics fear taking certain jobs because they know they will be forced to violate their consciences. As a woman, i cannot tell you how relieved i would be to be able to get a pap smear without staring at a poster listing my birth control pill options. This poster is ironically situated near the many Anne Geddes photos of babies dressed up like flowers. Ulch. When you die are you going to tell God you were just doing your job when you filled the prescription for the 15 year old girl so she could have sex with her 30 year old boyfriend? Methinks not. That dog won’t hunt, Monsignor.
 
Why do we have pharmacists, aside from the fact that they used to make/mix the drugs? Are they more than a clerk or computer for cross-indexing drug interactions or a drug info sheet? I ask, not to offend pharmacists, but to indicate the direction the wind seems to blow.

Dafalax,

I’d like to be able to enter a doctor’s office without seeing 1,000 pens, pads of paper, flyers, etc. clearly indicating the previous visits by drug reps. It is even more enraging when they come in after you do, and the doctor sees them instead of you!

It all seems like a huge conflict of interest.
 
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Forest-Pine:
A pharmacist can refuse to dispense a valid prescription, for instance, to someone he’s seen come in with three different scripts from three different docs for narcotic drugs. Why? Because he is following his conscience in not feeding a possible drug habit.
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This is not a matter of conscience, it is a matter of not contributing to a misuse of narcotics. It’s part of a pharmacist’s job description. Obviously if those three doctors knew about the others, they would not have written the prescriptions. The pharmacist’s job is to catch dangerous situations like this, or like dangerous drug interactions.
We cannot let society get to the point to where Catholics fear taking certain jobs because they know they will be forced to violate their consciences.
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We are already there, and have been for awhile. I’ve had to turn down several jobs as a nurse because they required me to refer for abortions. I nearly got thrown out of nursing school for daring to ask if a woman scheduled for an abortion had been offered any discussion of her options.
 
D Quintero:
What do you think?
I am undecided about this.
Even though contraception is wrong. It is still legal. It Is still the pharmacist obligation to do their job. To me, It all boils down to “should you follow the law even if you know it is wrong”?
Click to expand...
Can I sell pornography? It’s legal.

Aiding in another’s sin is a sin itself.
 
We cannot let society get to the point to where Catholics fear taking certain jobs because they know they will be forced to violate their consciences.
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hey, at mass casualty incidents, and large accidents, we as paramedics are trained to sort out the injured and dying.

we can decide who lives and dies. if a person reasonably seems to have a mortal injury, we hand them a black tag and move on. in essence, we do play God sometimes.

i can even administer morphine to a person who is hemodynamically unstable, which ultimately causes their blood pressure to crash and they die. so if they have a pelvis fracture or bilateral femur fractures, or multiple internal injuries, i can give them morphine to ease the pain even though i know it will kill them. some people dont agree with that, but being that the intended purpose is to alleviate suffering within medical guidelines, the side effect of cardiac arrest is not euthanaisia. but it can be a very fine line to walk.

terminal cancer patients—do it allllll the time. en route to the hospital, i get orders for 5 of morphine, administer it to relieve their pain, and they go softly to sleep. if they have a DNR order, game over. point is, they are going to die anyay, so the online MD can give me orders to alleviate suffereing. but the patient dies from respitory failure, and NOT the cancer.

now i know the above treatments end in death. plain and simple. but the intended purpose is to administer an analgeasic, not to kill. every now and again we get a self-righteous medical director who wants to eliminate these protocols, but our brass wont let him.

what im saying is that i cant determine everytime when i give morphine in a situation like these if the person will die or not. i simply follow the protocols and look for signs and symptoms.

in times like those, i have to put aside my conscience and do what is right for the patient. they have 2 choices: 1) die in horrible agony, or 2) administer morphine for analgeasic purposes and accept that there is a good chance theyll die from the medication.

does it feel good that you are giving the treatment that basically ends up ending a person’s life? NO. it doesnt help that it is perfectly in line with all medical protocol either. but i do my job because it is my job, even if helping the person’s suffereing ultimately ends it entirely.
 
Contraception is contrary to the proper practice of medicine. It perverts and renders useless one of the primary facilities of our human life. It kills and wounds rather than heals and protects. I do not see how anyone involved in medicine can promote and distribute things as such, regardless of religious or moral grounds.
 
The birth control pill has several theraputic uses, and the Church recognizes that women can take it for legitimate reasons. How is a pharmacist to know that a woman who wants to have her prescription filled isn’t using it for real health reasons?

Pharmacists must fill those prescriptions.
 
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Benedictus:
Pharmacists must fill those prescriptions.
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Why? I know you just explained that the pill can be used for theraputic means, but, so what? Can’t an owner-pharmacist refuse to sell whatever he wishes to refuse to sell, be it lip balm, suppositories, hormones, shoe inserts, digitalis, or lithium? It is his store, his shelves, his inventory.
 
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Pug:
Why? I know you just explained that the pill can be used for theraputic means, but, so what? Can’t an owner-pharmacist refuse to sell whatever he wishes to refuse to sell, be it lip balm, suppositories, hormones, shoe inserts, digitalis, or lithium? It is his store, his shelves, his inventory.
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If a pharmacist can be forced to sell drugs which he considers morally wrong, a book seller can be forced to sell pornography.
 
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Genesis315:
Can I sell pornography? It’s legal.

Aiding in another’s sin is a sin itself.
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I would not be an employee in a pornography store if I knew I was going to have to sell sin. I would not be in an abortion clinic if I knew I had to aid in death. But a pharmacist already knows that he might have to sell contraception. He knows he might have to aid in killing. I would have the pharmacist quit his job, just like I would rather have a pornography seller or a worker in an abortion clinic quit theirs.
 
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Pug:
Why? I know you just explained that the pill can be used for theraputic means, but, so what? Can’t an owner-pharmacist refuse to sell whatever he wishes to refuse to sell, be it lip balm, suppositories, hormones, shoe inserts, digitalis, or lithium? It is his store, his shelves, his inventory.
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Yes he or she can and many do. There is nothing that says they have to carry certain things!
 
D Quintero:
I would not be an employee in a pornography store if I knew I was going to have to sell sin. I would not be in an abortion clinic if I knew I had to aid in death. But a pharmacist already knows that he might have to sell contraception.
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How does he know that? Is a kid studying pharmacy in college told up front he might have to materially aid in abortions?
D Quintero:
He knows he might have to aid in killing. I would have the pharmacist quit his job, just like I would rather have a pornography seller or a worker in an abortion clinic quit theirs.
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Why? Why should all Catholic pharmacists have to quit their jobs?
 
D Quintero:
What do you think?
I am undecided about this.
Even though contraception is wrong. It is still legal. It Is still the pharmacist obligation to do their job. To me, It all boils down to “should you follow the law even if you know it is wrong”?
Click to expand...
Can an OB/GYN refuse to abort a fetus? It’s still legal, right?

To participate in another’s sin is in itself a sin. Whether secular law allows it or not, we cannot contenance immorality by our participatory actions.
 
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itsjustdave1988:
Can an OB/GYN refuse to abort a fetus? It’s still legal, right?

To participate in another’s sin is in itself a sin. Whether secular law allows it or not, we cannot contenance immorality by our participatory actions.
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And we Catholics who take the position, “Well they have to do their jobs” are aiding the state in forcing the faithful to aid in abortions. And that goes for pharmacists as well as for OB/GYNs.
 
vern humphrey:
How does he know that? Is a kid studying pharmacy in college told up front he might have to materially aid in abortions?

By now, they probably know.
I just don’t see how refusing birth control basically solves the issue. If one pharmacist refuses contraception, they will go to another pharmacist who will give it. The lady will just look at the previous pharmacist as a bad person, which is not true, nor the goal of what we want to do. Pharmacist who disagree should go on strike and start a PHARMACIST FOR LIFE organization. Spread the truth about birth control, and work to prevent people from having it. Refusing to sell just increases the problem and the name calling.
VIVA CHRIST!!
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