Is it wrong to work in a drugstore where I sometimes have to ring up plan B pills?

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Maximian said:
Yes you are.
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No, you’re not. The idea that a low level employee like a cashier is responsible for the moral content of someone’s purchases is unworkable.

A cashier isn’t the one “selling” it. They have no authority within the business. They’re just recording a transaction between the individual and the business.
 
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Seriously believing that a clerk at CVS is cooperating with evil by ringing up purchases is a little over the top.

As other posters have said, where does it stop? How about ringing up Coke and ding dongs for someone who is obese?
 
1ke said:
Since they are legal in the US, corporations are going to sell them.

I agree it would be a great universe where everyone agreed not to sell products that are objectively immoral. That’s not a universe we live in.
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I tend to worry less about what others do, and more about what I do. If crack was legal and everyone was selling it… well, I’m sure you get my drift.
1ke said:
Not in a manner that rises to the definition of cooperation with evil in a materially culpable way.
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That sounds like a personal opinion. The OP is not unreasonable in discerning his own.
1ke said:
It’s your prerogative to apply whatever moral code you choose. As for the OP, it is not anyone’s place to put a burden on them that the Church does not.
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Then let the OP apply his own, which so far sounds reasonable. As for the Church, no one is disputing your point. Nor should anyone dispute that the saints tend to go well above and beyond Church laws. Our Lord did after all call us to be PERFECT. It is admirable when folk seek to aspire to that.
 
PaulinVA said:
Seriously believing that a clerk at CVS is cooperating with evil by ringing up purchases is a little over the top.

As other posters have said, where does it stop? How about ringing up Coke and ding dongs for someone who is obese?
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If you play this game for more than thirty seconds, you end up at the conclusion that a Catholic is obliged to live in a tree in the wilderness and engage in no commercial activity whatsoever.
 
That’s true but when does it stop in the other direction? May a Christian be a clerk for anything whatsoever?
 
avemariagratiaplena said:
That’s true but when does it stop in the other direction? May a Christian be a clerk for anything whatsoever?
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My take is it would depend on the primary purpose of the business. If you work in a grocery store that primarily sells food and household goods, but also stocks condoms in the toiletries section, that’s fine. The primary purpose of the business is fine; the condoms are a tiny, incidental portion of the overall enterprise.

On the other hand, if you had a store that existed solely to sell condoms and porno mags, that’s a different story.
 
Look at the analogy of an operation fronting the sale of illegal drugs. The cops go after:
  • the manufacturers of the drugs
  • the importers of the drugs
  • the shopowners fronting the sales
  • the sellers
  • the users.
There is no difference when it comes to moral teaching over legal, but nonetheless immoral, commodities such as contraceptives, pornography and, worst of all, pills which are potentially abortive.
 
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I don’t think cashiers pay attention to what they ring up. They scan them quite quickly.

I purchased a pint of half and half once and was handed a straw.

:confused:
 
1ke said:
Again: it’s not an abortion pill.

Yes, the hormones in contraceptive pills can theoretically act in the manner you indicate if taken for a long period of time, but isn’t likely going to do that at one dose.
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The possibility for the death of a fertilized egg is there.
 
QContinuum said:
The possibility exists for failure of a blastocyst to implant or for fetal miscarriage due to a great many medications, one of the worst being ibuprofen. Is the OP likewise responsible for refusing to perform sales transactions for these as well?
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There is a major difference between someone taking a morning after pill to prevent pregnancy and a woman having a miscarriage due to taking ibuprofen, especially when she may not have even realized she was pregnant.
 
People generally don’t take ibuprofen to prevent pregnancy.

But thank you for posting that link. It’s good to be informed 🙂
 
And is there a difference between selling regular birth control and Plan B, which both rely on preventing ovulation? Plan B is also predicated on prevention. Any possibility of a failure of a blastocyst to implant due to lining changes is theoretical, and not the primary action of the drug. The only way to know that it definitely has resulted in such early losses would be to implant a camera and follow a zygote until it progresses to blastocyst and then watching it’s trophoblast fails to adhere due to a thinned lining. Barring that, it’s pure conjecture, and because the drug’s main purpose is to prevent the release of an egg to start with, makes the chances of such a series of actions even that much more remote.

It is the remotest of chances that such a drug would cause implantation failure. In fact, sitting in a hot tub around day 28 or so, is actually a greater threat to an already implanted blastocyst.

The point being, if the OP can sell other drugs whose main purposes are not abortive, then this one should be no different. Progestin-only pills are sold much more commonly. I’m given to understand that drug is much more inimical to an embryo than Plan B, but that’s apparently not a problem.
 
Peonies said:
especially when she may not have even realized she was pregnant.
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Also, from the woman’s perspective, she would not know she’s pregnant in either case. And if the blastocyst never implants, then it wouldn’t have been capable of inducing the typical hormonal changes that signal a pregnancy.

A woman who has had sex while fertile, and takes either medication or drinks alcohol, or takes antibiotics, or raises her body temperature significantly are all posing similar risks to implantation without any certitude of whether conception has occurred.
 
@mcifrese I don’t know if this would be considered a sin or not, but if it is bothering you I would just start looking for a new job. I worked at McDonald’s in college and then at a residential group home for disabled adults and found both of them to be flexible with hours and I always plenty of shifts available to work.

At the last job I had I paid medical claims. I never paid much attention to what the diagnosis was because it wasn’t usually relevant to my job but one day I had to fix something and learned a code I saw often was the diagnosis for “termination of pregnancy”. After that, everytime I saw that code my stomach would turn. I knew the surgery was already done by the time I saw the claim but it still made me uneasy to pay the bill of a baby being killed. It still bothers me to think about it now. Whether it is sinful or not, you will probably be happier to just look for something else where you won’t have to worry about this situation.
 
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