What's a future pharmacist to do?

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TeriGator

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Has anyone got any suggestions for a pharmacy student in the final year before graduation? It never occurred to me before last year that I would have to choose between Church teachings (by not dispensing contraceptives) and working as a retail pharmacist. (Yeah, how dumb am I?)

Anyway, I’m too far in this to get out now. I’ve amassed a substantial student loan and have a large family to support.

Last year, when I realized my dilemma, I just figured I’d do a 1 or 2-year residency, then work as a clinical pharmacist. That way I could specialize in a field that didn’t force me to deal with contraceptives or other abortifacients. Now, however, I have realized that I don’t want to spend another 1 or 2 years broke and stressed to the max by a student’s workload. My family is barely holding up under the strain as it is.

I actually love community pharmacy, but the environment there seems to be becoming much more hostile to pro-lifers. Almost daily, I read someone’s opinion that I have no right to exercise my conscience, and many of those opinions belong to my fellow pharmacists. After all the political maneuvering in the last year, I seriously doubt that any chain would hire me if I told them that I could not dispense those hot-button drugs.

While I appreciate what Pharmacists for Life is doing, the fact is that they don’t have many listings of pharmacies or pharmacists that support their mission. So here I am, wondering if I will be able to work in my chosen profession or be forced into financial ruin because no one will hire me.

Any ideas?
 
Federal Law prevents discrimination based on religion. You should be able to exercise your right not to violate your religion.

Contact the Thomas More Law Center for advice regarding your rights and what you should do. They work pro-bono.

Try finding employment in a Catholic pharmacy-- maybe at a Catholic hospital. But, otherwise, I think you should not be intimidated by the abortion industry who is pushing this issue.
 
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1ke:
Federal Law prevents discrimination based on religion. You should be able to exercise your right not to violate your religion.

Contact the Thomas More Law Center for advice regarding your rights and what you should do. They work pro-bono.
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Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll see what I can find out from them.

What scares me is that there have been many recent cases where pharmacists have been punished by their state boards or fired by their employers. As far as I know, there have been no successful lawsuits on the behalf of these courageous people.
 
I must admit I’ve never understood the reasoning behind pharmacists refusing to dispense contraceptives. Now before the Forums let out a collective gasp, let me explain:

Chemicals, like all physical objects, are morally neutral. The fact that they are capable of preventing conception or implantation does not make them, in and of themselves, any more evil than a knife, which *could *be used to kill someone.

The fact is that “The Pill” is simply a female hormone supplement. It has other, legitimate uses than birth control. For example, some doctors prescribe The Pill for regulation of menstrual cycles (and this treatment is allowed by the Church). Can the pharmacist know without a doubt that the patient is using the prescription immorally? If not, wouldn’t refusal to fill the prescription constitute the judgment of another’s spiritual state?

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I should add, however, that I fully support pharmacists refusing to sell RU-486 and other “Morning After Pills”, as there are basically no other uses for this pill than chemical abortion.
 
Matthew 16:

24] Then Jesus told his disciples, "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
25] For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
26] For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?

Your reward will be great in heaven. :dancing:

God bless
 
Retail is not the only way to go. Hospitals are in need of pharmacists - the hours may not be as sweet but there is a great need. Both my brothers are hospital pharms.

My oldest is in Oncology Pharm. - does not deal with this problem at all. There are options out there.

Way to go on a very difficult ed program. Congrats on your graduation.
 
Dr. Colossus:
I must admit I’ve never understood the reasoning behind pharmacists refusing to dispense contraceptives. Now before the Forums let out a collective gasp, let me explain:

Chemicals, like all physical objects, are morally neutral. The fact that they are capable of preventing conception or implantation does not make them, in and of themselves, any more evil than a knife, which *could *be used to kill someone.

The fact is that “The Pill” is simply a female hormone supplement. It has other, legitimate uses than birth control. For example, some doctors prescribe The Pill for regulation of menstrual cycles (and this treatment is allowed by the Church). Can the pharmacist know without a doubt that the patient is using the prescription immorally? If not, wouldn’t refusal to fill the prescription constitute the judgment of another’s spiritual state?

edit
I should add, however, that I fully support pharmacists refusing to sell RU-486 and other “Morning After Pills”, as there are basically no other uses for this pill than chemical abortion.
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Would you give that knife to someone you know may use it to kill another?

Contraceptives can cause a formed human embryo that would otherwise survive and develop into an adult to not attach in the uterous. This is an abortion. Knowing that contraceptives have this effect and knowing that most people use contraceptives for the purpose of preventing pregnancy, amounts to knowing that someone may use that “knife” to kill. Filling that prescription is participating in an intrinsically immoral act and sinful.

Is it difficult to stand up and say, “I think this is wrong”? Definitely. Is it our duty and joy to proclaim the teachings of Jesus Christ (in this case that all life is sacred and should be protected), no matter how difficult they may be for others to understand? Absolutely.
 
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ElizabethAnne:
Would you give that knife to someone you know may use it to kill another?
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My point is that there are some circumstances where the Church allows the use of The Pill for non-contraceptive reasons. Should a pharmacist completely refuse to fill morally legitimate prescriptions? How would they know whether or not a prescription is legitimate?
Filling that prescription is participating in an intrinsically immoral act and sinful.
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That is simply not true. The Church teaches that this would be “remote cooperation with evil”, which is not intrinsically immoral or even sinful.
 
Dr. Colossus:
That is simply not true. The Church teaches that this would be “remote cooperation with evil”, which is not intrinsically immoral or even sinful.
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Actually filling the prescription would be proximate cooperation with evil.
 
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Catholic2003:
Actually filling the prescription would be proximate cooperation with evil.
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You are correct. I’ve been thinking and reading more on this and I’ve changed my mind from my original statements. The contraceptive mentality must be fought head-on. Semantic arguments as to how much you can do without sinning will not win victories for the Culture of Life.
 
What? So now you’re saying that Catholics shouldn’t be pharmacists? I would think we would need more Catholic pharmacists, not fewer of them. If there is a problem here, then how can a Catholic be an attorney? How can a Catholic be a doctor? I thought that we were supposed to be the “salt of the earth.” Salt keeps things from spoiling, you know. I can see refusing to dispense RU-486 and whatever creepy drugs that they dispense in Oregon to kill people. I was just looking at a large HMO’s Web Site in the pharmacy section to see what they say about birth control pills. They are used to help endometriosis, fibroids, severe pain and bleeding and many other problems. The Church states in Humane Vitae that birth control pills may be used for medical reasons. It, therefore, escapes me as to why a Catholic pharmacist would feel like he/she was commiting a sin if he had to fill a prescription for these. Even if it is a teenage girl, she may have cramps that cause her to miss too much school each month. If you were working at a 7-Eleven, and someone bought a Playboy Magazine, would you be morally obliged to refuse to ring it up?
 
I am studying pharmacy here in Spain and I don´t want to sell anticonceptives and later day pill, it´s bad morally, and I have my right for reasons of conscience.
I say one thing, we want a very orthodox catholic church, we want a good society, we have to begin ourselves. And, we, the pharmacists have a posibility to get better the society.
 
Sorry for your dilemma. Some of the suggestions to work for a hospital, or Catholic pharmacy sound like a good way to go.

Does anyone know of a list of pharmacies that refuse to fill contraceptives; or are at least morally opposed to it? Especially the RU486 types.

It seems that if this information was available, those that oppose abortion/contraception could support these pharmacies.
 
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jrabs:
Retail is not the only way to go. Hospitals are in need of pharmacists - the hours may not be as sweet but there is a great need. Both my brothers are hospital pharms.

My oldest is in Oncology Pharm. - does not deal with this problem at all. There are options out there.

Way to go on a very difficult ed program. Congrats on your graduation.
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Thanks for your help and your congrats. This has been tough time, but it has been worth it because I love the work.

I may have to accept the staff pharmacist scenario, although they too will occasionally have to deal with these drugs. I know that at the hospital I am currently interning at, the pharmacists sometimes fill in for those in other departments, so being somewhere such as the OR satellite would not mean that I would never have to face this ethical dilemma.

Too, I had hoped to work with patients in a more direct manner than what I have seen of the staff pharmacists here. The clinical pharmacists do most of that, while our staff pharms do more of the paper-shuffling. Still, being stuck in the hospital basement is better than not working at all, right?
 
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Listener:
What? So now you’re saying that Catholics shouldn’t be pharmacists? I would think we would need more Catholic pharmacists, not fewer of them. If there is a problem here, then how can a Catholic be an attorney? How can a Catholic be a doctor? I thought that we were supposed to be the “salt of the earth.” Salt keeps things from spoiling, you know.QUOTE]

My time as an intern at a retail pharmacy convinced me that most women on the pill are taking it for birth control. Most of them referred to it as such when asking for refills, and never once did I see a prescription that indicated that it was intended for other use.

Oral contraceptives were designed for one purpose: to prevent pregnancy. Other benefits that they might have are secondary to the main purpose.

Since it is a fact that birth control pills can act as abortifacients by preventing a fertilized egg (meaning a newly conceived human with an eternal soul), and since that is one of the intended and desired actions of oral contraceptives, I would potentially be cooperating in hundreds of deliberate abortions over time. Therefore, for the same reason that I would not dispense a pill for the express purpose of causing an abortion (RU486), neither can I dispense something that is being used in a similar manner.

This is not a comfortable position for me, and I realize that society may feel that I am passing judgement on them. I try not to be judgemental, and I would never lecture a woman about OCs. However, I cannot allow society to tell me that it is unethical for me to follow my own conscience, and the teaching of Christ’s Church, simply because someone else may be offended by it.

Incidentally, we do not act as the “salt of the earth” by becoming like everyone else. We do so by upholding Christ’s word and living our lives in harmony with His teachings.
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I think women who are taking the pill for valid reasons would like to patronize a pro-life business, but if they can’t get the pill filled at a Catholic pharmacy, then they can’t, obviously.

There are people greatly helped by the pill, and those people do not have sex while on it, and it is not causing any abortions or contraception for them. I realize they are a small group, but they do exist.
never once did I see a prescription that indicated that it was intended for other use.
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The scrip looks the same, but they usually have received verbal instructions to take it in a different fashion. Doctors do not write it up differently. You’d never know from the scrip, IOW.

I think because of other drugs, not the pill, that lots of pharmacists are going to get pushed out of their profession, unless something changes.

You might also consider being concerned about dispensing mtx as well.
 
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Pug:
I think women who are taking the pill for valid reasons would like to patronize a pro-life business, but if they can’t get the pill filled at a Catholic pharmacy, then they can’t, obviously.

There are people greatly helped by the pill, and those people do not have sex while on it, and it is not causing any abortions or contraception for them. I realize they are a small group, but they do exist.

The scrip looks the same, but they usually have received verbal instructions to take it in a different fashion. Doctors do not write it up differently. You’d never know from the scrip, IOW.

You might also consider being concerned about dispensing mtx as well.
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I never meant to imply that the pills are not used for other purposes. The majority do use it for that purpose, and since I know that doctors do not usually use a different sig, I would have to assume that every time I am dispensing it, I am participating in intentional contraception and potentially in deliberate abortion. That is what I object to.

As far as methotrexate, or accutane, or any other drugs that have teratogenic effects, they should always be carefully monitored. I would be guilty of egregious malpractice if I knowingly dispensed those drugs to a pregnant woman or one who intended to become pregnant while taking them.
 
About the mtx, I meant that it is used to make a miscarriage deliberately for certain types of pregnancies (like ectopic). But maybe a pharmacist never has to deal with it, but I would figure they would have to, because it would be given at a hospital, so it had to come from the hospital pharmacy. Or is it just that plan B and mtx and stuff are given by the nurses or something, and the pharmacist doesn’t have to dispense it, do you know? I’m just curious.🙂

I do hope you find somewhere to work that is a clean environment. Whenever anything questionable even hints itself in mine, I get quite upset. Work is so important for people, and it should be a comfortable moral environment.
 
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Pug:
About the mtx, I meant that it is used to make a miscarriage deliberately for certain types of pregnancies (like ectopic). But maybe a pharmacist never has to deal with it, but I would figure they would have to, because it would be given at a hospital, so it had to come from the hospital pharmacy. Or is it just that plan B and mtx and stuff are given by the nurses or something, and the pharmacist doesn’t have to dispense it, do you know? I’m just curious.🙂

I do hope you find somewhere to work that is a clean environment. Whenever anything questionable even hints itself in mine, I get quite upset. Work is so important for people, and it should be a comfortable moral environment.
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Wow, I had no idea that MTX was given for that purpose! One of those dirty little secrets they don’t spread around in pharmacy school, I guess. How distressing.

Thanks for discussing this with me. I hope I haven’t sounded strident, I never meant this to become a debate thread. I am just really having a hard time deciding where I belong right now. Ultimately, I’ll have to make my own decisions, but I am hoping to find some alternatives to what seems like a no-win situation right now.
 
Listener:

It’s the clear Teaching of the Church that Contraception is WRONG, because it violates the nature of what we are and what we are designed for. Assisting someone in doing it is also WRONG for self-evident reasons.
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Listener:
What? So now you’re saying that Catholics shouldn’t be pharmacists? I would think we would need more Catholic pharmacists, not fewer of them. If there is a problem here, then how can a Catholic be an attorney? How can a Catholic be a doctor? I thought that we were supposed to be the “salt of the earth.” Salt keeps things from spoiling, you know. I can see refusing to dispense RU-486 and whatever creepy drugs that they dispense in Oregon to kill people. I was just looking at a large HMO’s Web Site in the pharmacy section to see what they say about birth control pills. They are used to help endometriosis, fibroids, severe pain and bleeding and many other problems. The Church states in Humane Vitae that birth control pills may be used for medical reasons. It, therefore, escapes me as to why a Catholic pharmacist would feel like he/she was commiting a sin if he had to fill a prescription for these. Even if it is a teenage girl, she may have cramps that cause her to miss too much school each month. If you were working at a 7-Eleven, and someone bought a Playboy Magazine, would you be morally obliged to refuse to ring it up?
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Please read the following LINKS and all the linked material from them - It represents the teaching of the Church on this issue:

Re: Condoms should u use them or not? Post # 195 - 197
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=613995&postcount=195

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=614068&postcount=196

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=614211&postcount=197

As sinful as reading the Payboy Magazine is, NO one is going to DIE from it; whereas, since the PILL sometimes acts as abortifacient, and it encourages a CONTRACEPTIVE MENTALITY, the sale of Artificial Contraception LEADS to the DEATH of PRE-BORN BABIES. That makes it FAR MORE SERIOUS than the sale of the Payboy Magazine, as disgusting as it is.

It is one thing if a pharmacist is filling a prescription for the hormones in birth control pills when they are prescribed to treat other life threatening conditions as allowed under Humanae Vitae. But we both know that fewer than 1% of prescriptions for those pills are for that purpose, and that the other 99% are for Contraception.

NO Catholic Pharmacist is going to feel guilty about doing something which is ALLOWED by the church. The problem is when we feel that we are being made to do things that are contrary to Church Teaching.

Blessings and Peace, Michael
 
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