WTF?

Mar. 30th, 2005 10:25 pm
forsyth: (Politics Icon)
[personal profile] forsyth
Seriously, what the fuck? Pharmacists refusing to honor birth control pill prescriptions. Pharmacists refusing to honor prescriptions. That's their fucking JOB. A pharmacist isn't a doctor. A pharmacist is paid to take the prescription, and give the appropriate medicine to the patient. That's what they're licensed, trained, and hired to DO. They are NOT hired to enforce their particular religious interpretations on people. If you don't want to fill prescriptions, then don't be a pharmacist.

These people really don't give a shit about the "sanctity of life". Oh, there may be some who honestly believe that a fertilized egg is instantly equivalent to a human, but their trumpeting of the "sanctity of life" is utterly hollow. Once you're born, forget it. Unless you're on life support, apparently. But in between, fuck you, you're on your own. The real movies seem to be pushing sex as sinful, and control women's bodies. Never mind, of course, that without birth control and sex ed, there's more abortions, more unintended pregnancies, and more STDs.

But not dispensing stuff doctors have prescribed? That's their FUCKING JOB. If your religious views keep you from being able to do that, don't take the job! It's that simple, really. Just like if your religious views tell you not to, I dunno, build with electric tools, then you don't work at a building company that uses electric tools. That's not "trampling on your rights". It's not the free exercise of religion, because your right to exercise your religion doesn't mean you have the right to interfere with other people's freedoms. It's not discrimination, any more than any other hiring somebody is discrimination, if you won't agree to do the fucking job, then you don't get hired. That's not discrimination. And none of it gives the pharmacist the right to deny service based on their religious beliefs. What, are we supposed to allow a white-supremacist pharmacist to deny service to black people? Allow a Jack Chick pharmacist the right to not serve Catholics?

And what's this wimpy crap about the American Pharmacists Association requiring the pharmacists to find "alternative means" for the customers to get the medication? Um, how does this make any sense? Okay, let's see, they say they believe the Pill ends a human life, so they won't prescribe it, but they're going to give it to Billy over here and let him prescribe it? Do they honestly believe that's gonna happen? The whole POINT is to deny people access to contraception, if they really believe it's ending a human life, they're not gonna just stand there and let somebody else do it. They say so themselves. "Brauer, of Pharmacists for Life, defends the right of pharmacists not only to decline to fill prescriptions themselves but also to refuse to refer customers elsewhere or transfer prescriptions." The pharmacist's job is to fill the prescription. If they can't do it, they shouldn't be a pharmacist.

This ties back to my entry about tolerance earlier. It's not "tolerant" to allow somebody to not do their job. This isn't a situation where you're trying to "protect the rights" of the pharmacist. The pharmacist isn't doing their job. They're making a big stink for political reasons to try and draw attention and try and push their radical agenda, since they figure they've got buddies in high places. It's people being tiny theocrats, forcing their religious choices on other people. And this is all leaving aside the non-birth control uses of birth control pills. Seriously, what the shit?

And I would also like to damn the articles for doing the stupid "he says"/"she says" thing, where they present "both sides" and treat them equally, without any reference to which side is actually, y'know, right on the facts. The "Pharmacists for Life" are pushing a radical religious agenda based on dodgy science. Just because they say they're religious doesn't mean they're not full of shit. And doesn't mean you can't call them on it. Except, of course, the media's afraid to.

Tags: Politics, Mindscribbles, Religion, News, Sex, Links

Date: 2005-04-02 08:26 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] forsythferret.livejournal.com
Okay, so what makes this a different case than, say an advertising guy, who says he won't push the company's stuff, because that's bearing false witness and againt his religion, and then gets fired because he's not doing his job?

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