You know, we’ve been down this road before, and it should be a pretty simple thing to resolve:
BE IT RESOLVED: “Whereas, if you are a pharmacist who has a moral issue with dispensing any sort of contraceptive device, even under a doctor’s prescription, and if you refuse to dispense said contraceptive medication to a woman bearing a legal and valid prescription, YOU NEED TO FIND A NEW JOB- NOW. Clearly, you have forfeited your professional responsibility and moral duty to provide effective health care to your patients/customers. Unless there is a SOUND MEDICAL REASON to deny contraceptive medication to your patients/customers, you have NO RIGHT to do so simply because it runs counter to your narrow, discriminatory, judgemental values. It is not your place, nor is it your responsibility to validate prescriptions using your own dysfunctional moral compass as a filter…and frankly, there should be a special place in Hell for trolls like you.”
There…any questions? I didn’t think so. Yet, the idiots at Target seem to have no problem with allowing their pharmacists to be the ultimate arbiter of contraceptive medication vis a vis their own narrow, judgemental morality.
The national debate about whether pharmacists must provide “morning-after” drugs they morally oppose was seen and heard Saturday afternoon at one local Target store.
Several dozen people organized by the local Planned Parenthood branch displayed signs and chanted slogans in front of a store on San Felipe to protest what they say is the discount retailer’s “discriminatory” policy regarding emergency contraceptives.
The protesters said they want Target to ensure that the prescription drug marketed as “Plan B,” which is most effective if taken within a few days after having sex, is readily available to women. Company officials say it already is.
Planned Parenthood has launched a national “Fill My Pills Now” effort to convince Target and other retail chains with pharmacies to change their policies that allow employees to decline to fill prescriptions for religious or ethical beliefs.
“Women’s health should not be taken hostage for political reasons,” said Peter Durkin, president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Houston and Southeast Texas Inc. “It’s a slippery slope. Can you imagine, let’s say, if a pharmacist were opposed to HIV medication, or organ-transplant medication?”
Indeed. Where does the line get drawn? If we allow religious zealots to deny access to one type of medication, then where should we expect the crusade to stop?
Target’s policy allows pharmacists to decline to personally prescribe only one drug: Plan B. If that happens, that employee “must take responsibility for ensuring that the guest’s prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner” by either another Target pharmacist or at another store. Pharmacists who don’t can be disciplined, according to the statement.
I’m sorry, but isn’t this simply another contemptible example of a corporation attempting to be all things to all people? While the suit in Target’s corporate office in Minneapolis might think they are striking a balance, all they have really done is allow Fundamentalists to dictate what medications they will dispense. In the final analysis, this is a reprehensible policy which will subject women bering LEGAL prescriptions to be harrassed and embarrassed.
How does Target think that allowing a pharmacist to refuse to dispense a contraceptive medication meets that pharmacist’s professional responsibility? All their policy of requiring the employee to assist the patient/customer in filling the prescription at another store or through another pharmacist accomplishes is to inconvenience and embarrass the woman bearing that prescription. It also sends the message that what the patient/customer is asking for is somehow wrong and immoral…and it’s simply NOT the place of a pharmacist to act as moral arbiter and pass judgement on a woman with a LEGALLY-OBTAINED prescription for contraceptive medication.
If you as a pharmacist cannot see your way clear to meeting your professional responsibility in this matter, you need to turn in your license and find another job- NOW. And here’s to hoping that your next job will involve the frequent use of the phrase, “Would you like fries with that??”
