Welcome to the first MONDAY MEME!
Bring
your cup
of coffee
along and most of all, your valued opinion. Every Monday I will post your comments with follow-up questions. Please email me with your suggestions, possibly with a link if it a news-related event. I will toss them all in a hat and draw the lucky winner! The following related news story and questions came from 'Michele's' site. Okay, read away!!
'Related news story'
For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's prescription because she did not believe in birth control. "I was shocked," says Lacey, 33, who was not able to get her prescription until the next day and missed taking one of her pills. "Their job is not to regulate what people take or do. It's just to fill the prescription that was ordered by my physician." Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And states from Rhode Island to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions. (By the way, the guy behind Lacey successfully buys Viagra from the same pharmacist.)
Do you agree that pharmacists must dispense any and all drugs a doctor prescribes? Do you think a pharmacist should be permitted to "refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives?"
kudos to 'jc's designs'
15 comments:
I think it should be an obligation that comes with accepting the license to dispense prescription drugs.
Heck no!
If I refused service to a customer in my job, I'd be fired.
I teach math at a community college. Now, suppose I said that I refuse to teach statistics because statistics enables people to compute gambling odds, which might induce them to actually gamble, and gambling is immoral. Do you think my employer would buy that, or do you think they would fire me and hire someone who would teach the entire curriculum?
And most people, from waitresses to mechanics would be fired if they refused to serve the customers of the business they work for. I want to know, WHAT MAKES PHARMACISTS so (bleeping) special that they think they can do something that other people would be fired for?
How's this? If the pharmacist is the ONLY one around, I agree with everyone else that he should be required to sell all drugs, HOWEVER, around where I live he'd be out of business in a heartbeat because the competition would swallow him up. So in that regard I say, let him sell whatever he wants, he'll be 'spiting his nose to save his face'.
I posted on this a while back:
http://valiumforthsoul.blogspot.com/
2006/02/what-century-does-america
-think-were.html
Had a massive spit :-)
I respect that pharmacist's beliefs and morals on the contraceptives issue. That's fine.
However, he still has a job and a duty to serve others as a pharmacist. Unless it's something illegal, he has to dispense the pharmaceuticals as directed by this woman's doctor.
The same goes for the morning after pill, although that's an even more heated debate.
Hey, thanks for the comment! I hardly ever come across people with my name. I was always the only Jolynn in school. I love when I hear it!
As for the question, I absolutely don't think that a pharmacist should be able to refuse service based on so called "moral" objections. Since when do we go to the pharmacy to get moral advice or opinions? That pharmicist should be fired or at the very least reconsider their profession.
the first time i heard this story i was shocked/outraged! naturally i think a licensed pharmacist should dispense any and all meds prescribed by a doctor--unless there's some overall policy held by the drug store (which, unless i'm mistaken, there wasn't)--failure to do so is absolutely grounds for dismissal.
do pharmacists take some kind of oath that allows them to bow out of fulfilling their jobs if they somehow find a drug "morally apprehensible"? i'm pretty sure they do not!
on the other hand, it is a bit of a slippery slope, isn't it? in a country where all should feel they have the right to express themselves...someone who does just that is criticized. unfortunately, this particular person took it upon herself to not only hold an opinion, but to try and cram it down the throat of the woman just trying to have her perscription filled! i'm pretty sure that's not how it's done.
by the way, johnboy is right about the walmart "controversy"...just last week they announced that they will, in fact, start offering the morning after pill... because that was what their consumers wanted.
great topic, karen! one, i suspect, that won't go away any time soon...
I agree with the comment about competition, but I once lived in a remote rural area with only one drugstore, so I can see potential problems for rural American women.
While it may not have any huge effect in many places, it opens the door for abuse. With enough political pressure, whole towns, counties, and even states could prevent "controversial" prescriptions from being filled.
This is part of an organized effort, one step at a time. I say it should be stopped before it goes further. Once the concept is accepted, you can be sure it will be expanded to include other things.
Pharmacists should be prepared to fill any and all legally obtained precriptions.
It is not their place to be a moral arbitor. End of story.
I work in a large corporate IT department.
What if one of the geeks we work with decided that they did not want to support any Microsoft OS because of "ethical" reasons?
He or she would be fired.
The pharmicist should fill the prescription unless the business is privately owned, in which the owner can set the policies of his pharmacy or chain of pharmacies.
For example, an owner of a convenience store could choose not to sell cigarettes in his store, but if his employee refuses to sell them, the employee should be fired.
Not filling the prescription because of personal beliefs is not acceptable. It's a valid, legal prescription and should be filled.
Hell no. Where would it stop? Let's see, you can get Nembutal but not Ambien. Horse pucky.
I heard that this was happinging, and I can't believe it.
Is the pharmacist going to help pay for the resulting child's medical and living expenses?
Without having read the other comments let me say this: What the prescription is for is between the patient and doctor. My future DIL takes birth control pills for her mood swings, not BC. It's none of the pharmacist's business.
I only ask that my pharmacist dispense my meds in a sterile, and safe fashion. I do not ask him/her to pass judgement on my lifestyle choices.
The pharmacist and his pharmacy also come under laws of the state in which they operate. He/she is obligated to fill any and all prescriptions. To Jamie Dawn's remark, this also applies to privately owned pharmacies. If a pharmacist can be held accountable for dispensing wrong drugs, and wrong dosages, then surely he/she should be held responsible for NOT giving them. Indeed, it is a form of malpractice.
Thanks everyone for weighing in with your opinions!
Please email me your suggestions for next week's MONDAY MEME.
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