Jail the Pharmacists!
The front page of the Washington Post reports this morning that there is increasing outrage over pharmacists who refuse to fill contraception prescriptions or abortifacients because it violates the pharmacist's beliefs. Predictably, the reduced-children crowd wants to force pharmacists to fill the prescriptions.
The following is from beginning of the article. We like the way WP refers to forcing pharmacists to “carry out their duties.” The word “duty,” of course, implies that the pharmacist has an obligation, as opposed to the idea that the pharmacist is a free agent in the marketplace who can provide whatever wares and services he deems fit and moral.
“Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.
“The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties.”
LINK (registration required)
