What's that word for forcing people to do jobs they don't want to do? Doctors and pharmacists ARE technically people, right?
Dave Munger | Homepage | 07.16.05 - 9:52 pm | #

Sorry, but that's one of the shallower analyses I've seen in a long time. First, it's not hard to imagine fringe fundamentalists objecting to any number of treatments which many reasonable people would not view as so odious they should be stripped from the market -- for example, I can easily see someone refusing to prescribe AIDS and HIV treatments as they "encourage" gays and/or drug users to engage in "immoral" behavior; ditto refusing to prescribe birth control pills to unmarried (or even married) women. Second, and more importantly, the article you cite assumes a plethora of doctors and pharmacists, so that one can simply go to the Walgreen's down the street if the fundamentalist at the prescription window turns you down. But this ignores the reality that, in much of America, one's options are not unlimited. Entire regions could be left without access to legal medication because the fundamentalists control all the local pharmacies/hospitals.

Pharmacists and physicians whose morality prohibits them from providing birth control and other services you refer to as "morally controversial" have no more right to deny these services than an innkeeper who believes in the sanctity of the white race has to deny a room to an interracial couple.
Tequila Jones | 07.18.05 - 1:11 am | #

Tequila, you envision a world in which the law puts a chokehold on people of faith so that they are denied the "choice" that you supposedly hold dear--the choice to pursue a profession.

If every pharmacist in an entire county believes that a certain medication is so harmful that it should not be prescribed, I'd say they might have a point. In any case, pharmacists do have a choice--and there are plenty whose own beliefs and profit motives make them prescribe the abortifacient medications that you consider important.

As for your fantasy about doctors denying HIV medications, that's a red herring if ever I saw one. Name one incident in which that has taken place. You can't--because it hasn't. Who do you think prescribes HIV medications and caters for the poorest of the poor AIDS patients? Catholic hospitals--the very Christians you assume would throw them out on their ears.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 07.18.05 - 1:29 am | #

First, it's not hard to imagine fringe fundamentalists objecting to any number of treatments which many reasonable people would not view as so odious they should be stripped from the market --

But by your very statement that they are "fringe fundamentalists" you concede they are not mainstream and that many reasonable people would not view them as odious, and thus, other "mainstream" and "reasonable" practicioners are available. Pretty shallow.

Entire regions could be left without access to legal medication because the fundamentalists control all the local pharmacies/hospitals.

Name one such region.

TJ, you should lay off the Tequila.
c matt | 07.18.05 - 2:46 pm | #

have no more right to deny these services than an innkeeper who believes in the sanctity of the white race has to deny a room to an interracial couple.

Apples and oranges - in the innkeeper's case, he is denying the service to the couple based upon a characteristic of the couple, not on any inherent immorality of the act of renting, thus he is discriminating against someone.

The non-BC subscriber is not discriminating against anyone - he treats all those who seek BC from him equally (now, if he was dispensing to black couples, but not white couples, then you would have an argument).
c matt | 07.18.05 - 2:54 pm | #

The non-BC subscriber is not discriminating against anyone - he treats all those who seek BC from him equally (now, if he was dispensing to black couples, but not white couples, then you would have an argument).

I think you may have missed the point of the argument. I don't believe that Tequila Jones was trying to say that pharmacists not dispensing birth control was discrimination.

I think she was trying to say that there are some private businesses that, collectively at least, provide necessary public services. Hotel discrimination by race isn't just bad it itself, but it also makes it harder for people to travel.

Likewise, allowing pharmacists and physicians to refuse to dispense certains drug interferes with (or at least could interfere with) people's ability to access those drugs.

While I don't know if "entire regions" would be left without access to birth control pills if pharmasists and doctors could refuse to dispense, the author's claim that access would only be problematic only if "virtually none could bring themselves to do it" is wrong.

Not everyone has a lot of options within a reasonable distance, so if the two local pharmacists say no, some women may effectively be out of luck.

Btw, the bill under discussion is not about contraceptives, and I would support it.
Kris | Homepage | 07.19.05 - 1:31 am | #

Because his example brought up "rights" being denied to an interracial couple, it necessarily implies discrimination. He did not say lodging would be unavailable in general, but only to a select few. His example does not implicate a "right" to availability of any private service to the public. The rights TJ alluded to in his example only kick in when they are available for some within the region, but not others. Thus, his statement that the practitioner has no more right to refuse to prescribe than the innkeeper has to refuse renting to an interracial couple is incorrect.
c matt | 07.19.05 - 10:06 am | #

Seriously, where in this country is BC and abortion not available? Where are there practitioners so united in their abhorrence to these practices that a patient can't find these services within a 30 mile radius of a population center > 20,000 people? Or, for BC, which will be available over internet, if not already?
c matt | 07.19.05 - 10:15 am | #