Misogyny and incompetence: together at last

A recent Washington Post article talks about US pharmacists’ increasing tendency to refuse to provide hormonal contraception, based on (mostly spurious) ‘ethical’ grounds.

Refusing to fill certain prescriptions means that unless you work alongside a colleague whenever you’re on duty, you’re not a pharmacist. Refusing to fill *or transfer* certain prescriptions means that you’re not a pharmacist at all. And passing legislation to protect these not-pharmacists from dismissal is even more stupid than whatever the official Most Misguided Piece Of Leftwing PC Ever is.

Kevin Drum has more thoughts, including a wider point on how too many liberals have lost interest in the struggle for gender equality. Matt Yglesias also sort-of has related thoughts, but they’re mostly about Ewan McGregor and genderless wankers.

Oh, and in case anyone is reading this and thinking ‘ooh, those crazy Americans and their theocratic junta‘, it’s also happening over here.

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One thought on “Misogyny and incompetence: together at last

  1. Legislation’s a bad idea, in either direction. My view is that these employees are free to refuse to sell any drug and their employers should be free to sack them as a result. Pharmacists whose managers decide not to sell the pill are throwing away custom and creating a perect environment for competitors to crush them, which is their right. (What kind of moronic chemist would discourage regular female customers? Who else is going to buy forty kinds of soap?) Refusing to fill or transfer a prescription ought to be covered by existing anti-theft laws: the prescription doesn’t belong to the pharmacy, so taking it in return for nothing constitutes theft from the patient.

    Not sure about your definition of what is or isn’t a pharmacist. Most British doctors refuse to give diabetics insulin pumps (on grounds of cost, not ethics, of course); that makes them crap doctors, but it doesn’t make them non-doctors.

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