However, individual pharmasists declining to fill prescriptions because of their personal beliefs only works for society as a whole if there are roughly equal numbers of people prepared to fill the prescription as not. In some parts of the US I understand that it is becoming very difficult indeed to actually obtain chemical contraception, let along the morning after pill, because so many pharmacists are refusing to do so. (Sorry, I did read an in-depth, reference piece on this, but I no longer have the link).

Where does that leave the individual, who may not be able to travel twenty, forty or a hundred miles to the nearest pharmacy prepared to dispense?

I think there is an argument that can be made that if these actions are legal, then people employed in those professions should *not* be given an option to opt out and still expect to keep their jobs.

Taken to its logical conclusion, I guess that does extend to dispensing drugs for assisted suicide – where, after all, the person in question will actually have made the decision to end their life themselves.

There is, in the above thread, a theme that the pharmacist should follow the prescription, or a customer’s request, without recourse to his or her own morality.

(For the record, in the case we are discussing I would have supplied, although I have been made aware that the news report is very one-sided by people involved in the case, since I blogged it.)

However, what if euthanasia were legalised? Would you suggest that pharmacists should not opt out of supplying drugs which would kill people – if their beliefs did not support such an action?

Such a pharmacist is not just "following orders" but making a personal moral decision to be complicit in the taking of another life. If they are not happy to be involved, shouldn’t they have the option to back out of supplying.

On the same basis, if a pharmacist really believes that EHC is an abortifacent and is equivalent to murdering a child – then shouldn’t they have the option to not supply? Nurses and medical staff have such an option, so I fail to see why another caring profession involved in public health should not.

(BTW This is not exclusively a problem related to Christians, I am aware of a number of Muslims who refuse to supply EHC on moral grounds.)

Yes, better example. But I actually *do* work as a lighting technician. :).

As you were.

Eh? But they chose their job description. I’d have a lot of sympathy for anyone who became a pharmacist when contraception was illegal and then saw it legalised, but this is obviously not a case like that.

My opinion hasn’t changed on these cases in months: such behaviour shouldn’t be illegal, but shouldn’t be legally protected either. You have the right not to do any bits of your job you don’t like, and your employer has the right to sack you for not doing bits of your job. Fair enough.

Anyone, Muslim or otherwise, who doesn’t want to serve alcohol should not work in a pub. In other news, people with vertigo, paint allergies, and a fear of seagulls shouldn’t paint the Forth Bridge. This does not affect your statutury rights.

That said, if someone has a moral problem with doing something, they shouldn’t necessarily be forced into doing it by virtue of their job description. They should probably personally reconsider their career, but you can’t compel someone to do something they find distasteful (c.f. Muslims working in pubs, etc…)

Equally, does the fact that someone is allowed to be a pharmacist (ie not being struck off) mean that Asda are obliged to employ her?