1) Go to Cardiff (someone like Dave may be able to skip this step);
2) Find the Asda supermarket at Pontprennau;
3) Determine whether the pharmacist on duty is an deranged religious fanatic;
4) If not, come back after the next shift change and repeat;
5) If yes, politely suggest to the pharmacist that she’s an evil witch who should be fired.
As I’ve said before, it’s appalling and wrong that pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense emergency contraception, effectively fucking up other people’s lives for their own nebulous ‘moral values’ (yeah, ever so moral).
The argument that people’s religious beliefs should be respected is a complete non-starter in this context, unless you believe Christian Scientists (most of whom refuse to take or prescribe any artificial drugs) should also be allowed to be pharmacists. Prescribing contraception is an essential part of being a pharmacist, and someone who refuses to do so is just as incapable of being a pharmacist as a Christian Scientist would be.
Meanwhile, should you not already be boycotting Asda on general principle, the fact that they haven’t sacked this particular employee (despite sacking plenty of others) is an excellent reason to start.
(via Anthony, whose views on the subject are a little more measured…)
I thought this was only happening in the USA. Quite apart from the incredibly judgemental attitude these people seem to feel they have a right to impose on other people, it seems bizarre to me that someone can be employed in a profession when they are not prepared to actually undertake all of the tasks that the job might require.
It’s like me saying that I want to be a lighting technician. But that I’m not actually prepared to work with electricity.
It’s like me saying that I want to be a lighting technician. But that I’m not actually prepared to work with electricity.
It’s more like working in an armoury and refusing to sell guns.
I’m not defending this pharmacist, but isn’t it more like someone working in an armoury and refusing to sell, say, legal hollow-point bullets or automatic weapons but agreeing to sell the rest of the stuff?
Cardiff, eh. I didn’t know I lived in a hotbed of fundamentalism.
erm… it’s not Asda’s fault. If you read the story, you’ll find that under the law, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to give people emergency contraception on religious grounds. You can’t blame Asda for fulfilling their legal duty.
Yes, but they could still have sacked her for this: "The pharmacists’ Code of Ethics says that if a pharmacist does refuse to provide a service, they must not condemn or criticise a patient and they must advise a patient of alternative sources for the service. It also states that requests for emergency contraception must be handled sensitively with due regard to the patient’s right to privacy."
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?
I think we can all agree that the pharmacist was fucking rude, and didn’t have the balls to tell the woman herself that she wasn’t getting the morning after pill, leaving it to her assistant to do it, which is the cardinal crime here, in my opinion at least.
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…)
> they shouldn’t necessarily be forced into doing it by virtue of their job description
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’s what I said – They should probably personally reconsider their career
No, they should probably personally be sacked for refusing to do their job properly.
Ah, right. Sorry. I thought you meant we shouldn’t compel Muslims working in pubs to do something they find distasteful. But you didn’t, so that’s alright, then.
As you were.
It’s more like working in an armoury and refusing to sell guns
Yes, better example. But I actually *do* work as a lighting technician. :).
A question.
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.)
Anthony, I agree in principle – no-one should be expected to blindly follow orders without recourse to their own moral compass.
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.