Re: Patient, not pharmacist, gets to decide what's right

Hawki63@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
"LooseCannon" <lambchop.LC@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:esss4k$fqn$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Top posted:
Absolute fuckin insanity to write a 'conscience clause' into any laws. Since when do PHARMACISTS need protection in the law? It's PATIENTS! In this article, this one part summed it up for me:
"It's not appropriate for a
pharmacist to turn a patient away over his or her own feelings about a
drug. And after a point, a pharmacist experiencing such deep conflicts
should wonder whether this is the best field to be in, where these
choices are not yours to make."

Yep, if they arent up to filling a legal med, they need to find another job.

This isnt even political correctness. Its just another subversive way to undermine the reproductive rights. But what could come out of it could far exceed reproductive issues.


are you suggesting..then..that doctors..and nurses for that matter...be required by law to participate or perform abortions??


it is actually the same thing...and no..doctors and nurses have never been forced to participate in abortions


The world has gone mad.

Sean C wrote:

Basu: Patient, not pharmacist, gets to decide what's right By REKHA BASU
REGISTER COLUMNIST

March 9, 2007
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070309/OPINION
01/703090343/1035/OPINION

When you hear the term "conscientious objector," you think of people
refusing to serve in an unjust war - of someone so committed to a
principle, he or she is willing to put life or body on the line to
challenge it.

But in Iowa, there's a move afoot to extend our definition of
conscientious objection to personal interactions between a pharmacist
and a client.

It's a dangerous one.

A proposed rule change by the Iowa Board of Pharmacy Examiners would
authorize pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions to which they
have moral or ethical objections. The pharmacist would first have to
notify the pharmacy owner and tell the patient another way to get the
medication.

But that's not much help when the next-closest pharmacy is 40 miles
away. It's also demeaning for a patient to have to face a pharmacist's
implied condemnation over something so private.

In most cases, that disapproval has been over pregnancy-prevention
drugs. Around the country, pharmacists have gone so far as to refuse to
transfer a prescription to another pharmacy, or even return it to the
patient.

Any grown woman who has been refused by a pharmacist or doctor while
seeking birth control knows how humiliating that can be. As a link in
the chain of medical command, pharmacists have a responsibility to
dispense medications to patients who present legitimate prescriptions.
They can't pick and choose which ones to fill unless the prescription
was wrongly written and could endanger a patient's health. In that
case, the prescribing doctor should be consulted.

But when the morals of pharmacist and patient conflict, it's the
patient whose value system must prevail. It's not appropriate for a
pharmacist to turn a patient away over his or her own feelings about a
drug. And after a point, a pharmacist experiencing such deep conflicts
should wonder whether this is the best field to be in, where these
choices are not yours to make.

Writing a conscience clause into the law could open up a Pandora's box
of risky possibilities. A Christian Scientist might refuse to fill
certain medicines in the belief that only God is the ultimate healer. A
vegetarian could refuse to fill a prescription for a drug tested on
animals. In Dallas, Texas, a pharmacist refused to dispense Ritalin for
a child with Attention Deficit Disorder. It could turn awfully
meddlesome.

Jane DeWitt teaches Pharmacy Law and Ethics at the Drake College of
Pharmacy. She tells students not to judge or put themselves in the way
of patient rights. But she thinks there is a place for pharmacists to
act on conscience. She asks: What if it's not contraceptives but a
lethal-injection solution for the death penalty?

Withholding a lethal-injection prescription would at least be a
symbolic act against the state, not a subversion of individual rights.
But in either case, if you think the laws are unjust, lobby to change
them.

Pharmacist conscience clauses have been introduced in at least 23
states. Some would allow a pharmacist to refuse as long as another
pharmacist on duty filled the prescription.

Other states have gone in the opposite direction to protect patient
rights. In California, Missouri and New Jersey, laws have been proposed
to require pharmacies to fill any legal prescription. Illinois'
governor issued an emergency executive order requiring pharmacies to
fill prescriptions for the morning-after pill if they stock it. He's
been sued over it.

If people are being reasonable, the occasional true moral conflict
could be handled quietly and discreetly without jeopardizing a
pharmacist's convictions or embarrassing or inconveniencing a patient.
Unfortunately, this movement has the potential to devolve into just
another weapon in the arsenal aimed at undermining reproductive rights.

This rule should be rejected.


True,
and what is the next natural step of all this oversight? To get a prescription for birth control, let alone the overnight pill, one would need a signed note from her pastor. Is that where we're going? Is that where we'd want to go, ever?
Responsibility for a life lies with the individual who must live it. Don't even get me started on the "rights" of a mass of cells which displays evidence of movement. Until it graduates high school or gets a GED, it should be subject to abortion.
Cabbi
.

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