Time to find a new job

Questions about pharmacists’ inability to dispense medications they don’t like have been around for a couple of years, but this front-page treatment in the Washington Post should kick things up again.

Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

The trend has opened a new front in the nation’s battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman’s right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized — or force them to carry out their duties.

I’m not trying to be intentionally obtuse here, but I’m not quite sure why this is even a legitimate controversy. Pharmacists, by virtue of their professional responsibilities, agree to fill prescriptions. Doctors prescribe a remedy, a patient seeks that remedy, a pharmacist provides the remedy. It’s a pretty simple system.

If a pharmacist realizes that he or she may be called on to perform tasks with which they’re uncomfortable, this person has a choice: do the job or find a different job in which these moral quandaries won’t be an issue. In other words, if you don’t like filling prescriptions, don’t become a pharmacist.

These “pharmacist rights” controversies can lead to some pretty disconcerting examples. I remember a situation from about a year ago in which a pharmacist refused to provide a rape victim with a morning-after pill because the man behind the counter had philosophical problems with the medication. The pharmacist was fired for not doing his job — but conservatives were outraged. Why would a man get fired simply for refusing to do his job properly?

In some instances, patients in rural areas don’t have a choice about where they get their prescriptions filled. In others, pharmacists not only refuse to do their jobs, they’ll even berate customers for their alleged “sins.” In other even more bizarre instances, crazed pharmacists feel so strongly about their concerns that they’ll hold a prescription hostage, preventing a patient from filling it at some other drug store.

What’s more, conservative GOP lawmakers — some of whom are so “pro-business” that they consider labor unions and the minimum wage unfair intrusions — want to regulate how private employers can dismiss employees who refuse to do their jobs.

Wisconsin is one of at least 11 states considering “conscience clause” laws that would protect pharmacists such as Noesen. Four states already have laws that specifically allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions that violate their beliefs.

The mind reels.