(no subject)

[apocalypsos]

NEW YORK (AP) -- In Congress and states nationwide, anti-abortion activists are broadening efforts to support hospitals, doctors and pharmacists who -- citing moral grounds -- want to opt out of services linked to abortion and emergency contraception.

A couple of thoughts on a few lines from this article ...

Pharmacist Gene Herr was fired by Eckerd's Drugs after he refused to fill a prescription for a rape victim seeking emergency contraception. -- This man is an asshole. Enough said.

"More people, including pharmacists, are becoming informed how certain drugs operate -- and those who want to avoid ending the life of a human being would avoid those drugs," she said. -- You dumb son of a bitch, every drug can end a human life, a walking talking human being who can walk right up to you, get a prescription for painkillers, then go home and swallow the whole fucking bottle.

You know what? If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.

Comments

[emminou.livejournal.com]

You know what? If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.

It gets worse. Earlier this year, a fundamentalist Christian in New Zealand tried to sue Burger King for discrimination, after he told them he wouldn't work on Sundays.

[imperfect_tense]

Can we set those idjits on fire? Please?

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I'm all for the Rapture if it means Jesus's really annoying followers will go the fuck away. (Although I will miss the ones who actually paid attention to what the man said. Those people are cool.)

[ceejayoz.livejournal.com]

That's the problem - if the Rapture actually happens, we'll be stuck with all the idiot fundies like Falwell.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I like to think we're all nice enough to go while Falwell and those idiots are stuck here. :)

[yueni]

You know what? If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.

Word. Totally, word.

[adjectivegirl.livejournal.com]

DUDE if you insist on the luxury of imposing your morals all over the place, go into politics.

[silent-sybil.livejournal.com]

O_o Don't say that! What if they really do?

[milkshake-b.livejournal.com]

They already have.

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

The difference is that the bottle of drugs that person goes home and swallows is not intended for suicide, whereas drugs that facilitate abortion are designed for the purpose of taking a life. I don't see how it's so horrifying that people whose purpose is to facilitate life through medicinal purposes are appalled by this.

Everyone has moral beliefs. Whether they are right or wrong is up for debate in every situation, but it is irresponsible for anyone, for anything they believe, to turn their back on offenses to that belief. Just as it would be irresponsible for you to ignore this despite your own moral beliefs.

Of course, that's just my opinion, but I'm sure I'll get flamed. Bring it on. *sigh*

[tocomfortyou.livejournal.com]

My problem isn't that doctors disagree with abortions - their beliefs are not my business. But when it affects my health, it is absolutely my business. It's like being a lawyer who refuses to represent guilty clients - no, that's not what the job entails. It's your job. This isn't some surprising secret of the medical community. If they're this uncomfortable with performing an abortion, it's understandable, but that means they need to find another line of work.

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

I disagree with the lawyer analogy - to be a lawyer is to make an oath to support the right everyone has to due process. To be a doctor is to make an oath to save lives wherever possible, and if a life must be taken it is an "awesome responsibility [that] must be faced with great humbleness and awareness of my own frailty. Above all, I must not play at God" (Hippocratic Oath). So to make a judgment on what you will and will not do in one field is completely different than the another. If your health is in danger, then making a choice to take a life does not violate that oath. But that's not always the situation.

If they're this uncomfortable with performing an abortion, it's understandable, but that means they need to find another line of work.

No, I don't think anyone should work at an abortion clinic if they're against abortion, but nor do I think that one has to be pro-choice just to be a doctor.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

You don't have to be pro-choice to be a doctor. But if you aren't willing to do abortions or hand out certain medicines, don't put yourself in that position.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

I'm not talking about the morning-after pills, though. I'm talking about the birth control pills that would stop a life before there's one to take. In some states, they're trying to get rid of those, as well, which helps neither side in the long run.

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

Then I am mistaken, because that is how it appeared to me, considering that this specific case refers specifically to emergency contraception.

[fyrdrakken]

The argument is now being made by the same groups who support the guy who wouldn't give out morning-after bills that plain old birth control pills act by causing a super-early abortion and hence shouldn't be given out either.

[seferin.livejournal.com]

Pharmacist Gene Herr was fired by Eckerd's Drugs after he refused to fill a prescription for a rape victim seeking emergency contraception. -- This man is an asshole. Enough said.

No. This man is as bad as the rapist. We have a woman who was violated. She wants to make sure that she is not trapped with the child of that union. Even if you support the argument (which I don't)that a medical person has the right to dent treatment, Mr. Herr could be sentencing the rape victim to bear a child that will ALWAYS, remind her of the rape.

THAT IS A CRIME OF A MAGNITUDE SIMILAR TO THE RAPE. A moral stand is something YOU do to take a stand. It is NOT punishing someone else for your beliefs.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

A moral stand is something YOU do to take a stand. It is NOT punishing someone else for your beliefs.

Very well said.

[glitterdemon.livejournal.com]

Using capslock to illustrate your point generally isn't going to, well, work. No offense, you know, but I don't want to get yelled at for having a contrasting opinion.

This man is as bad as the rapist.

I feel that you're trying to qualify two incidents that should not and cannot be qualified (or quantified, if looking at your comment on magnitude). Rape is an act which occurs in the absence of morals, and I don't believe that to be the case with Gene Herr; quite the opposite, in fact, with more complex issues at stake. Whether you view his actions to be criminal is your opinion, obviously, be at least let it stand on its own.

By the way, as far as comparisons go, it is my opinion that murder is a worse crime than rape, but I realize that not many people here agree that abortion is murder, and arguing about that won't get us anywhere.

[trishalynn.livejournal.com]

Thank you for being calm and reasoned in your responses so far.

I think that whether or not murder is worse than rape depends on how much damage the rape does to that particular victim. I know people who have been raped and have learned to let go and move on, forgiving their attackers and being able to get their quality of life back to being somewhat normal.

There are others who don't and aren't able to recover as quickly or as thoroughly and their quality of life is as diminished as if the assailant had killed them.

I've never been in Herr's position where I had to consider if something I'd be doing for my job would conflict with my moral beliefs. I do know that if I did find myself in that kind of job, I'd quit. Maybe Herr needs to work for a privately-owned pharmacy, hmm?

[seferin.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. I apologize for yelling.

I would disagree. In both cases, we have person A inflicting their morals on person B. In the first case, person A feels theire sexual urge is more important than person B's right to consent or not. In the second case, we have person A deciding whether person B should forever remember a violation which happened to them, and which they will have to live with for the rest of their lives.

I think rape is equal to murder, as in rape, the victim is violated, and may never recover, trust, or be able to have a normal life.

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

They're doing it with birth control pills too.

[sesana]

The moral beliefs in and of themselves are not the issue here. If your moral beliefs are in direct contradiction with something that you *must* do as part of your job, then it's time to find a different job. Say that it is my deep moral or religious belief that I should never handle pig products. I should not then decide to work at Subway and deny service to customers who want ham sandwiches. I would get fired as quickly as the pharamcist who refused to fill a perscription.

[amativus.livejournal.com]

This is such a fucking ridiculous idea. Lawyers have to support guilty clients all the time, people work for scuzzy bosses, and if they're morally uncomfortable with the situations, they leave, they don't just say, "No, thanks."

[zephiey.livejournal.com]

If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.
Well said. Don't foist your beliefs on me and I won't leave a thousand rats in your car.

[fire-and-a-rose.livejournal.com]

If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.

On the one hand, I always like to applaud someone standing up for what they believe in.

On the other hand, I'd like to smack them with several large mallets.

My brilliant solution: let them all work together at clinics/pharmacies/whatever that do not prescribe those drugs/provide those services.

And then everyone who wants them can just not go there and they will know to avoid them.




But I still like the mallet idea.

[fireberry.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly with your idea. A nice big anti-abortion pharmacy for all those people that have moral objections. I however, will be going somewhere else. What pisses me off is that these people refuse to dispense birth control. Birth control is not always used for preventing pregnancy. I have a friend that's been dating her boyfriend for over 2 years, is actually engaged to him, is 21, in college, and is a virgin. She also has endometriosis. That stuff's painful! And birth control is used to treat it. How are these people right to deny her a treatment to something that painful? (well, that's a technicality, her insurance doesn't cover birth control so she's stuck taking up to 8 Tylenol everytime she's in pain) I'm going to be a pharmacist and I fully intend to not be a dickwad. I can't wait.

[matildarose.livejournal.com]

That's what gets me. After having a very large fibroid tumor removed a couple of years ago (I was 19), I was placed on BC pills to make sure such a thing doesn't happen again.

Unless this sect of anti-abortion lackies are thinking of the rights of small pumpkin-sized tumors (real ones, no analogies here), I'm saying they're definitely full of BS.

My god, will someone think of the tumors?!

[anne-jumps.livejournal.com]

You know what? If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.

Ah, I used to think that too, but given that there is an effort to put neocons in law and medical school, I think they are doing EXACTLY what they set out to do.

[secretbutterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, dammit! *shakes fist in agreement of you*

[xturtle.livejournal.com]

You know what? If your moral or religious beliefs get in the way of doing your job, then you shouldn't be doing it. It's not that hard a concept.

Word. Free speech, yes. Freedom of religion, hell yes. Freedom to stand up for your beliefs, a given. But to cop an analogy from Oliver Wendell Holmes, "my right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins." We enjoy all of these rights so long as they do not impede the rights of another.

*loves you from afar, and toddles off to bed*

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Pisses me off to. Do any of them even -consider- the possibillity that an abortion might be needed to save the mother?

[fyrdrakken]

Best of all, that original case of the refusal to give morning-after pills to a rape victim took place in Texas, where state law prohibits a pharmacist from refusing to dispense a drug when presented with a legal prescription. (This law was actually enacted to protect pharmacists from prosecution, though I forget what the worry was -- forged scrips, drugs that patients may abuse, something like that. The idea is basically to remove the legal argument that a pharmacist should not have given someone a drug once they'd convinced a doctor they should have it.)