Great ethical thought-experiment from Phoebe of What would Phoebe do?
Let’s say a woman walks into a pharmacy to fill her prescription for the Pill. Turns out she gets one of those social-conservative pharmacists who won’t give it to her. This is their conversation:
Woman: I’d like to fill this prescription.
Pharmacist: Sorry, that goes against my religion, I cannot provide it.
Woman: But I need it for health reasons.
Pharmacist: That’s what they all say.
Woman: Seriously, health reasons only.
Pharmacist: How could I possibly believe that?
Woman: I’m a lesbian.What happens next? Would she get the prescription? Surely no matter how wrong a social conservative considers homosexuality, there’s no moral reason to prevent a lesbian who is truly taking the Pill for health reasons from taking it, unless the pharmacist believes that a) the woman might get raped, and all life is sacred, ergo… or b) she may well have a change of heart and become ex-gay before the month is over.
As more and more faith-based pharmacists (and the big corporations that evidently continue to employ them) begin to balk at providing women with even basic birth control, and as the wrong-wingers push for further discrimination against non-heterosexuals, this question may become progressively less hypothetical.
Me? I keep thinking about this great progressive chauvenist motto: “Keep your laws out of my wife’s body.”
Submitted by 484 (not verified) on Mon, 2005-11-28 00:50.
Oooh.... Pet peeve of mine. There's nothing that drives me nuttier than reading about these people. Unfortunately, the states where the law clearly states that a pharmacist MUST dispense properly prescribed medication are few:
CA-may not decline
MO-duty to fill
NJ & WV- May not refuse.
That's it. The rest of the states haven't passed any laws specifying that a pharmacist MUST dispense. There may be laws in those states that say 'reasonable care' and include it there.
But still. There's NO REASON to refuse to dispense. Sorry. You tell me 'It's against my religion', and you may refuse to dispense tape-worm medication. After all. It's life, RIGHT?
[Oh yeah. Can you imagine some primly ethical vegan or PETA member saying "No way I'm handing out medicine for gout to meat eaters." Thanks, DN. --fl]
Submitted by 484 (not verified) on Mon, 2005-11-28 05:11.
What a delicious ethical conundrum!
Putting aside my personal beliefs (which would entail at least the fantasy of grabbing the offending pharmicist by a protruding body part and squeezing), in this situation, there really is no ethical reason to deny her the prescription. In fact, even some of the staunchest conservatives feel abortion is acceptable in the case of rape.
[I think the problem is that, just as there are different schools of progressivism there are different schools of conservatism. As you say, some don't object at all for their own family members or mistresses, others object (as one can discover via Google) because they have intense sexual fantasies about forced pregnancy via rape, and still others -- the ones in question here, most likely -- object for religious rather than social reasons. The upshot, though, is they're second-guessing doctors and putting people's lives and health at risk. Thanks, Jo. --fl]
Submitted by 484 (not verified) on Mon, 2005-11-28 11:26.
We had kind of a conundrum (which i cannot spell) like that in my parent's province. It's a little more conservative there, so when gay marriage was made legal in Canada there was a worry that gays in smaller provinces might have problems finding a queer positive garanteur (which I also cannot spell). Provisions were made so that each region would have at least one queer positive garanteur. Personally I loved the idea of stuck up people getting fired because they wouldn't officiate a gay union ^_^
Anyway - maybe there should be some kind of provision like that with pharmacists.
[Yeah, you'd think at the very least there'd be a way to arrange referrals. The problem, I think, is that in conservative areas having to make referrals just puts the lenient provider on the spot. Thanks, Shay. --fl]
Submitted by 484 (not verified) on Mon, 2005-11-28 15:11.
Me, I've always preferred "Keep your rosaries off my ovaries", but that's the ex-Catholic schoolgirl talking I guess. It does also remind me of this beloved slogan though:
If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a Sacrament.
Irrreligiously yours,
O
[Hey O! I prefer something less confrontational that still... confronts their sensibilities where they're vulnerable instead of where they expect it. Things like "Abortion? Let the ladies decide." One way or another, though, we gotta get through to those people. --fl]
Submitted by 484 (not verified) on Mon, 2005-11-28 15:14.
Fig,
Do tell me your progressive chavinist motto is intentionally ironic.
I mean "my wife's body"? The inherent patriarchal relationship here is entirely irony-imbued, isn't it?
Reassure this die-hard feminist.
[Actually it's not intentionally ironic as much as it's intentionally congatively dissonant. Things like "Keep your laws off my body" are rhetorically plaintive. Since they're whole point is to keep you plaintive they're prepared for that. The "My wife" thing, or the "let the ladies..." one I mentioned to O are meant to remind them that all this bullshit doesn't just affect the straw-women caricatures they construct in order to refute and oppress, it affects their mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. Remember when put on the spot even Dan Quayle admitted he'd respect his daughter's decision, though he callously defecated some fetid little script about self-dicipline and libertinism every time it was presented to him as an abstract concept. Thanks for asking, though. I'd hate to have my rhetorical strategy mistaken for my core belief. Thanks, CG. --fl]
Submitted by 484 (not verified) on Tue, 2005-11-29 12:18.
The real problem with the scenario is more fundamental: Phoebe and all of us are trying to explore a "gray area" is morality. Liberals and progressives tend to do that. Consider Jimmy Carter -- in his latest book, he points out that he's anti-abortion, but he nevertheless respected Roe vs Wade as a matter of law, and he recognizes that sex-ed and birth control stand against abortion.
The people who are causing us these problems, however, are using their religion as a justification to retreat into "infantile dualism". They don't, and generally can't recognize the existence of those gray areas. People, practices, ideas, are each either Good or Evil, with no middle ground.
Worse, they see no reason to negotiate, because if they get their way, Good triumphs, and if they don't, then they get to play "Daniel among the lions", and wail how the Evil Liberals are persecuting them and killing babies for fun, but they are still "fighting the Good Fight". (Funny sort of persecution....)
[Thanks, David. Your reference to Jimmy Carter foreshadows my next post. --fl]