Sobekpundit has a nicely articulated post that states very clearly the libertarian position on the state-licensed pharmacist’s private property rights. I posted my response in his comments, but because it went rather long—and because I’m remarkably lazy (and utilitarian, when the mood strikes), I decided to turn it into a brand new protein wisdom post.
Commence pissing on it!
A summary of my position to this point: While I always favor the free market solution, I am uneasy about giving a specially-trained and government licensed dispensor of prescription medication the freedom to choose which medications s/he will or will not dispense based on conscience. Unless, that is, said pharmacist is willing to clearly label the store “Catholic Pharmacy,” etc. And then there is the problem of a potential civil rights violation if this happens to take place in a rural town where such a decision puts undo hardship on an individual seeking to have her doctor-ordered prescription filled.
But the thing I would like you to answer based on your post—which, like unPOPULIST’s before yours, was a very nice statement of the libertarian position—is how can we not, from your set of propositions, extrapolate conscience out to include any number of things that a particular individual may or may not, based on his or her peculiar personal creeds / beliefs, find morally objectionable—from a “Green” pharmacist who won’t fill a prescription for capsules because the capsules themselves are petroleum based, to a wiccan pharmacist who wants to replace your synthetic name-brand Lipitor tablets with a blend of newt eye and salmon oil?
Yes, these are absurd examples, but it seems to me government regulation of industry happens all the time, and in one sense it happens in order to define a clear set of base guidelines in order to avoid just this type of individualistic vagary.
Is this not analogous to refusing to “serve” someone based on racialist beliefs? Should these same pharmacy owners be allowed to refuse service to homosexuals?
Is this not analogous to refusing to “serve†someone based on racialist beliefs?
No. When you need to resort to absurd examples to make a point, then you haven’t quite bridged the chasm of belief and reason. Doesn’t make you a christophobe though.
Why is the example absurd, Half Canadian? Where does the difference lie? Race, in its current post-1936 usage, is a social construct—and so is not based on any biological determinism.
Why is it impossible to conceive of a pharmacist whose conscience tells him that blacks, say, shouldn’t be served? Doesn’t this follow the libertarian private property rights paradigm? If not, why not?
And the follow-up example was behavior-based, unless you happen to believe homosexuality is biologically determined. Why wouldn’t the same problem with conscience prevent the same pharmacist who has trouble with certain post-coital pills from administering medication to a homosexual?
Note: Saying “because,” then following with “that’s absurd” is not really a satisfying answer.
The analogy does not hold up. If the pharmacist stocked the pill, but refused to dispense it to buyers that he suspected were christian, then you would be spot on. In this case, the pharmacist just refuses to stock the pill. It goes back to my restaurant analogy in the previous post. The government can prohibit discrimination to groups based on race, gender, etc., but can it mandate what is on the menu?
As I said in my post, the question turns on the use of force. Let’s take as a point of departure our agreement that the free market solution is generally the best one, for no small reason because there is no government compulsion in it. But in Illinois, the governor has intervened with government force before the market has had time to react.
Let me tell you what I would do, the patient who needs Lipitor but who gets a Wiccan pharmacist offering me newt eye and salmon oil. I would decline the concoction, take my prescription elsewhere, lodge a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, tell my friends that the guy at Lord Darkstone’s Pharmacy is a nut, and decline to patronize the business in the future. If, after all this, the guy stays in business, more power to him and I hope he doesn’t get PETA riding him for his cruel gouging eyes out of newts.
None of which involves calling the police or the governor.
If, after all of this, and with enough time for someone else to set up shop and take money from loose women, Jews, and purchasers of Cheap Discount Viagro, we still have a problem, you can make a stronger case for government intervention, and I’m more willing to accept it. But a knee-jerk appeal to government compulsion before more suitable forces are given time to work is dangerous.
Also of importance to this discussion is that the morning after pill has a small window of time to be effective, unlike Lipitor, so there’s a time crunch. That’s no small concern, but in my opinion, doesn’t single-handedly trump all the other factors involved in the case.
Doggone it, Jeff, you keep making this interesting, and I can’t concentrate on anything else. I swear, it’s almost as bad as the Martha Stewart diaries (and I cringe as I realize what that says about the way my mind works.)
As to your comments, I certainly say that the examples you cite flow from the same principle. But like you support a Catholic pharmacy, it seems that putting “Green Pharmacy” and “Wiccan Pharmacy” on the front door would address your concerns. In other words, while I think those positions are nuts, I’d gladly accept the “cost” of their existence in order to preserve freedom of conscience over matters of life and death (at least in their view) to the Catholic pharmacist. It may be absurd, but I’ve lived in college towns; absurd notions can still do a lively business.
As for the racial and homosexual aspects, I’d concur with Sobek that they’re not quite analogous enough–at least not to trigger changes in the current system. It’s a tricky question, though; I’d say it just looks like a slippery slope we’ve managed to draw a line on, and Sobek and I may just be trying to hold the line where it is. Could be wrong on that, though.
The greater concern I have as a social conservative on all of this runs this way. We get told we can’t use law to impose morality because of separation of church and state. I have some objections to that (partly because “don’t tell me what to do” enshrined in law is in fact telling me what to do–there’s a conflict there), but fine. If we want to influence the society, we do it in the private sphere: in our clubs, in our jobs, in our worship, etc. But cases like this suggest that we can’t live out and support our beliefs in private jobs, just as the attack against the Boy Scouts about homosexuality invades our clubs and watchdogging sermons for political advocacy comes inside our churches, all based on the degree (however slight it may be) of state involvement that can be cited. Where exactly then can we try to live and promote our values?
I realize I’m painting with a very broad brush here, but it does strike me that at least some of these movements (not you!!) call for surrender on the part of social conservatives instead of respectful give and take. Lord knows the pendulum can swing too far in the direction of social and moral rigidity, but it can also swing too far in the direction of connectionless, directionless recklessness on the other side of proper freedom. That’s my concern.
Oh, and whether there’s pie involved. That’s always a concern.
Well, while we’re all confusing an issue of principle with trashy real-world stuff like short windows and licenses and such, I would point out that FedEx can get just about anything to you overnight. Even outside Seward.
Now can we leave the world of the practical and get back to the principle?
Jeff:
One way to look at it is that a pharmacist may feel that by distributing a morning after pill, he is terminating a life. Therefore, his decision isn’t about who is requesting the pill, but rather who is affected by taking the pill.
And the whole issue is about taking beliefs out of the distribution of medicine, so a “Catholic” pharmacy or any pharmacy based on a set of beliefs kind of defeats that string of the argument.
Incidentally, when Libertarian radio host Neal Boortz first mentioned this story several weeks ago (I don’t know why it’s just hitting the ‘sphere now), he was strongly on the side of making the pharmacists dispense the pills. So while my position may be described as libertarian, it looks like it’s not the only libertarian position (although I don’t know how Boortz reconciles the use of government force against private property rights in this case).
Barring anything in the state licensing agreement that compells a pharmacist to offer the full spectrum of medicines, I just don’t see how there is any dispute here.
If a private business offers goods or services to one group, and witholds them to other groups based on personal preferences, that is discrimination. If the same business decides it doesn’t want to offer a specific good or service, period, it has the right to do so, regardless of the reason.
Well I am certainly not a libertarian. I am a religious conservative and I can’t believe I am on the side of this issue that I am on since I have clearly stated that I would NOT dispense the morning pill because of my moral beliefs so I simply couldn’t be a pharmacist.
But we don’t live in a Catholic country, we live in a democracy, I don’t like the idea of this drug but it’s there and it’s legal and a pharmacist is bound to dispense drugs that are legal and prescribed. End of story.
Perhaps a cost/benefit analysis should be involved as well. There are no perfect solutions when individual rights conflict. Someone is going to have to put up with an unjust outcome. In most cases, choices within the market do exist. Its only in the rural example where any real hardship outside of inconvenience is placed on the pill purchaser. So perhaps blanket government intervention is not the best choice between two imperfect solutions.
In my opinion its quite dangerous. Even though I may sympathise with the agrieved party, I am hesitant to grant government this additional power over individual property rights.
Ooops. In rereading my post, I think I’m coming across a little too much as “poor persecuted me.” I don’t really mean to, and I’d like to forestall the possible firestorm of “oh, those poor social conservatives, always getting their way and whining that everybody’s out to get them.” I remember an online conversation somewhere in which it was remarked how odd it was that every group felt beleagured and that their opponents were winning all the time. I’d just like to chalk up the above to the “everybody’s fighting a rearguard action” mindset.
While I’m on the subject, something else comes to mind that’s a lot like this—
*snap*
AARGGGH! GOLDSTEIN, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?? I keep THINKING, and I’m not supposed to do that! I’m supposed to come here and marvel at YOU being funny and doing all the heavy lifting! You’re making me work instead of being lazy! Must…find…mind-numbing…site…must…watch…television….
Filled with cleverness diabolical you are, Goldstein.
Interesting stuff. Bear in mind that the “libertarian” position is a theoretical position – we don’t have a libertarian pharmaceutical regime. If we did, anyone could open a pharmacy and it would be legal (instead of just practical) to get any drug you wanted over the Internet. Seems silly to use a libertarian lens to look at something that is currently handled in a statist way.
There’s also a hole in the logic of your position, Christopapalphobic Jeff – you’ve fallen prey to the leftist delusion of positive rights. You don’t have a positive right to an abortion; a “right to an abortion” implies that other people are obliged to provide you with one. You have a negative right: the government can’t stop you from getting one. It’s up to you and your friends to coordinate the necessary infrastructure – and if that means you have to open your own pharmacies, then that’s what you have to do.
Here’s where I come down. Under our current statist regime, I think it’s illegitimate for a pharmacist to exercise individual conscience to give differential treatment to customers. IE, if Pharmacist Pat won’t give me an abortion pill, but will give one to the woman that he likes, then that isn’t right.
However, even under our statist regime, the state can’t make me stock morning-after pills; they can make me dispense them fairly if I do choose to stock them. Moving the decision to this locus serves both the rights of conscience of the pharmacist (or at least the pharmacy owner) – s/he can decline to stock things s/he finds immoral – and the right to not be dicked around with of the patients. Since the people living in the small town know that Pharmacist Pat won’t stock (condoms/morning after pills/Jagermeister), they can make other arrangements in advance. They can lay in a stock of their own (forbidden product here), or establish an account with a reputable online pharmacy that uses FedEx, or whatever.
Here’s the real question: if the left is so solicitous of the rights of women to abort, then why aren’t they using their capital and their lifespans to open pharmacies and clinics serving these rural areas? It seems like they would rather use the issue as a club; “look at the suffering your neanderthal individual-rights theories are leading to!”
George Soros has a lot of billions. Pharmacies – particularly pharmacies that have a competitive edge over their neighbors because they provide services not available elsewhere – aren’t cash sinkholes, they’re profitable. The priorities show the agenda a lot better than the rhetoric does.
Yes, these are absurd examples, but it seems to me government regulation of industry happens all the time, and in one sense it happens in order to define a clear set of base guidelines in order to avoid just this type of individualistic vagary.
Is this not analogous to refusing to “serve†someone based on racialist beliefs?
Jeff, you said yourself that the Green example and the witch example were absurd. I was just agreeing with you.
As far as race is concerned, is there a medication that blacks need that whites don’t? Refusing to serve blacks is very different than refusing to dispense a specific medication. A pharmacist who refuses to dispense morning-after-pills to anyone is still treating everyone equally. A pharmacist who refuses to serve blacks, or homosexuals for that matter, is not treating everyone equally. That’s the difference.
To address your ‘absurd’ arguments, the Green pharmacist (who probably would rather have petro-chemicals used in medicine rather than fuels) would have to prove to the FDA that their substitute was effective in the prescribed treatment. Same with the witch who wanted to switch lipitor with eye of newt and salmon oil. They cannot legally dispense these medications for prescribed treatment without meeting that standard of proof. This is very different than refusing to dispense the morning after pill because of moral objections.
As I said previously, I don’t think you’ve quite bridged the chasm of belief and reason, but that doesn’t make you a bad person, nor do I want to make this personal.
And, for another point, in 2002 there were a large number of news stories about a shortage of pharmacists in the U.S. Assuming this is still the case, do we want to dissuade otherwise able people from entering the field because they are a devout Christian, Jew, Muslim (or just hold that opinion for whatever reason)?
A girl has 3 days to take the medication. It is up to her to see her physician ASAP, get the prescription and fill it. If the only game in town won’t play, there are resources on the internet that will accomadate her.
But this also raises another issue. If a girl requests the morning-after-pill from the only doctor in town and said doctor refuses (presumably because of moral objections), should this doctor be forced by the state to fill it? Unless the doctor advertises himself/herself as a ‘Catholic/Orthodox/Muslim/Mormon’ doctor? Because that is the level of intrusiveness that you are suggesting.
Mr. G.,
Perhaps another element to disagree upon is whether moral and religious questions are innate to dispensing all pills (and, indeed, to all acts). I claim that they are. The pharmacist always acts in a moral framework of some kind, given by his view of what’s good and bad, true and untrue, just and unjust in the world. If he’s a Syzygian, of a wiccan, or an atheist, or a Christian then that informs his moral framework. If we lived in an overwhelmingly wiccan society, then prescribing aspirin instead of eye of newt might look wicked, and the society might scold such a doctor and praise the pharmacist that refused to dispense the prescription.
Thus it seems to me that one basic cause of the uproar is the dissolution of moral consensus in society. We have major blocks of people who have different views of right and wrong, and to say that religion or morality must be left out of consideration is to require the impossible. Some morality will be imposed. All law is the imposition of morality, the legistature’s idea of a good to be enforced or an evil to be proscribed. When the morality of “I have a right to commercially available pills if I have the money and a prescription” butts heads with the morality of “I am prohibited by God from assisting the killing of the unborn”, then we have our current problem.
Incidentally, I distinguish general aid or after-the-fact aid (e.g., housing, medicine to cure a disease) from aid that’s necessary to a specific act that one might deem immoral. Not everyone will, though.
Here are some other questions for the mix: If the euthanasia laws become broadened and easier, would you allow the pharmacist to refuse to fill a prescription for a pill that I can give to my inconvenient grandfather to get him out of the way? If assisted suicide laws are broadened, would you require pharmicists to dispense a death pill to me for my own use if I have a prescription?
HCT
There is a public trust factor that is inherent to any aspect of the medical industry that is in play here that does not apply to restaurants or other types of business. Once you are licensed as legal retailer of, in many cases, life sustaining medications you have a resposibility to provide whatever is considered a legal drug by the FDA. If you do not like selling a particular medication, then you have a right to quit selling medications, not to refuse to fill prescriptions ordered by a doctor.
What if a Phamacist decided he just did not like a particular drug company? Would not carry their products. This is a disservice to those that rely on his company for their health. Doctors and patients have a need, if not a right, to know that pharmacies can and will fill a doctors prescriptions as written.
I am no doctor, but what if a racist pharmacist just decided he would not carry any drugs used to treat sickle-cell? Or HIV medications?
He cannot be compelled to sell anything he does not want to sell or to which he has a moral objection, but he can be compelled into an all or nothing scenario. He can quit the business on moral grounds, but I do not think he should be able to pick and choose which scrips he is going to honor.
Sorry for the lengthy post!
Slarrow,
My blog is pretty mind-numbing, if that’s your thing. I make stupid Mr. Potato Head photoshops.
I haven’t been able to square Boortz’s take on this either, Sobek. Perhaps it has something to do with how the Catholic angle has now been inserted into the debate. In my opinion, the pharmacist’ motivations should not matter to you or I. Its his or her pharmacy, and the reasons behind their decisions are none of our business.
“Its his or her pharmacy, and the reasons behind their decisions are none of our business.”
Are libertarians now just closet anarchists? As a society, we still have a right to expect certain behavior from those we vest with powers that others do not enjoy. Those in the medical community are in that category.
I wonder if this sort of dispute could be adjudicated on a case by case basis, with an extremely high criterion established for allowing a business owner to refuse to sell a legal pharmaceutical or device. For instance, a judge would have to be satisfied that the business owner would be forced to lose his livelihood rather than accede to a demand that he views as unethical and that his refusal would extend to any customer regardless of race, sexual preference, religious belief, perceived moral character, etc.
So, DG, you’re saying that a doctor is exempt from the requirement that he be willing to provide a service. Not by custom, or by oath, but by the state, right?
So a doctor should be compelled to insert new titties in a babe who plainly doesn’t need them in his opinion? Why not just find a doctor willing to do the implants? Why get the state involved?
I can’t see this new “right to expect” trumping an individuals freedom to enter contracts free from state force.
and a pharmacist is bound to dispense drugs that are legal and prescribed. – RightwingSparkle
Actually that is not true. A pharmacist has the legal right not to dispense any prescription for any reason whatsoever. It is not the pharmacist’s job just to do what a doctor tells them.
Doctor’s are woefully underinformed on drugs, from method of action to interactions with other drugs to a host of other things. My wife, the clinical pharmacy coordinator at a hospital, has personally prevented several doctors from killing patients unwittingly. (Doctors prescribing drugs that are removed by the kidneys to patients in kidney failure: i.e. drugs that go in but never come out lead to massive overdoses).
Doctors know diseases, pharmacists know drugs. Neither is equipped to do the others job and both are needed for a well-informed customer.
************************************************
Second, on the question of if there is only one pharmacy practically available…
What if the only pharmacy decides to get out of the business completely because the owner is unwilling to participate in what he believes is the taking of another human life? Should we use the state to compell him to run a particular business for which he’s skilled? Since when can the state determine your occupation?
***********************************************
Third,
If you have no right to healthcare then why do you have to right to have a prescription filled? If you do have the right to be provided with healthcare then socialized medicine isn’t an arguement of principal but of line drawing.
I’m with Goldstein.
The pharmacist has an obligation to provide someone with any FDA approved drug that a physician prescribes. That’s pretty much the rule, and that’s how it should be, especially in an area where refusing to do so could limit the ACCESSIBLITY AND AVAILABILTY. Especially if you’re a pharmacy that honors Medicare/Medicaid, becuase then you’re accepting gov’t funds, and you have to obey the gov’t regs involved.
Sobek: oh, good! Mr. Potato Head is my friend! Why? Because I have a little boy. And we watch Toy Story. And Toy Story 2.
A lot.
(Plus, Lake Tahoe would be improved if it were full of green Jell-O. But the Sesame Street gang is just creepy.)
Hey, my brain feels better already!
“So, DG, you’re saying that a doctor is exempt from the requirement that he be willing to provide a service. Not by custom, or by oath, but by the state, right?”
Not sure if I understand the question. Custom and oath are nice, but who will enforce them if an individual decides that they are not to his liking? The state has a right to act in this capacity, a right that we have granted it.
“So a doctor should be compelled to insert new titties in a babe who plainly doesn’t need them in his opinion? Why not just find a doctor willing to do the implants? Why get the state involved?”
I understand why you make the comparison, but here we get into the difference in job descriptions between doctors and pharmacists. A doctor is under no requirement to perform what is deemed as ‘elective surgery’ where a pharmacist has no legal capacity to determine which prescriptions are elective.
It is simply not in his job description as defined by either the state or the association of pharmacists he voluntarily makes himself a member of.
“I can’t see this new “right to expect†trumping an individuals freedom to enter contracts free from state force. “
So, a pharmacist should be able to prescribe and fill the prescriptions of Cannabis if he feels it best suits his individual freedom?
The state, and the society it serves, must be able to have a say in the requirements of those that we vest greater rights to. The man has the power to dispense drugs that you or I would be sent to jail for selling. With this come a responsibility, and a code of ethics, to trust the judgment of those further upstream in the health care profession, namely the doctors.
Shank hits a good argument that I could be comfortable with
When I worked for the Post Office (and I’m a former Marine. Talk about stereotypes!) I was refused a job because my sex organs dangled, and while quite large, not quite black enough. The reason I was denied a (fulltime with bennies) job was because in order to get $$$ from Uncle Sam, the Post Office had to meet quotas. We had to have a certain percentage of ovary-carriers and minorities (and I’m technically a minority, just don’t claim it).
So, in order to be able to accept Medicaid/care payments from Uncle Sam, I have no problem with them also requiring you to stock / dispense X, Y, & Z. Otherwise, say adios to your cash cow.
That’s the best combo of free market / statist I can think of so far.
Well put Shank.
Here is another hypothetical since we are bringing up breasts implants in babies and so forth…
Suppose the morning after pill is manufactured by a pharm company that also produces the nation’s leading 2 allergy prescrip meds, leading blood pressure med and leading acid reflux med, among many others.
Do they have the right, as a business owner, to refuse to sell ANY of their products to this pharmacist, in moral objection to his moral objection? Even if it puts this pharmacist out of business because he cannot provide his clientelle the most prescribed, non-sexual activity related, medications on the market?
I think they must have that right by the same logic being used to support this pharmacist.
Actually I think an addendum is needed to this last.
“With this come a responsibility, and a code of ethics, to trust the judgment of those further upstream in the health care profession, namely the doctors. “
If the pharmacist knows, or suspects, that the prescription would in fact harm the individual (drug interactions) or was obtained through false pretenses (think pill junkies), then he is not under obligation to fill it.
on another note, I see several people whose links lead to their blog, however, when I try to include mine i get a message declaring it was denied because a “blacklisted item was found”
What is that all about Jeff?
Sorry, I misread the post about implants in babes, the poster did not mean babies. Which is good, because that would be creepy when I pick up my kid from daycare.
Blame trackback spam, I guess. I haven’t banned or blacklisted any blogger’s IP address or site name. I don’t know what the problem is, to be honest. My suggestion is that you sign up as a member and see if that solves the problem.
Of course, then I OWN you.
In all seriousness, though, I have no idea why this is happening, other than you may have an IP dress similar to one banned during the expurgation of a trackback spam attack.
CIA, I could only imagine the conversation
Lady: Here’s your daughter
You: WTF? What happened to her chest?
Lady: Double-D’s were on sale
You: The 32 C’s you gave her yesterday wasn’t enough?
The state has a right to act in this capacity, a right that we have granted it.
Have we? Can you think of another example where we have forced a merchant to sell a product?
<i>It is simply not in his job description as defined by either the state or the association of pharmacists he voluntarily makes himself a member of. </i>
I’m not sure you are correct here. If he is contractually bound by his state license or his membership in some trade group, that would certainly figure in here. He freely entered that contract after all. But I’m not sure such contract exists.
<i>So, a pharmacist should be able to prescribe and fill the prescriptions of Cannabis if he feels it best suits his individual freedom? </i>
Come on. This has nothing to do with pharmacists prescribing anything or breaking any laws. We’re veering off course. Until then, your argument was as well constructed as any I had seen.
With this come a responsibility, and a code of ethics, to trust the judgment of those further upstream in the health care profession, namely the doctors.
This part if your argument I can accept, but why the state should be the enforcer rather than market forces or trade groups or licensing boards i have yet to see explained.
Thanks Jeff, I did not think you feared the power of my blog enough to ban me!
Marble, I got to admit though, watching her learn to walk with a set of double D’s on her would probably be pretty funny.
spongeworthy —
Pharmacists are not simple merchants, but rather licensed practicioners who, by virtue of becoming licensed practicioners, need to adhere to the laws of the state that licenses them.
The government requires representatives of many industries to meet particular standards. I’ll ask a again: if a pharmacist is able to decide what to dispense based on his individual creed, why not extend that “right” to every other business owner who happens to have a particular moral objection to something or other? Can the libertarian owner of a car dealership conscientiously object the abrogation of freedom symbolized by seatbelts, and so pull all the seat belts from his inventory?
Sure. But then he’d open himself up to prosecution. What’s the difference?
(meanwhile, I have a radio show to prepare for).
Interesting stuff. Bear in mind that the “libertarian†position is a theoretical position – we don’t have a libertarian pharmaceutical regime. If we did, anyone could open a pharmacy and it would be legal (instead of just practical) to get any drug you wanted over the Internet. Seems silly to use a libertarian lens to look at something that is currently handled in a statist way.
Praise the Lord. Someone gets it.
Jeff, thanks for your follow-up comment. I’ll throw out the answers I’ve used when I interviewed for a series of… assignments:
If I found myself in an ethically/morally dubious situation requiring action, I would likely refuse and face the consequences.
If it was an ethically/morally dubious situation but the refusal would exacerbate the situation, then I would find someone or something to address it that did not require my involvement beyond the finding.
If I knew an assignment would, at some point, legally compel me to take an action I found ethically/morally wrong, I would refuse the assignment, or with no other option, go to another line of work.
It’s worked for nearly thirty years. And yes, I have switched careers because of that.
Now I’ll go back on hiatus.
Jeff, in your example the car dealer would be selling an illegal product. Are you sure that’s an accurate parallel?
And does the state license amount to a contract? If it does indeed require the pharmacist to dispense whatever the prescription orders (which is unlikely considering the interaction thing) then he has forfeited his autonomy argument willfully. But I suspect there is no such contract.
Libertarians might argue that seatbelts are state abridgement of their right to drive unfettered, but they shouldn’t (and don’t, really) argue that we have a right to break a law we don’t agree with.
If it can be found in law that the druggist entered the profession knowing he contracted to dispense whatever he was asked, then I concede this issue. But I suspect that’s not the case here.
Forget the labels of liberal / conservative / libertarian as that’s an easy shortcut to get out of an argument without dealing with the problem.
The issue here is does the pharmacist have the right to dispense whatever medications he or she wishes? The law states that a doctor must prescribe a controlled medication before the pharmacist can give it out. Does the same law state that the doctor must prescribe certain drugs? What checks do we require on the doctor to ensure he’s not putting his moral beliefs in his diagnosis.
And John, out of all the people on the blogosphere, you surprise me the most with siding with the statist argument. The state is whoever is elected. If the state government is made up of evangelical snake handlers, then the argument for letting the state decide means bye bye birth control of any kind, no nudie mags behind the counter, and you can forget replenishing the Vaseline you used up last week.
You seem happy enough to let the state decide when they agree with you. What do you do when they don’t? That’s why I take the stance that the pharmacist should be allowed to sell what he wants.
IMHO, the liscencing argument is not compelling. The liscence is issued to insure that pharmacists meet a minimum level of training and competancy. I have not seen any imformation yet that leads me to believe the agreement you describe is entered into when obtaining said liscence. This would not be an issue were that the case case. Besides, can the government force a Ford dealership to sell Chevys? What if the Ford dealer is the only game in town? Can it force Alfalfa’s to sell hormone-injected beef
?
“Praise the Lord. Someone gets it.”
DON’T YOU FORCE YOUR RELIGION DOWN MY THROAT YOU FILTHY THEOCRAT!!!
Sharp as a Marble- IF I had my way, I would have this stuff be OTC, and outside of the state’s domain altogether.
However, the fact is that this is already approached from a statist position, so having all these discussions about a free market are pointless, and what it boils down to now is that we have to create a mechanism so that people can get their drugs, even when some pharmacist gets all wound up about his conscience.
What is worse- a statist system that by allowing individual consciences to roam free, people are denied medical treatment, or a statist system that requires a few pharmacists to find other work or to dispense a drug they don’t like?
It is a lose/lose situation, but I choose the latter scenario.
John,
So you accept the statist scenario where the government elects to not allow pharmacists to give out X drug nor sell porno? Happens in some ways already. I can’t buy booze until after church lets out on Sunday because some pastor apparently wants to ensure there’s enough Schlitz for his congregation. And you’re ok with that?
Nobody is being denied medication. You don’t have the right to have it supplied to you in the first place. There are plenty of markets to choose from. FedEx has good overnight shipping. Or heaven forbid, your health is so important to you that you are forced to drive an extra 30 minutes to another pharmacy.
My argument isn’t made to inject libertarianism into the world, it’s meant to protect you and me from the government being the sole decider in these issues. Yeah, I don’t agree with the pharmacist any more than I agree with the KKK having a rally but I’m not about to just suck it up when the state decides to shut down the parade.
And by the way I’m 100% ok with OTC’ing everything under the sun, so I can agree with your argument in that way
I don’t understand why someone just won’t answer this question: is there any point at which a private property owner’s conscience—if he wishes to deal in commerce with the public—MUST BE SUBSUMED to a larger societal decision (for instance, the convention that pharmacies dispense pharmaceuticals to those with prescriptions)? At what point does an individual’s conscience cease to matter?
Yes it is loose/loose for someone, but the latter scenario is much more unjust. The only reason this is even an issue is the offending pharmacist happens to be the only game in town. Most of us would have other choices to call upon, and would be able to solve the problem having only experienced inconvenience. As I said before, I sympathize with the individual who could not get her prescription. I do not agree with the pharmacist. But I am not prepared to allow the government to step in and violate this man’s property rights. His motivations are not important, but I get the feeling that they are influencing those arguing from the other side. This is an issue of property rights at its core. A law, a broad-based government solution, would have far-reaching effects on all of us.
Porno and booze are different. In pharmaceuticals, you have a product, a person dispensing a product, and a person prescribing the product under scrutiny.
With booze and porn the regulations are much less stringent- anyone over 18 can buy porn, anyone over 21 can buy booze (with some exceptions- it is illegal to sell booze to n alcoholic).
Personally, I detest blue laws, but we are arguing apples and oranges again.
Jeff, yes. There is a point. That point is malleable and fickle as it depends on who is in power. While I feel the pharm has the right to deny a patient X because he does not like the drug, I would hope he would spend a large chunk of time in jail if he didn’t sell it because the person was black.
But if you want to force him to a larger societal decision, please don’t cry when the Jesuit Arm of the Republican Christian Army is in power and makes said decisions.
This is why I like transparency requirements instead of regulation. I’d prefer that, in order to do business in the state of {blank}, you must post your business license in a place where people will see it upon immediately entering your store. On the license will be any governmental suggestions as to a ‘socially concious’ business and which ones you do not adhere to. Then the consumer can see that you don’t sell to blacks, Jews, midgets, and people with bad breath and can decide for yourself if this is the type of establishment you wish to shop in.
Like any self-respecting citizen who came of age in the 70s, I get all of my pharmaceuticals on the streets and dark alleyways. Just sayin’. . .
bennet
IMO, it is not just an issue of property rights. It is an issue of individual liberty vs societal good. To take a strict property right example to the extreme would require that that you allow a man to publicly execute puppies on his front lawn. He owns both the puppies and the lawn, so what right does society have to tell him he can’t.
Jeff asks a good question about what level a man should subjugate his own conscience. The answer I have is never. The pharmacist is well within his rights to stop being a pharmacist anytime he wants. There is no state law compelling him to continue in a profession that he now finds morally objectionable.
In case anyone is interested, here is the pharmacist’s code of ethics.
http://www.uspharmd.com/rxcode.htm
I am not sure how this is a property rights issue. No one is suggesting taking away his store. We are suggesting taking away his license to do what we already regulate heavily.
And again, it is a lose/lose situation.
Ok, John. I disagree with the a&o reference since I don’t think the deciding factor is stringency.
But I’ll ask again. When Pat Robertson miraculously gets elected governer of your state and somehow the state legislature is filled with fundies, are you still willing to accept the state’s regulations in pharmaceuticals? You yourself recognize religion as a tool to control people, so this isn’t as far out as one would hope.
Another thing to remember is that the pharmacist in question did not stock the drug in question. He couldn’t fill it if he all of a sudden decided to follow wiccanism. Should the state require he have certain drugs in stock too? If not, then all this is a moot point.
Not trying to be difficult, I’m just trying to find out where the point is where everyone’s comfortable with the state’s involvement.
Jeff, did I answer your question?
Well here’s an interesting scenario:
A pharmacist denies someone the morning after pill, because as a practicing Catholic, he feels its against his religion. The state comes in, and relieves him of his position, because of his unwillingness to distribute the pill, which is because of his religion. So, in essence, the state has terminated him because of his religion. So now what do you do?
And it seems easy to say that the man shouldn’t be a pharmacist because of his beliefs, but RU 486 is a relatively new drug, and what if the pharmacist began his practice prior to the drug being on the market?
you have to be careful, because it’s not that pharmacists won’t sell drugs to blacks or homosexuals, because that would be wrong. the pharmacists won’t sell this *drug*. to anyone.
the car dealer wouldn’t have any cars to sell because none come sans seatbelts.
rather than whining and complaining to the state to make things *fair* maybe people should boycott any pharmacy that doesn’t fill such a prescription. that way, pharmacies in turn will screen potential religious zealots from fucking up peoples hormonal cycles.
much in the same way as a potential jury is screened for the death penalty: you don’t agree with capital punishment and will/could not, with good conscience, apply it?
then you’re excused.
a bartender doesn’t have to sell a drop of booze to anyone if he/she choses. should a drunk be able to force him to?
Another element to throw into the mix: If we’re asking the question about whether the State can use its police power to force someone to do something, I hope that the First Amendment freedom of religion at least plays some role. If, because of religious beliefs, the pharmacist does not want to dispense drugs that lead cause a mother to murder her child, we ought to think long and hard before using government power to force that pharmacist to choose between giving up either a) his religious convictions (contra the First Amendment), or b) his proprietary interest in his business (contra the Takings clause).
These are no small concerns.
When Pat Robertson miraculously gets elected governer of your state and somehow the state legislature is filled with fundies, are you still willing to accept the state’s regulations in pharmaceuticals? You yourself recognize religion as a tool to control people, so this isn’t as far out as one would hope.
The state already regulates drugs, so I am not sure what else to say. Don’t vote for Pat Robertson.
Regardless, I am not asking the state to regulate drugs, I am asking them to regulate pharmacists- if you want to be a pharmacist, you have to respect the patient/physician relationship, and dispense safely drugs, even if you don’t like them.
And, if pharmacists would adhere to the code listed above, this would not be an issue
Forget all the moral and religious blarney, and cut it down to the free market path (individuals demanding and business supplying), versus the regulatory path (government, under threat of force, mandating what goods and services must be offered).
Under the theory that it is the exception that proves rule, we have the case of one pharmacist (and I’ll even grant that there are more than 10) that chooses not to carry an item in his inventory–for whatever reason. This is cause for government intervention?
For the chance that someone lives in a one pharmacy town–yet has a physician that will prescribe the drug–but the patient needs to drive an hour to another pharmacy to get the script filled. This is a cause for government intervention?
Really people, get a grip. How far are you willing to go to have more and more power vested in centralized government authority that imposes one-size-fits-all solutions, which at the same time diminishes your freedom, liberty, and right to choose how to order your life? Because the purpose of government is to guarantee that there will be no hardships, or adverse outcomes in life, of any sort?
Time is on the side of goodness and right
– in this case not being the Right.
Thank god for large soulless corporations which are gobbling up local Mom and Pop pharamacies at an alarming clip. They won’t be as concerned about principal as an individual pharmacist might be … unless they take the Chick-Fil-A model and decide to stay closed on Sunday.
Thank god too for the influx of Pharmacists of Color from the mostly non-Christian Far Beyond to take these Pharmacists jobs as well.
The American desire not to excel in science or pursue a rigorous course of study in actual useful stuff, unlike philosophy, will ultimately make the Morning After pill kerfuffle irrelevant. My Hindu pharmacist who works at SavMor will be more than happy to fill the script.
And it seems easy to say that the man shouldn’t be a pharmacist because of his beliefs, but RU 486 is a relatively new drug, and what if the pharmacist began his practice prior to the drug being on the market?
The morning after pill isn’t RU-486. This isn’t an abortion issue.
The morning after pill isn’t RU-486. This isn’t an abortion issue.
Fair enough, but the point still stands. And the morning after pill is an abortion issue to a Catholic.
Jeff, if you’re asking whether there are ever any circumstances where the state should trump a man’s conscience, then you are asking a very good question. In theory, no. In practice obviously it happens constantly. A man is forced into service and to kill. We are forced to pay taxes to fund immoral things.
But this is not one of those things. The discussion here is whether the state should compel a man into a contract in order to serve a societal goal. You may advocate it and it may be in this case proper (I think otherwise) but you cannot call yourself a free market advocate or a libertarian and do so.
Well, you can but people will laugh at you like they do at me. And trust me, you don’t want to live like this.
DG, I am a photographer as a side gig. Got my own business and everything. Luckily for me, I currently am not required to have a license to shoot & sell pictures. At least not statewide (many counties require it).
I shoot weddings. I am gay*. I am very, very uncomfortable shooting heterosexual weddings as they are usually full of references meant to demean me and my lifestyle. Some call it bigotry, but it’s the way I feel. Should the state mandate that I have a license, should they also have the right to determine what types of jobs I do?
I’m the only photographer in my area. It’s rural. And I take great shots. But I don’t want to shoot straights. Do the bride and groom have the right to have their wedding day imortalized on film?
Yes I know it’s not a perfect example as photography doesn’t (generally) have health issues. But many states do license very many professions and I can’t see how it’s the states’ responsibility to dtermine how those businesses run.
In short, does a license give you the right to run a business or does it mandate how you run your business?
*This is an example. I am not actually gay. Seriously. That pass at Goldstein the other day was a result of medication! Really! Lot’s of straight guys like showtunes..
Bumperstickerist-
Do you have a white hood I could borrow?
Or was that satire in your last post.
“While I feel the pharm has the right to deny a patient X because he does not like the drug, I would hope he would spend a large chunk of time in jail if he didn’t sell it because the person was black. “
This is the problem I have with this type of argument Marble…
You are imposing your own arbitrary judgement on the scenario. You think his denial of service based on his personal moral beliefs (whether inspired by family, church or inner moral compass) should be protected in the case of the drug, but he should be jailed for those same beliefs in the case of race. Either his personal moral beliefs are protected or they are not. If we, or the government, start deciding which moral beliefs we will allow and which we will not, then that is the same as just telling the guy what he has to sell.
So I think you either have to compell him to sell the drug, or allow him to deny service because someone is black. Having it both ways is just a transferral of who gets to pass judgement on him based on someone else’s belief. And I do not believe we should allow him to deny service based on race, so it is also ok to require him to sell the drug.
Obviously it is not breaking new ground to say that someone’s moral belief that another race is inferior to their own is not protected. We force businesses everyday to comply with society’s moral compass, not their own. You cannot refuse to hire someone based on their race, despite personal beliefs, so the government can declare your personal beliefs immaterial, and do so quite often. In the case of bigotry this is considered acceptable, and rightfully so.
I have read that some people claim that the bible prohibits mixed race marriage. I do not know or care myself, but if this same pharmacist believed it is the will of his god that races should not mix, would you support his right to deny service to un-Godly mixed race couples? I mean, who are we to force him to do something that he says his religion is against? He is a private business man after all.
what if the pharmacist has been filling prescriptions since 1949, and then all of the sudden, this new drug comes out that compromises his/her core values and beliefs? should the pharmacist quit?
or should you take your prescription elsewhere?
or do you prefer them to be a cog in a machine?
If his/her core values prohibit him from filling a prescription for a legal drug, written by a legally licensed MD for a patient that it is legal to recieve it, then yes, he or she needs to hang it up.
And if there refusal to deal in the morning after pill is based on religious based, catholic style moral objection, then they should be able to prove that their store never accepted money any type of contraception (pills or condoms), never sold viagra (sex is for procreation only, not pleasure, so old men should be ashamed for wanting to get laid), etc…
Chris in Alabama you said that:
You are imposing your own arbitrary judgement on the scenario. You think his denial of service based on his personal moral beliefs (whether inspired by family, church or inner moral compass) should be protected in the case of the drug, but he should be jailed for those same beliefs in the case of race.
The problem with that line of reasoning is that religious practice is protected by law. I’m pretty sure that descrimination based on race is not.
CIA, what you’re questioning is if there is really anything called ‘Private Business’ since you cannot make any decision you want.
My point I’m trying to make is that moral compass points to whatever north the people in power says it is and I’m not comfortable with that. Morals are a construct. Even your statement that everyone knows blacks are equal are only because a majority of people feel the same way. At least here in America. In other countries, having a minority status is pretty rough.
Again, I have no problem with a store that refuses to sell to anyone who is not black or a club that doesn’t serve drinks to non-gays or a doctor who will only deliver babies of ‘mixed races’*. So long they are transparent about their actions, I am confident that the majority of people will not approve and not do business with them.
We already use the free market system to decide the government, right?
*I hate that term.
Sharp
Don’t worry; the fact that my fiancée gets me to go to Broadway shows doesn’t make me gay either. It would not matter to me either way if you were.
As to your question, I think that the issue is not applicable because there is no greater societal good served by forcing you to take pictures of marriages, gay or otherwise. I believe that the only time you should be able to legislate morality is when it serves as a protection for the society at large. Do photographers have a code of ethics?
A pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription based solely on his moral beliefs is putting himself above the societal needs that he has taken an oath to protect.
Spongeworthy
“A man is forced into service and to kill. We are forced to pay taxes to fund immoral things.”
Not exactly. As a human being you have a right not to pay taxes or to kill for your country. You do not have a right to do so without paying the consequences for your beliefs or actions. The choice is still yours, free will is still applicable.
Thanks Jeff for providing this forum for what is a great topic of conversation.
Marc,
I know, but religious practice is not protected by law when it calls for descrimination of others, correct? The point is, the protection for religion only goes so far, then it cuts off.
If your religion, bible, koran thingy, declares that all people who are not like you are inferior and you should not do business with them, the government does not care. You cannot descriminate, even if it is/were mandated by your religion. So religion is only protected by law to a certain extent, then the law says your religious beliefs are immaterial.
I stated in my post that descrimination is not and should not be legal. The point is that everybody is just picking different places in which it is okay to infringe on a person’s rights as a business owner. Even though some folks think that they are, nobody is actually saying that the pharmacist’s rights to run his private business anyway he chooses should be protected. Everyone so far is more than willing to infringe upon his rights, just at some other level other than requiring him to sell the pill.
So if it is okay to compel him to run his business a certain way on other levels, then what is the issue with telling him he has to sell this drug?
DG, the larger good does not = morning after patients. Single issues do not make the case to have state intervention.
Sharp, No you are right, but having pharmacists impose their moral beliefs upon the patients who rely on them for medical care sure does. A position, I might remind you, which is at odds with the code of ethics for the profession.
I find myself in an odd position in this case, as I loathe giving the state more power as a general rule.
Sharp,
My wife and I have gone through various stages of certification in preparation for adopting through the state. We will probably get a baby that had parents of different races and the term “baby of mixed-race” has not been considered politically incorrect in either of the states in which we have been involved in the foster/adopt program.
Somehow, and I am as to blame as anyone, this got off of moral objection to racial descrimination. I suppose because it illustrates that the government may not mandate your beliefs, but it absolutely mandates your actions on those beliefs, so doing it in the case of the pill is not treading on previously untouched territory.
2 questions. Sharp, you brought up the scenario of the gay photographer that does not like to shoot straights. What about a white photographer that does not like to shoot blacks? If the gay photographer is within his right to deny service to a straight couple willing to pay his listed fee for services, then the same applies to the racial question. Something you stated previously you would support incarceration for.
Second, back on pharmacists and moral objection. If he can refuse to fill prescriptions for the pill based on religious/moral objection, then certainly he is within his right to refuse service to a single pregnant woman trying to fill a scrip for prenatal vitamins, right? Sex out of wedlock, having children in sin and all that.
Suppose it is a woman with a long since diagnosed medical condition that will kill her if she tries to carry a child and she has a scrip for the morning after pill because she was drugged and date raped? Is it really morally justified to deny her? Should we have to justify to a pharmacist why we deserve to have him fill our order?
We can come up with dozens of hypotheticals which can be supported or shot down at will, but the fact remains that we already tell business everyday that their personal beliefs are irrelavant, so telling a licensed pharmacist he has to fill legally approved presciptions is minor compared to the cumpulsory behaviors and actions we already demand of private business.
Chris, you can get prenatals OTC.
As well, the question isn’t about treating customers differently, but whether a pharmacist can refuse to dispense a drug at all. The former is vastly different from the latter.
In Canada, one pharmacist has reached an agreement with her employer and the provincial liscencing board for pharmacists to allow her to refuse to fill prescriptions for the morning after pill. If her employer is cool with it, and she performs the rest of her duties in a competent manner, why should the government care?
http://www.wcr.ab.ca/news/2004/1018/pills101804.shtml
People fearful of impending theocracy should look into the province of Alberta and see if this really is a bleak future. Having grown up there (albeit, having left 17 years ago), I’m kinda partial to the place.
I agree that a pharmacy should have the right to fire someone if they refuse to fill a prescription on non-health-related grounds, though with the current shortage of pharmacists, employers may also decide to make accomadations for conscientious objectors (Jon, there’s your free market principal) in order to keep otherwise productive employees. The pharmacist is selling their labor, and so their moral objections can be over-ridden. But when a pharmacist owns their own shop, even if it is the only one in town (appart from the reach of on-line pharmacies), they should have the right to not sell something as long as they apply that rule evenly.
At least, that’s the type of rule I’d want to live under.
I think I’ve figured out why this doesn’t bother me yet not catering to whites would.
In this situation, nobody’s civil rights are being harmed. This isn’t about blacks, gays, Jews, or hairlisps. This is about a drug, not an individual or group.
If the pharmacy / pharmacists wishes to exclude a particular group, I’ll be the first to grab some rope. But since he is refusing to sell it to ANYONE, tough noogie. No civil rights have been violated.
For example, is American Eagle racist because they don’t cater their attire to the hip-hop crowd? No, they simply want to cater to a specific audience and therefor do not carry a particular type of clothing. Clothing is just as much a neccessity as medicine just not as urgent at any particular moment.
So disregard my gay example as it truly is an apples to oranges comparison.
NO link??
What is this, print?
”Yes, these are absurd examples, but it seems to me government regulation of industry happens all the time, and in one sense it happens in order to define a clear set of base guidelines in order to avoid just this type of individualistic vagary.
My best friend and I argued about this for two hours last night: Where we split company on this issue seems to be the very fact of the “pharmacist’s license.” Which, in effect, in America, requires that you ask the government’s permission to pursue happiness in the way you choose.
Murder and fraud are already against the law, and the license, a further guarantee against murder and fraud (which gurantees absolutely nothing), is nothing but the government making itself more a part of your life than it was before.
It is a compromise between freedom and despotism, and of course historically there is no way for the compromise to stand.
That’s why I’m not reassured by this “happens all the time” bit, because, yeah, it happens all the time. It happens even more often in Canada, and even more often in Denmark, and the more often it happens the less self-determining its people are “allowed” to be. It’s not that I don’t think America, as it is, is wonderful and free. But I can still demand that that it be more like itself–more wonderful, and more free.
Freedom is, of course, wildly dangerous and inconvenient. And on the other hand security and ease are in almost all cases a mirage.
The government cannot “provide” either, accept by theft and bondage.
John Cole:
”However, the fact is that this is already approached from a statist position, so having all these discussions about a free market are pointless, and what it boils down to now is that we have to create a mechanism so that people can get their drugs, even when some pharmacist gets all wound up about his conscience.”
This is open and utter statism and acquiesance to tyranny.
That “wound up about” bit makes me want to curl up and weep.
<i>specially-trained and government licensed dispensor of prescription medication</i>
The fact that we have a licensing regime doesn’t answer the basic question—what should be the scope of a government’s powers to control a pharamcist’s behavior. To say that the gov’t should be allowed to control pharmacists’ behavior in one respect because it already does so in another respect is circular reasoning.
The larger question is: what is the scope of a legitimate licensing scheme?
All licensing regimes are sold to the public as public safety measures. They exist to ensure that those who hold themselves out in certain vocations are, in fact, competent to do their jobs. The theory is that consumers can’t readily verify this competence, so the government does it for them.
But licensing schemes are regularly abused by governments. They are abused most often to provide existing licensees with job-protection. This is what a cartel is—a group of merchants who agree among themselves to divide the market, while using some form of FORCE to keep new competitors from entering the market. It’s a typical barrier-to-entry scheme.
Of course, like all barriers to entry, the consumer suffers. They are simply artifical means of inflating prices and stifling competitive pressures. And they all rely on the use of aggressive force—to lock out potential competitors from pursuing a vocation of their choosing.
Licensing schmes are also abused in the manner that you (and others) are suggesting—to accomplish politically popular results. The pharmacist who chooses to do business with some customers and not others (or by distributing certain products and not others) is conducting his business in a completely VOLUNTARY manner.
The problem with your suggestion is that all economic transactions ought to be allowed to proceed on the basis of mutually voluntary terms. If either party refuses, no sale. No one should be FORCED to enter into transactions (or forcibly prevented from entering into them).
Yes, these are absurd examples, but it seems to me government regulation of industry happens all the time
They are not absurd examples at all. They are not all that different from, say, grocery stores or other types of merchants that (either for ethical or purely economic motivations) sell (or refuse to sell) certain classes of goods.
Clearly, you (and others here) may feel squeamish about allowing a pharmacist to make his own decisions about who his customers will be or what products he will sell. The likely reason for your difficulty lies in the fact that prescription drugs have life-and-death and other medical consequences. In contrast, if some clothing store won’t sell me anything other than all-hemp t-shirts, then no one is going to suffer a medical problem as a result.
[regulation] happens in order to define a clear set of base guidelines in order to avoid just this type of individualistic vagary.
What is the problem with vagary? When it comes to a variety in choices in food, for example, we consider a diversity of merchants to be good. People want different things, so it is good to have choices.
Again, people seem squeamish because they probably imagine someone going to The Catholic Pharmacy and being turned down for some drug and not having an alternative.
This is not a realistic problem. Markets adapt. If a grocery store in downtown San Francisco will not sell grapes, then whoever does will have a larger market. Same with drugs.
But the moral problem here is that the solution you propose essentially compels the Catholic Pharmacist to engage in a transaction by force.
Is this not analogous to refusing to “serve†someone based on racialist beliefs? Should these same pharmacy owners be allowed to refuse service to homosexuals?
It is very much analagous. Both situations involve a merchant deciding who his customers will be and what products he will sell.
The question is: do we want to live under a governmental authority that forces people to either engage in transactions (or forcibly prevents them from doing so)?
Or do we deserve to be free from gov’t force and coercion when we engage in peaceful commercial transactions on a mutually voluntary basis?
I vote for freedom from coercion. I vote for allowing all behavior and transactions to be mutually voluntary (as long as they are peaceful, of course).
<object the abrogation of freedom symbolized by seatbelts, and so pull all the seat belts from his inventory?</em>
Jeff, you know I love you, but this argument is way off base.
Even a libertarian can beleive in such things as the right to enforce one’s contracts.
This can be easily extended to such things as product liability or other negligence causes of action.
I believe in the right to be free from governmental forcce as long as you conduct your life in a peaceful, non-violent manner. I also believe that people should be held liable for breaching their commercial promises (i.e., contracts), and for causing injury to people through acts of negligence or sale of dangerous products. Holding people liable in this manner requires the use of force, but justified force.
Removing seat belts makes the product defective and inherently dangerous. (This is true regardless of whether the government bureacracy in charge of auto safety says so.)
Holding someone liable for the injuries that his negligence or defective products cause has nothing to do with the fundamental right that we all enjoy (as human beings) to be free from corecion while we engage in mutually voluntary, peaceful behavior.
Finn Mc Cool,
Thank you for existing.
Will you marry me?
For those claiming an all medicines or nothing approach:
Ya’ll do realize there are almost no pharmacies that do that right?
Try walking into CVS or Walgreens with a prescription for a cream that must be compounded (a custom blend). Most of them don’t even have the equipment (things like hoods) required to make them.
They may have the individual drugs on hand, but they don’t make them because the business has deemed them unprofitable. They’ll just send you out the door empty handed. They will, however, usually inform you of a pharmacy that does provide them.
Is turning away a customer because it’s not worth their time any better or worse than turning them away for moral reasons.
And BTW, there is a big difference between refusing to treat someone because of their ‘sin’ and refusing to act in your own ‘sin’. The pharm may not have witheld the drug because of her ‘sin’ or desire to commit ‘sin’ (whatever the hell that is), but out of a desire not to commit his own sin.
How many would blame the gun shop owner for not selling a gun to someone who told you he was going to kill his wife with it?
we have to create a mechanism so that people can get their drugs, even when some pharmacist gets all wound up about his conscience
We already have one. The mechanism you describe is the free market.
What winds me up, as a matter of conscience, is when people force others (or vote for the use of force) to do something (or refrain from doing something) against their will.
When that force is used to prevent or remedy crimes, or breaches of promises, or injuries caused by negligence, it is justified.
But force is not justified when it is used against someone who is (literally) minding his own business and not infringing on anyone else’s life, liberty or property.
Finn Mc Cool, Thank you for existing. Will you marry me?
You are welcome. But I am taken.
Whew! For a minute there I was beginning to think I was in the wrong.
I’d still like Jeff’s opinion if his question has been answered since, if not, I’d feel compelled by the power of GANNON COCK to comply.
Hmmmm.
To my knowledge Pharmacists can choose which medications to stock because some medications are simply not profitable to stock at all. I.e. they’re used so infrequently that stocking such medications creates an undue drain on the business. Some medications are more often prescribed and so they’ll end up being stocked. Other medications, such as Renagel, aren’t used by an enormous number of people so it’s fairly rare for a pharmacy to stock it. Additionally I believe pharmacies generally have to purchase substantial quantities of medications in order to gain any sort of profitability. While you can buy 1 pill, as a retail customer, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to do so as a wholsale customer.
Then there’s the issue of education as pharmacists must be fully informed about the medications they dispense. Pharmacists who dispense medications without knowing what they’re dispensing are probably overdue for a lawsuit.
That said:
1. If an area is remote and rural, just how often would the morning-after pill be required? A case could probably be made that stocking the pill at all would tie up the pharmacists capital with no real return on it.
2. I may be wrong on this but it was my understanding that the morning-after pill also can cause users to bleed out and die. I’m not sure if a pharmacist would be shielded from a lawsuit if this were to happen. If not shielded, then that is a possible consideration.
3. While we’re discussing the medical profession and what’s required of them I think I need to point out something fairly basic. I don’t know of a single surgeon or hospital that would give someone, who didn’t need it, surgery just because they wanted it.
I.e. if you, a healthy person, walked into a hospital and demanded to be operated on with open heart surgery, they’d refuse. Then, if you continued demanding it, they’d call security.
My point being that medical professionals can refuse demands.
4. If a doctor prescribed pot, would a pharmacist have to stock it?
5. Frankly a lot of professions are regulated, I don’t think that’s a great argument for forcing pharmacists to stock medications that they don’t want to stock.
6. I’d leave it all to the market. If there’s a great need for this pill then someone will sell it.
code: word
It seems to me you’ll all forgotten the major reason for gov. licensing pharmacists in the first place. It’s to make sure that they understand the law they are to follow and to make sure they have the education necessary to not kill anyone and to ensure compliance with liability law in case they do.
None of this is meant to suggest to suggest that the pharmacist serves at the pleasure of the state, but is regulatory for the safety of the people.
Regardless of any microbrew-swilling, cooler-than-thou libertarian jackass who skews the meaning of liberty so his fat girlfriend can abort his sprog (in the rare occasion he can actually attain a full erection) the true libertarian position is that the pharmacist reserves his or her right not to serve human pesticide and kill a child, regardless of the ignorance of the customer’s desire for same.
And the stupid attempts at equating not serving blacks and homos is just that stupid. Apples to hay bales.
I AM STUPID!
STUPID STUPID JEFF!
I am going to pretend you’re not referring to me as a homebrewer with libertarian leanings.
And I call you on your licensed for safety BS. What does your pharmacist’s license look like? I bet you don’t even know where it is. Have you checked to make sure it’s current? Are you sure? Did you check with the state to ensure he’s legit?
Feel safer yet?
How about smarter? Until you came along, the tone of the conversation has been very even keeled. Thanks.
And I’m a libertarian (with fully functioning genitalia), and I oppose the practice of selling human pesticide, using human pesticide, etc.
There are libertarians for life, you know.
How the *&#$*^@# am I supposed to get through 90-some frickin, erudite, well-written comments while at work and trying to dodge my boss?
I can only pretend to type with one hand while I scroll with the other for so long.
Come on guys, let’s dumb this down a bit, all right?. Why not take the classic liberal position:
“Wull…wulll…wull, JUST BECAUSE!” (be sure to stamp your foot and pout your lower lip, too)
Pardon my cynicism, Finn, but somehow I get the feeling (from the blog-world, at least) one could gather all the ‘libertarians for life’ in a Motel 6 single-room, and still have space for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the cast of Cats, and a mariachi orchestra. And that’s if you offered to throw in a discussion on legalising heroin as part of the deal.
(dammit – I’m supposed to be on hiatus!)
Libratarian-for-life speaking.
(As in: pro-choice, anti-abortion, bible-thumping, homo-loving, caca-mouthed American.)
Not that “libratarian” means much of anything in a sectarian sense–quite the opposite.
“Freedom-loving” and “Citizen-trusting” and “democrat,” are all fine stand-ins. And I suspect there are more Americans (and bloggers) in these categories than you seem to think, Pappy.
I have to come down on the side of the pharmacist on this one.
Pharmacists are professionals in their own right, with a specialized body of knowledge. I’ve had a time or two where a pharmacist called me (I’m a physician) and asked me if I REALLY wanted to give a drug like I wrote it. 99.999% of the time I want it given exactly that way, but I’ve had a couple of my own errors caught that way (what can I say? Not perfect, never have been). Physicians know a great deal of pharmacology, but mistakes do get made, and a sharp, educated professional pharmacist is a great asset (they also call me when a patient forges one of my scripts).
Pharmacists should not be forced to commit what they consider to be a grave moral wrong. There is tremendous, cutthroat competition in the pharmacy business, and the time frame for this medication is such that a patient can easily go elsewhere.
I encounter the same issue with the morning-after pill. Many of my fellow docs won’t prescribe it, and I personally only write it for sexual assault cases. It’s not a popular stand, and it has cost me. I’ve had angry, hostile patients complain, and even get in my face, demanding to know what right I have to refuse them. They automatically assume they have a right to force me, like some coin-operated pill dispenser.
Even aside from my moral objections, I’ve had many patients lie to me about the time frame of their “accident,” I’ve had them lie about being pregnant (ie. they are already), and even had them lie about being sexually assaulted, all to get this medication. It’s very problematic.
It’s a terrible dilemma to be caught between your own conscience, and your duty to your patient. Even though I cannot help them, I do one additional thing if they are adamant, and that is to refer them to someone who IS willing to prescribe that drug. If they so choose, they can still get what they want… just not from me. Some of you may argue that it’s no different… perhaps not, but I sleep at night.
Pardon my cynicism, Finn, but somehow I get the feeling (from the blog-world, at least) one could gather all the ‘libertarians for life’ in a Motel 6 single-room, and still have space for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir
Heh. But I think you are wrong. I was pro-life before I was a libertarian, and when I started learning about the philosophical and intellectual roots of libertarianism, I found that it fit right in to the pro-life stance I had already adopted.
It’s simple—I believe in the principle of non-aggression. That means that as long as someone is respecting others’ life, liberty and property (i.e., behaving peacefully, non-violently, honoring his contracts, not stealing, not injuring people with their negligence and not defrauding people), no one has the right to use force to coerce him to behave one way or another. That’s what it means to be free.
And you don’t magically gain the right to use force againt others just because you appoint an agent to act on your behalf. In other words, the use of unjustified force by a private person is no different than unjustified force used by a person who is acting as a gov’t representative. You can’t delegate a power to a government if you do not have that power in the first place.
Since I don’t have the power to force a pharmacist to sell me something (or anyone else for that matter), I don’t have the power to authorize a government agent to do it for me.
I also believe that a human being exists at the momemt he … well … exists, which makes killing someone (at any stage of his life cycle) a crime (unless it’s a matter of self-defense). Even libertarians believe that the use of force to prevent and remedy murders and other violent crimes is justified.
Except for the Libertarian Party (which no one likes, not even libertarians), I actually don’t know any fellow libertarians who aren’t pro-life.
The fact that the government has slowly taken over the largest market in medications (i.e. the elderly) means that most pharmacists and doctors have no option but to accept this form of payment. And once doing so, by the logic discussed here, they become servants of the government.
This is in fact true. For that reason, I remain amazed at how easily people have given away their liberty. The same logic stating that a license to dispense drugs means a requirement to dispense (“may” equals “must”) will soon be used against churches to prevent “political advocacy” (i.e. government issuance of tax exemption means no political speech allowed at the altar).
This returns us to Roman times, when there were no inalienable rights, merely those granted at the indulgence of the state, which was considered to be the source of all rights.
I am amazed, I guess, because people refuse to see or object this gradual, effortless, relentless infiltration of government rule into your daily lives. Why still others find this a welcome thing is beyond my comprehension. “Libertarian” and “Conservative” seem to mean little more than “government intrusion only into things I agree with”. Principles? Bah.
view from the bible belt in today’s edition of the Raleigh News & Observer
apparently in North Carolina a pharmacist can refuse to fill a prescription, but must make sure some else is going to fill it.
on the free market front, the article notes the positions of the major pharmacy chains Kerr (can refuse, but most get associate or “take order” to another pharmacy), CVS (same), and Eckerd (must fill).
the article also tells the story a pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription (and this is in the raleigh suburbs, not some backwater), and got fired by his employer.
<em>is there any point at which a private property owner’s conscienceâ€â€if he wishes to deal in commerce with the publicâ€â€MUST BE SUBSUMED to a larger societal decision (for instance, the convention that pharmacies dispense pharmaceuticals to those with prescriptions)? At what point does an individual’s conscience cease to matter?</em>
I think the answer is “no” (but I reserve the right to change if you change the context of the question).
First, this issue does not concern a “private property owner’s conscience.” It is about a pharmacist’s liberty. Specifically, it’s about his economic liberty. Any discussion of liberty necessarily involves an issue of the scope of legitimate state power (in other words, they are flip sides of the same issue).
The “larger societal convention” you are describing consists of at least three restrictions: (a) drugs are treated as controlled substances, (b) only licensed physicians can authorize the distribution of some of these substances, and (c) only licensed pharmacists can be the one to distribute them.
We have to as ourselves: what is the purpose and justification for these restrictions in the first place?
The only legitimate justification I can see is based on the theory that the substances are unusually dangerous, and the ordinary person does not have the requisite knowledge to tell the useful ones (and doses) from the harmful ones. Therefore, the State provides the service of certifying the individuals who have acquired that knowledge, while simultaneously banning those who have not proven that they have such knowledge from engaging in the trade.
The purpose of this regime is supposed to be public safety—reducing the likelihood that someone will knowingly or negligently sell a harmful product, or neglect to instruct the customer on how to use it.
The individual pharmacist’s “conscience” is as broad as the scope of his liberty. This is true for everyone, at all times, as a fundamental human right. We are all born free.
Because we are free, we may all do as we wish, as long as we do not infringe on the life, liberty and property of others.
Defense Guy stated the conservative position succinctly: “we still have a right to expect certain behavior from those we vest with powers that others do not enjoy.”
I disagree. We do not “vest” anyone with powers that others do not enjoy. We all have the same powers. We all have the same rights, and we all have the same liberties. We are equal under the law.
When it comes to licensing pharamacists, we certify those that have the requisite knowledge, and as a safety measure, prevent those who have not proven they have this knowledge from engaging in the trade.
Anyone should have the freedom to engage in any trade of his choosing, provided he does so safely.
You cannot say that the consumer has the right to be sold something. To do so would be equivalent to saying that one person has the right to compel others to work for them.
In one sense (only), I agree with Defense Guy—we do have the right to expect certain behavior from others: I expect you to refrain from using force and coercion against our hypothetical pharamcist (so long as he is not harming anyone).
The free market should be free. Free, free, free, free, free. As long as they’re not impinging on someone else’s patents or safety, pharmacists should be free to do as they like. And yes, it is a free market; the regulations exist to protect people from buying things they shouldn’t because they might be harmed, not to force businesses to sell things they don’t want to.
Look, I actually support the use of these damned pills. I think pharmacists SHOULD carry them. I don’t find it morally objectionable to use them– but I respect the rights of those who do, and I don’t think the state should force them to do something they consider morally objectionable.
In regards to the rural example: what if you’re on the Atkins diet and the only grocer in town has decided it’s morally unacceptable to sell meat? Are we going to force grocers to carry meat (they’re licensed too you know)?
Are we going to force Jewish bookstore owners to sell Mein Kampf on the basis not doing so infringes on the rights of Nazis to buy and read it?
There are alternatives. Plan ahead; buy through mail-order. Find another pharmacy. Take responsibility for your sexual actions. Don’t fuck without protection. Hell, get an abortion.
What we’re really talking about is the right of a person to buy something vs. the right of someone else not to sell it. This should be a no-brainer: the state cannot force people to sell things.
<i>the article also tells the story a pharmacist who refused to fill a prescription (and this is in the raleigh suburbs, not some backwater), and got fired by his employer. </i>
Good. That’s the enployer exercising his liberty to not employ that person.
It’s important to understand employer-employee relations is a separate issue from whether the state should force people to do things.