In Washington State there is a great deal of discussion about Pharmacists who may refuse to dispense birth control or 'morning after' pills based upon moral or religious grounds.
The Governor of our state has said repeatedly that pharmacists should be required by law to dispense medicine that is legally prescribed.
Every profession has a provision by where they are not required to perform certain duties based upon conscience. For example some doctors will not perform abortions and many lawyers will not work divorce cases. They can associate or disassociate freely based upon their own decision.
The debate that the pharmacist has is really with the company for which he works. If a drugstore has a policy that the pharmacist disagrees with he can go work somewhere else or even leave the profession completely.
But our governor thinks that they should not have the right to morally object. However, I wonder how she would feel if some pharmacists objected to dispensing a new medicine that say could detect and abort a fetis if it contained the 'gay' gene. Or perhaps some new genetic therapy that 'fixes' the gay gene so that the baby would grow up to be heterosexual.
Again the answer to this problem is something libertarians understand very fundamentally. Citizens should be free to engage or disengage from any business relationship as they see fit. The freedom of association must always stand as a load-bearing pillar of a free society.
1 comment:
this same issue is being played out here in CA too.
seems those 'pro-choice' legislature only believe choice goes one way.
the way i see it, any pharmicist who doesnt want to follow his employer's policies, what ever they be, can, like you say, quit, or open his own pharmacy.
but the state of CA is attempting to even prevent these options.
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