Tuesday, April 05, 2005

On The Mark -- God's Drugs

Talk about cross-branding and one-stop shopping. Now when you visit your local pharmacist you can get a religious sermon, too. Eventually, you may not even have to go to church on Sundays. You can try to get a prescription filled, such as morning-after pills, and get your hell and damnation sermon at the same time. With the way the religious right underground movement is working in America, you might eventually even get to tell your confessions and then receive the sacrament while waiting for your prescriptions to be filled.

Recently, four more states – Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota – gave pharmacists the right to refuse to fill prescriptions if they are morally against the purpose of the drug, such as emergency contraception.

California, the bellwether state that it is, is the first state considering whether to create a law that requires pharmacists to fill orders, whether they find them morally reprehensible or not. Let’s hope the lawmakers use common sense.

Here’s a scenario. Let’s say ten years from now a miracle cancer drug comes on the market. The magic bullet everyone has been waiting for. You’re elated. Your doctor hands over a prescription that is going to cure your cancer. You race to the pharmacist, but he says he won’t fill it because stem-cell research was used to create the drug. “Sorry, but you’re just going to have to suffer and die. It’s God’s plan.”

Farfetched? Why is this scenario any different than morning-after pills?

I can see it now, the next new pharmacy chain…”God’s Drugs.”


Me said...

The easy solution is to just go to the Wal-Mart or Walgreens pharmacy to get the prescription filled if the holier than thou local pharamist won't do it. The big chains like that don't care about you - so they'll do it.

But you're right - legislators need to look at what they are creating? Who are phamasists to judge? Fuck them. Gimmie my damn pills.

It's like the other day when the girl at the Circle K counter started giving me shit about the can of tobacco I was buying. Telling me about cancer like I didn't know. I told her to do her job and mind her own. I shouldn't have to defend myself to the fucking Circle K girl. Just like patients shouldn't have to defend themselves to the pharmacist. Fuck him. They already had to defend themselves to the doctor.

bitchphd said...

From what I've heard, Wal-Mart is one of the pharmacies that fully backs its pharmacist's refusal to dispense b.c.p. And as people have pointed out all over the place, sometimes you need the scrip filled now, in your half hour break from work on a Saturday, and running around town (or to the next town over, if you live in a place that only has the one pharmacy) isn't a real option.

But I really popped in to comment on this: Why is this scenario any different than morning-after pills?

This is, of course, a rhetorical question. But can't help saying, we all know exactly what the difference is: it starts with W and ends with N and sorta rhymes with cumin.

B2 said...

"Sorta rhymes with cumon"? I like that. But I hate this "protecting non-believers for their own good." There is a certain religion that had been baptizing dead non-believers in absentia so that they wouldn't go to hell -- without anyone's permission, needless to say; they just wanted to help these pagans (like Jews) stay out of hell. I am tired of other people telling me what I need to do to be right with God, and tired of having the government turn its head and not get involved (unless it's to actually agree with these nutjobs!). Why do I read this blog and let myself get so frustrated? Oh yeah -- it's my blog.

Jack Steiner said...

This is nothing but problematic. To me it is similar to the argument about saying that one should be able to dictate exactly what their taxes cover.

It is fraught with trouble.