Hello again, everyone. Welcome to a new day, and a new thought!
Well, that may not be totally honest. You see today is actually an old thought, but a continuing problem. It's what's currently on my mind, and the emotions it stirred in me made me realize that I never really resolved my own internal conflict on this topic. Then I realized that if it's still happening, no one has resolved the conflict. And that's just unacceptable.
Let me explain. Yet again, a pharmacist has refused medicine prescribed by a doctor, based on alleged moral grounds, to someone that needed it in order to decrease the possibility of death. You can read a slightly longer synopsis here:
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/578303-pharmacists-refusing-to-fill-prescriptions-for-potentially
Basically, the pharmacist didn't want to save the lady if she was bleeding from an abortion. Privacy laws being what they are, the referring entity could not disclose such details. Hence the conflict.
The first I remember hearing of this issue was back in what the old folks might refer to as "ot 4". Some 'heartland' pharmacists got their moral superiority panties bunched up in a wad and started refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and the "morning after pill". It seems these fools (I picked a really bad day to stop swearing in my posts) may have been suffering from the same delusions as the aforementioned pharmacist. You can read all about it here http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-11-08-druggists-pill_x.htm, or you can stay on my page, where it's nice and warm.
And I have a problem with this? You can bet your sweet patooties I do.
Medical professionals are sworn to protect and sustain life. The good ones take the jobs for that exact reason. So is it a contradiction to expect them to dispense life-ending drugs such as birth control or the infamous "morning after pill"? No. Not one bit. You want to hear why, don't you? Of course you do. Why else would you be here? Then without further adieu...allow me to present to you...for your reading pleasure...logic!
We know the following to be true (explanations to follow for the slow kids):
1) Life is not the most important thing.
2) When we hire someone to do a job we expect them to do it.
3) Sometimes discrimination is necessary.
4) You'll be hard-pressed to find two people sitting in the same pew at the same church that define morality the same way.
Now let's discuss:
1) Life is not the most important thing. If it is then all those soldiers we send to die for our freedoms are just useless casualties. Unless you own stock in a body bag and/or oil company. I've always thought it funny that the demographic that is most supportive of war is the least supportive of a woman's right to choose. That would make an excellent Venn Diagram. If you're seeing the contradiction here, congrats. You're thinking. Why will we send our mostly grown kids to die in order to improve someone elses quality of life, but we don't think it's okay to stop a birth for the same reason? That may sound awfully crass, but any distinction you try to draw there is cognitive dissonance. Own it. Your brain may try to draw lines between choice and personal responsibility, but if that's the case then all the people overseas that we are fighting "for", had their own choices, and their own responsibility to take care of themselves. You also assume that just because the Army is voluntary, everyone in it is there by choice. This is simply not true. See, that's a big problem. We fail, far too often, to think through even the most basic of our beliefs. If you're pro-life, then you can't be pro-war. If you're pro-quality of life, but thought before reading this that you were pro-life, then it's time to rethink how you perceive the world around you, and why. Then you may realize that you can disapprove of a woman's right to choose and support our troops without having to strip personal freedoms or bomb Iran. Philosophy is full of happy mediums, but if you don't think them through they can become hypocrisies.
2) If I hire a contractor to do a job, and he screws it up, I can take him to court for damages. If Macy's sells me a crappy sweater, I can take it back. But if I'm in a medical emergency, and am refused treatment, I'm dead. Sue all you want, there are no second chances. So shouldn't we, as a society, try to limit medical error? Of course. "But Mr. ToT's", you say, "we can't make people do what they think is wrong." Horse puckey. Yes we can. I know so because we do it all the time. What a great segway to #3...
3) Have you read my post on discrimination? No? Then go do that now, we'll wait. It's the one titled "Equal Thoughts".
All done? Great. Let's get back to the discussion at hand. Every day, in every city, small town, and village across this planet, people do things they find unpleasant, distasteful, and even morally reprehensible in order to provide food for their families and themselves. I bet even people on other planets have to do things they don't want to do. It seems like that would be universal. But why? That seems so unfair. Not true! False positive! Not only is it fair, it is the essence of fair. We live in a society. Many people and machines working together to do the best we can by and for everyone else, as well as ourselves. Sometimes, that means we do what we must, rather than what we want. The more we evolve, and step away from being a survival-based race, the less we have to do that. Maybe it's why we pick these stupid little fights - boredom. Or maybe we just need to modify the Hippocratic Oath in light of what we now know. We need our medical professionals to protect the quality of life first and foremost, since we now know that life is not the most important thing.
4) Every doctor in this country goes through pretty much the same training, taking pretty much the same tests and reading pretty much the same books. So why do some doctors abort babies, while others refuse? Because morality is subject to our experiences and how we digested and rationalized them. I believe that most atheists assume religious people, both the 'cafeteria' and devout types, are just not thinkers. However, that's not necessarily true. In fact, it doesn't seem to be true at all. Except the Baptists. Baptists are definitely short bus. But Methodists, Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc, share a pretty shocking statistic: They are just as educated, if not more so, then the population as a whole. In fact, the "more so" is more common than the "just as". Studies have tried for years to pin down what professions have the least/most 'believers'. It was only when the data was drilled into last year that the conclusion was made (conclusively) that upbringing and socioeconomic status had more to do with religious devotion than education. Religious groups may profess to believe a lot of common things, but overall, in those day to day situations, morality is unique to the user. And people that hold positions of service that grant them power over life and death must approach those positions free of prejudice. If we expect it of lawyers and judges, why the hell don't we expect it of doctors, nurses, and pharmacists?
The medical field in this country has no shortage of job openings. If you wish to serve, but can't bear to prescribe some of the pills you will be asked to provide, then just do something else. Become a radiologist, or an anesthesiologist, or a nurse, or a billing coder. You can go to night school for that last one!
Still not smart enough to agree with me? (Yeah, I said it, and yes, I'm always that arrogant.) Then here's another, more...sensitive...way to look at it: If you are too righteous to dole out birth control, but you can rationalize prescribing a pill to give an erection, stop pain, or alter consciousness, then it seems to me you are already violating the will of your god. If it doesn't work, didn't god will it so? If it hurts, didn't god allow it to break? In the same way he seems to have charged you, Mr. Pharmacist, with dispensing his will, he has acted out his will upon those you pretend to want to treat. There goes that cognitive dissonance again. If you want to enforce your morality or beliefs on others, the LAST place you belong is in a pharmacy, or even in a lab coat for that matter. You may say that stopping a birth is a worse evil than those other things, but you're lying to yourself. Something else is going on here. Furthermore, it smacks of that 'cafeteria christianity', which brings your alleged devotion into serious question.
Pharmacists take a job that requires them to fill prescriptions at the order of a doctor. If you can't do that, for any reason, than you must conscientiously object, and step down from your position. There is no happy medium available to you. Then go home and consider a life in the clergy, another medical profession, the police force, or (god forbid, but it is your right) your state, local, or national legislature.
Whatever you choose, you must get out of the pharmacy. I promise you that the god you describe will not forgive you for killing a woman by refusing her medication.
That wraps it up for today, readers. Agree or disagree, you definitely thought. If you didn't then go back and read it again because you missed something. Thanks again, and please remember comments are encouraged!
Oh, and if you think this is no big deal, you're wrong. On March 3, 2009 the Idaho State Senate passed a law making it a-okay for pharmacist to refuse medicine based on religious or philosophical beliefs. Next they'll tell cops it's okay to enforce some laws, but not others, based on their personal beliefs.
No comments:
Post a Comment