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[This discussion is occurring in someone else's LJ, someone I don't know. I am not in a mood to discuss something this important "dispassionately" or "logically," so I am going to post this here. Because I am going to be insulting.]
If you cannot understand the difference between a physician refusing to assist at an execution and a pharmacist refusing to fill prescriptions for morning-after contraception, then you lack the modicum of common sense necessary for me to discuss politics with you.
Since you need it spelled out...
A doctor takes an oath to protect human lives. The basic ethical foundation of medicine is "first -- do no harm." The AMA's Code of Ethics states "a physician shall, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount." Somehow, I fail to see how putting somehow to death against their wish is being responsible to their welfare.
A pharmacist is ethically required, among other things, to respect the dignity and autonomy of their patient. While pharmacists are also allowed to consider duties to "community and society," nothing in the Pharmacist's Code of Ethics allows them place personal religious convictions ahead of their patient's autonomous decisions over health care.
Got that? The doctor fulfills his responsibility to his patient by refusing to participate in his execution; a pharmacist abrogates his responsibility to his patient by refusing to fill legal prescriptions on personal religious grounds. If you want to argue over that second one based on the "duty to society" issue, go ahead -- but don't claim that the two cases are equivalent because they are not even remotely close.
It isn't that hard once you stop trying to overanalyze things, for God's sake.
If you cannot understand the difference between a physician refusing to assist at an execution and a pharmacist refusing to fill prescriptions for morning-after contraception, then you lack the modicum of common sense necessary for me to discuss politics with you.
Since you need it spelled out...
A doctor takes an oath to protect human lives. The basic ethical foundation of medicine is "first -- do no harm." The AMA's Code of Ethics states "a physician shall, while caring for a patient, regard responsibility to the patient as paramount." Somehow, I fail to see how putting somehow to death against their wish is being responsible to their welfare.
A pharmacist is ethically required, among other things, to respect the dignity and autonomy of their patient. While pharmacists are also allowed to consider duties to "community and society," nothing in the Pharmacist's Code of Ethics allows them place personal religious convictions ahead of their patient's autonomous decisions over health care.
Got that? The doctor fulfills his responsibility to his patient by refusing to participate in his execution; a pharmacist abrogates his responsibility to his patient by refusing to fill legal prescriptions on personal religious grounds. If you want to argue over that second one based on the "duty to society" issue, go ahead -- but don't claim that the two cases are equivalent because they are not even remotely close.
It isn't that hard once you stop trying to overanalyze things, for God's sake.