Over at The Washington Post, Rob Stein discusses the development of Pro-Life Pharmacies, i.e. no condoms, birth control pills, or Plan B emergency contraceptives. This type of pharmacy protects the rights of workers, especially their "right of conscience" to refuse to engage in an activity to which they morally oppose.
In defense of these pharmacies, pharmacies may have the right to attempt to protect the rights of their workers, if you agree that this constitutes right, and to tailor their business to a particular audience. Further, this seems seems similar to pharmacies that refuse to sell cigarettes, alcohol, or pornography.
Of course, these locations seems to exceed their authority as pharmacists. It seems that the pharmacists at these locations act as "doctor" and "pharmacist," where they know what is best for their "patient." It would be a problem in other industries if individuals put their beliefs ahead of their profession. Just ask conservatives students about their "liberal" professors. Further, like the insurance industry, there may be another double-standard here whereby these pharmacies allow for Viagra but not for contraceptive for women, regardless as to whether or not it is for reproductive freedom.
Finally, there may be a concern over the way in which the stores treat individuals when they enter the pharmacies seeking specific products. It is probably not best for business to ask for contraceptives and told you are a baby-killer. It could be much worse is the person went in the store for Plan B.
The main concern would be if these pharmacies becomes successful, especially in rural areas where there are fewer or no alternatives. If there are no alternatives to these pharmacies, then these locations infringe on the medical rights of citizens. This is just a slippery slope argument right now though...
10 comments:
There's a simple solution to this garbage, Harrogate argued for years on TalkLeft when he was active there.
Solution is, make all those drugs over the counter. Pharmacy won't see contraceptives? No biggie. Home-Slice over at the 7/11 will be happy to sell what you need.
So long as there is FDA totalitarian control over what are rather pedestrian substances at this point in our history, however, the pharmacists can stick their pretensions to liberty straight up their far too tight asses.
So sayeth Harrogate.
I'm not sure I think individuals ought to be allowed to refuse to sell any particular thing that their place of employment carries--I know they do, I just don't think it makes very much sense--but I do think companies can set their policies about what items they carry or don't carry. At least, I don't see any way around that--that is, without revamping the system. To me, this is a problem with private pharmacies. So I don't see the pharmacies acting in the wrong--playing doctor etc--so much as I see a problem with the system at large.
To put it another way, if the government wants to dictate what should be available at every pharmacy, they ought to run agencies that distribute medicines.
They don't. And pharmacies exist to make money. If they can refuse to sell certain items and still make ends meet, there's nothing stopping them, no pressure on them to do differently. The only real solution, in that case, is for a pro-choice pharmacy to set up shop on the corner opposite the pro-life pharmacy to pick up the business.
your slippery slope lands us in a town too small to support two pharmacies. Again, the problem is money. Plan B isn't something you buy once a week and if everything else you need is available at the pro-life pharmacy....how does our pro-choice venue stay open? If it can't, then there's no place for it and no mechanism to sustain it.
If pharmacies were about helping people or providing fair and equal access to medicines, the situation would be different. They aren't.
Harrogate,
This may work for some of the contraceptives but not for all of the contraceptives. For example, with the pill, there is not one pill but multiple versions of the pill tailored to different needs. Forgetting the politics of the FDA, I do not know if the FDA would allow different "bottles" like they would cold medicine.
Anastasia,
Right now the counter-argument is only a slippery slope. I would imagine if there were a problem in a small town, there would be a change in the distribution of contraceptives and Plan B from a supply side.
I cannot imagine that a Doctor would stop prescribing contraceptives or Plan B just because it would not be available in a pharmacy. If this were to be close to occurring, Doctors would flex some muscle on this issue (unless all doctors turned pro-life).
The question is would there be a small enough town or multiple small towns that have only one pharmacy, without a pharmacy nearby, where this would be an issue.
Solon,
Harrogate was only being about 86.3% serious. But remember, for anaogies you cite: alcohol, cigarettes, and best of all, porn. Now, none of these are so easily procured as M&Ms, but then, one does not need a doctor's prescription to get them, either. Nor does one find oneself particularly concerned with cahiers' religious beliefs, in the purchase of such things.
My 100% serious point is this. There is absolutely NO issue of religious liberty or free speech at stake for the pharmacists. They have, that is, zero right on their side. They have been handed a veritable oligarchal lock on these particular goods: if this weere not the case, nobody would care about their little opinions.
One other thing. Surely it will not always be the case that such things must be bought through doctors and pharmacists. Unless we blow ourselves up first (quite likely), chances are high that there will come a time when these types of contraceptives are indeed packaged much like cold medicine.
You know, sort of like nobody would have ever thought the Bravo channel could exist, 50 years ago.
Here's the problem, as I see it, with pharmacies not providing these sorts of goods. The rights of the employees to not distribute things that they find morally reprehensible infringes upon the right of the consumer/patient to purchase an item that said consumer/patient and his/her doctor deems medically necessary.
If pharmacies, as Anastasia pointed out, are in the business of making money, I'm not so sure why they wouldn't want to sell these items, particular BCPs and condoms. But, frankly, pharmacies not wanting to sell condoms doesn't seem like such an issue to me because men are typically the ones to buy condoms. Every article (and I don't have the time or the inclination right now) I've ever read about an individual being denied birth control at a pharmacy was about a woman who was either denied oral contraceptives or the morning after pill--and I'm not arguing that this is a gender issue as much as I'm pointing out (1) women are the ones who typically purchase oral contraceptives and the morning-after pill and (2) both of these things are controlled substances. I would agree with Harrogate that perhaps the morning-after pill should become an OTC drug as you don't need a prescription to buy it; you do, however, have to ask the pharmacist to get it for you. BCPs are another issue. Because of the health risks and the complexity of the drug, I don't thing these should be OTC drugs.
This is, I would argue, as much about controlling women as it is about anything else.
But m, making BCP's Over the Counter does not elide the role o the Doctor. It only changes that role.
We often ask our doctors about OTC drugs, what is safe to combine with what. What can our kids take. Etc. That is, Harrogate sees no reason, from a health perspective, why women could not consult their doctors about BCP's, just as they do now, and then go to the 7-11 to get them.
What is needed, as is so often the case is the elimination of the "middle-man," in this case the pharmacist.
But here's a marginally fun thought. Does anyone seriously think that, if threatened with the loss of its middle-man take in the transaction, the pharmaceutical industry would put up with these people crying "religious liberty" as a defense for refusing to distribute product? What percentage of the industry;s net take do we imagine the BCP's to comprise? Harrogate imagines its a healthy percentage.
Verily, there mere threat of making BCP's OTC might well be enough to finally end this silly discussion.
As for needing a pharmacist to distribute the morning-after pill, reasonable people will likely agree that this is plainly ridiculous. Again, if freedom is what one is really interested in, then allow them sell morning afters at 7-11, that'll solve the pharmacists' little "free exercise" dilemma.
Yea, a lot of words, likely with which no Reader shall agree. Tis okay, happens often. But howsoever much the majority may shout it to be so, 'twill never be the case that this issue reflects substantively on "freedom of religion" or "free speech."
It only reflects on what a banal society we have, and shows once again, that our politics are drawn not with a quill, but in crayon.
But, Harrogate, you're assuming that all individuals taking BCPs will consult with their doctors, and as we know from the number of infants who have become seriously ill or died b/c their parents accidentally overdosed them with a combination of Tylenol and cold medicine. The reason a woman needs to get a prescription for BCPs is b/c they can (and often do) elevate a woman's blood pressure, make her gain weight, cause depression, and increase her risk for stroke. By requiring a woman to get a prescription for BCPs, the FDA (who I'm not a huge fan of generally) is ensuring that a woman has her weight, her heart rate, and her blood pressure checked at least once a year. As for the morning after pill, my understanding is that it is kept behind the pharamacy counter b/c the instructions that come with it are somewhat complicated and there are some risks involved when a woman takes it. For these medical reasons, I don't think threatening to make BCPs OTC is one that pharmacy chains will take seriously.
I've been thinking about this throughout the day, and I have to say that I agree with Anastasia's point. We live in a free market economy, and pharmacies can decide at the corporate level whether they will or won't sell OTC contraception, BCPs, or the morning after pill. I don't think an individual employee can, however; and if that happens and the employee also goes against the policy of the pharmacy that employee should be fired.
The most effective way to combat this, it seems to me, is a grass roots movement boycotting the national chains that are refusing to sell such products. If the Target in Southwest College Town, for example, suddenly decided to stop filling prescriptions for BCPs, I would urge everyone I know to stop patronizing the store. Considering the number of college-age women who are likely taking BCPs in this town, I think that would have a fairly significant impact on the local Target.
This sentence was supposed to read "and as we know from the number of infants who have become seriously ill or died b/c their parents accidentally overdosed them with a combination of Tylenol and cold medicine many people neither consult with their doctors nor do they follow the directions included with OTC medicines."
m, the issues you raise are matters of life and death, Harrogate definitely does not trivialize by treating them as anything less.
There does come a point in matters of life and death, though, where personal responsibility becomes the bedrock foundation. Harrogate hereby inverts Republican rhetoric: if today's woman need a government mandate to convince her to attend to her health before taking drugs, then this is a huge problem in and of itself that she must herself attend to.
As you point out, accidents happen anyway with respect to OTC drugs. But the answer, for Harrogate anyway, is not to give Pharmaceutical companies a literal monopoly on product.
Just Harrogate's take: Boycotts rarely effect political ends in America, less so liberal causes. The again, challenges to the FDA don't exactly have a stellar track record. :-(
The situation sucks. And, what a bastardization of the term "religious freedom," for it to be used in this Rhetorical Situation.
Well, I disagree with M. over the decision of the chain and the decision of the individual or the policies of the chain and the conscience of the individual. I would argue that if a policy violates the individual conscience of the individual, such as selling contraceptions, then the worker should be exempt from selling the contraceptives to the customers. Of course, if this occurs, then the management of the store must staff someone who would be available during store hours to sell the contraceptives. By doing this, the store protects the rights of the worker and the rights of the consumer.
I do no think that corporate policies should be in place to diminish political dissent, even if it is dissent I disagree with. Though I would argue that this is not a valid analogy, one analogy would be to conscientious objector status for military service. Carving out discursive space for those individuals to disagree, if they truly disagree with the principle, ought to exist.
Second, I agree with M. If a chain refuses to sell contraceptives, et al, the proper response ought to be a grassroots movement to protest the corporate chain.
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