When the ambulance driver won't take you, because you write porn;

[3113]

As a philosopher, I have to acknowledge that a pharmacy is a business and there are rights every businessman or woman retains that I strongly agree with--notably, the right to refuse service.

Yes but:
1) The pharmacist refusing to dispense such pills (refusing service) usually is an employee NOT the one running the business. In none of these examples do I see a pharmacy owner saying, "I've put up in my window that we don't sell Morning-After pills"--that'd be one thing. It's his business. All I'm see is, Rite-Aid dealing with the fact that some of their employees won't serve their customers.

2) For what reason are they refusing seervice. A business CAN refuse service, but there are anti-discrimination laws as well. Otherwise we're back to what color can sit at the lunch counter. Or, as in one case that the Supreme Court knocked down, a religious woman who refused to rent to couples who weren't married or who were divorced. Refusing service has to be for a valid reason. Is this a valid reason? Yes, but it means that you have to state that your BUSINESS is not selling the pills to ANYONE (re: #1) so that people know to go someplace else.

The problem here is that people are coming in for medicine or procedures that the business SAYS that they do...but that certain employees have decided the person should not have done because it goes against their (the employee's) religious beliefs. That's very different from a business deciding what it will and will not do.

 

[Stella_Omega]

...
The problem here is that people are coming in for medicine or procedures that the business SAYS that they do...but that certain employees have decided the person should not have done because it goes against their (the employee's) religious beliefs. That's very different from a business deciding what it will and will not do.

Not only that- but that the decision gets made on the spot, without any prior warning.

In the original article, it says (possibly media hyperbole, of course) that the ambulance driver had worried about this eventuality already;

When the dispatcher called, Stephanie Adamson knew this might be the run she had feared. But it wasn't until her ambulance arrived at the hospital and she saw the words "elective abortion" on the patient's chart that she knew she had to make a choice.

But she never mentioned her qualms to her employers. Why not? Because she knew she migh t not be able to keep the job?

 

[Pure]

you are not making sense, joe. i am not ogg, nor making the same arguments as he.

You'll note, at no point have I said yet that people should be allowed to shirk their responsibility to necessary medical procedures--just elective ones.

your focus on 'necessary procedures' does not take into account a main focus of the articles, nor the first example i gave (MAP). here the effects are not so immediate and dramatic. merely a woman has to drive another hundred miles for the MAP, so what the fuck. the articles are concerned, inter alia, with the multiplication of these types of incidents, which you appear to dismiss as inconsequential.
(or, should i say, easily overriden by such things as the seller's rights in commerce.)

for MAP, you neglect to note that the 'businessman' is also a pharmacist whose duty is to carry a certain stock of drugs, and hand them to those who come in with prescriptions from drs who've decided the drug is necessary or desirable. this is not at all the same as a businessman owning a variety store and deciding not to stock condoms because he's worried about teenage immorality.

however, as the article indicates, clearly the 'supremacy of conscience' position of the Christian right does easily extend to necessary procedures. do i gather you do NOT generally agree with the 'conscience of the provider' position for the following kinds of cases (i leave aside abortion):

a JW nurse who refuses to assist (as is necessary, we'll postulate) in a transfusion. a doctor who believe God calls someone at death, and who refuses to use a defibrillator.

arguably too, a dr or nurse, who counsels a sexually active teen, and merely lectures about abstinence instead of suggesting and giving out condoms may well put that person's life in danger, e.g., from AIDS.

am i correct in inferring that you believe the above persons are breaching their moral and professional duties?

===

now, if you indeed endorse the immorality of the professionals actions, as in the examples above, where a life is at stake, what exactly is the difference if it's just serious bodily harm or mild bodily harm?

 

[TheEarl]

Yes but:
1) The pharmacist refusing to dispense such pills (refusing service) usually is an employee NOT the one running the business. In none of these examples do I see a pharmacy owner saying, "I've put up in my window that we don't sell Morning-After pills"--that'd be one thing. It's his business. All I'm see is, Rite-Aid dealing with the fact that some of their employees won't serve their customers.

This is what I was about to say. Wouldn't have a problem with a business saying "We don't do morning after pills, contraception or abortion advice." That's their choice and it's their business. If it survives in the marketplace, then good for them.

My problem is the fact that employees are refusing to do a job they signed up for and then looking shocked at the fact that they're being terminated or disciplined.

There's a horrible phrase in the UK at the moment of 'my rights' as in "I know my rights!" It's the adult version of "It's not fair!" and is used when whinging about some circumstance that has left a person in a worse situation, usually from their own actions. This sounds horribly like the American version.

The Earl

 

[Stella_Omega]

This is what I was about to say. Wouldn't have a problem with a business saying "We don't do morning after pills, contraception or abortion advice." That's their choice and it's their business. If it survives in the marketplace, then good for them.

My problem is the fact that employees are refusing to do a job they signed up for and then looking shocked at the fact that they're being terminated or disciplined.

There's a horrible phrase in the UK at the moment of 'my rights' as in "I know my rights!" It's the adult version of "It's not fair!" and is used when whinging about some circumstance that has left a person in a worse situation, usually from their own actions. This sounds horribly like the American version.

The Earl

Yep. I want a sign in the window, from very the day that ethics-before-business decision is made; "We do not sell birth control or viagra"

That way, I'll know to drive to the next town to get those prescriptions. And all the rest of them, too.

 

[oggbashan]

Any pharmacist in the UK who refused to supply a prescribed treatment would be disciplined by the profession and if that was repeated after warning, banned from being a pharmacist.

The over the counter morning-after pill is freely available. No prescription is required. However the pharmacist might be reluctant to supply such a pill to a person under 16 without parental consent. The young person would need a prescription from a doctor and the UK doctor would ask the teenager to tell her parents but would not require that she did.

Any UK ambulance driver who refused a direction to take a person to hospital for elective surgery would be disciplined and probably fired. However in the UK an ambulance would probably NOT be sent anyway. The patient might use public transport or a voluntary driving service, neither of whom would know WHY the person was going to hospital.

Og

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Warning -- Soapbox rant forthcoming.

This is one of my hot buttons.

I am of the belief that if one cannot fulfill all the responsibilities of one's job, it's time to look for another job. If the requirements comes as a surprise, perhaps you have grounds for protest, but in these cases such a surprise seems unlikely. This is a person revising their responsibilities after accepting employment and entering in an agreement. None of them, I note, speak about the need to maintain one's word (a contract for employment being a manner of bond and promise), but feel their "conscience" gave them the right to not only dictate behaviors to others but to renig on a promise.

Jesus talks constantly about being responsible for one's own actions and letting other people be responsible for themselves. If you do not agree with abortion, reproductive procedures, etc., you should not use them. It is not up to you to prevent others from using them. That is merely being obstructionist. If you truly walk in the path of your faith, you should take a POSITIVE action. For example, offer to care for a woman who wants to abort a child and to adopt her child after it is born.

That comes to mind because of the blacksmith example. In that, the blacksmith is merely being passive about his beliefs about slavery. He doesn't want to do the work, and he doesn't want anyone else to do it either. But he's not trying to help that slave. He's not offering to buy the slave and set him free. He's not willing to ACT POSITIVELY. He's only willing to sit on his ass and be obstructionist, safe in his own sense of self-rightousness. He only wants not to be involved himself and to prevent others from performing acts he finds objectionable by being an annoyance. Inas much as slavery was a legal institution at the time, the man holding the slave was not acting illegally (yes, slavery is wrong. That's not the point.) nor by that light requesting anything illegal or by his own beliefs, immoral. (Of course, we all know how the Bible feels about slavery. There's just all KINDS of it.)

The person who can quietly live with their faith and beliefs, accepting the difficulties and being an example by her life, is not the person forcing her choices on others nor making choices for them. That is the person who, as soon as she realizes she has taken a choice of action that brings her into conflict with her beliefs, calls her boss and says "Please send down another driver. I can't be an ambulance driver anymore and I must end my contract." Or, as Imp suggests, such things should be discussed and specified before the contract is created.

No. I'm sorry, but you guys are all barking up the wrong tree on this one. I won't reiterate Joe's points. I think he's made them well. But I will ask this:

How would it make you feel if someone incompetent were caring for your mother, or father, or sister, or child, simply because they would accept the confines of the position? If the ambulance driver couldn't find a pulse on a victim, but was willing to transport anyone so they got the job over someone notably more qualified? I don't like the idea of a good careworker being unemployed and replaced by someone less qualified because of thier belief system, not when we've already got that problem growing in the US anyway. We already have too many frivolous lawsuits (which are caused by people who greatly lack conscience, as opposed to the people in question here, whose conscience may not agree with yours but is apparent in their decisions, regardless) and it's becoming harder for doctors because of this. Now you want to tell them, and other medical professionals, as well as those who would become them, if you won't do these things, regardless of your beliefs, you can't have the job? Doesn't that sound a lot like Boota's example of "I won't treat a Jew because they killed my Lord and Savior"? "You can't be a doctor because you're a Catholic"?

Doesn't it make a lot more sense to find some sort of medium (happy or otherwise)? Let's face it, we can't have any level of incompetence taking over the health industry, not when human error alone is an issue, and some level of incompetence will always be present regardless. Further hampering the health system is a poor choice in response to the defense of an ideal. The world is not black and white. It's a constantly changing, living, breathing gray area. Ideals must be compromised in order to exist within it.

Let me word it this way; maybe it will make my point more clear. If Bob's Pharmacy won't prescribe the morning after pill to a rape victim, chances are Larry's Pharmacy down the street will. Go to Larry's. If your a paramedic, your job more strongly involves the life and death consequences involved and your ability to handle them, not your willingness to transfer a patient from one hospital to another. Said patient was being allowed to bleed to death, or suffer unnecessarily; they were in a hospital, under the care of other medical professionals and simply awaiting a transfer. It's more of a crime to remove the paramedic from employment than it is to refuse to transfer that person. Should the patient have attempted to abort at home, and the paramedic was called out because of consequences resulting, should the patient have not been under the care of other medical professionals and have needed the assistance of said paramedic, and the paramedic had refused, then I'd agree that the medic was clearly in the wrong. This is where Ogg's point about the soldiers in SS uniforms comes into play. Those wasn't the cases presented in the articles (unless I missed some of them, and I mostly just read the first and skimmed the second; yes, even when I care about the issue, I get lazy sometimes--gimme some credit for admitting that).

If you were to take a warehouse job, and all of your packages weighed twenty punds, you would have no trouble lifting them. But when the fifty-pound boxes starrted coming in, and you couldn;'t handle those- what do you do at that point? Of course, if a fifty pound box sits on the floor for a while, it won't mind- We humans don't appreciate sitting on the floor for any length of time.

I work in a warehouse, and many of the women there are older (and cannot be removed from their positiion due to their age, or the changes in strength brought about by it) and can't lift the fifty pound box. And when they can't I lift it. When one person can't or won't, someone else will.

Q_C

 

[Pure]

stella,

you forgot what's under sign's main message:

'we do not sell birth control drugs, substances, or devices'

'TIWJWD'

That is what Jeremy would do.

 

[Stella_Omega]

...


I work in a warehouse, and many of the women there are older (and cannot be removed from their positiion due to their age, or the changes in strength brought about by it) and can't lift the fifty pound box. And when they can't I lift it. When one person can't or won't, someone else will.

Q_C

and, as I said, a fifty-pound box can lay on the floor for a while till you get by. People- not such a good idea.

And, if I know in advance that a pharmacy will not sell me what I want, I will certainly go down the street. In many small communities, that might mean going to the next town, or the one after that, or the nearest big city, especially here in the US whith our lovely heritage of fundamentalism.

But, as I mentioned above- the ambulance driver never told her employers about her qualms, even though, according to the article, she had thought about this possibility. As you say, good attendants are hard to get. If they knew she wouldn't transport an abortion patient, they might have had her go on some other run that night- if, of course they knew the patient needed an abortion, and now we are getting into privacy issues...

 

[Stella_Omega]

doublepost

 

[TheEarl]

Let me word it this way; maybe it will make my point more clear. If Bob's Pharmacy won't prescribe the morning after pill to a rape victim, chances are Larry's Pharmacy down the street will. Go to Larry's.

What if Bob's Pharmacy has no official prohibitions on selling the morning after pill and Bob himself is very happy about the idea. Yet, between 10am and 3pm on a Saturday, Bob's Pharmacy won't sell the morning after pill to rape victims because Sally who works the counter, doesn't believe in it.

Patients would go down the street to Larry's. I know I would. Bob finds out and is, understandably, a little bit miffed at the fact that Sally is losing him so much business with principles that he doesn't adhere to.

Should Bob have the right to sack Sally for losing him business and refusing to do her job? Does Sally have the right to complain that she "knows her rights" when Bob fires her?

It's not businesses making the decision. Businesses I have no problem with, cause oyu can just go elsewhere and let the market decide. It's people who are doing it and that's what's pissing me (and Bob) off.

The Earl

 

[Quiet_Cool]

Yes but:
1) The pharmacist refusing to dispense such pills (refusing service) usually is an employee NOT the one running the business. In none of these examples do I see a pharmacy owner saying, "I've put up in my window that we don't sell Morning-After pills"--that'd be one thing. It's his business. All I'm see is, Rite-Aid dealing with the fact that some of their employees won't serve their customers.

2) For what reason are they refusing seervice. A business CAN refuse service, but there are anti-discrimination laws as well. Otherwise we're back to what color can sit at the lunch counter. Or, as in one case that the Supreme Court knocked down, a religious woman who refused to rent to couples who weren't married or who were divorced. Refusing service has to be for a valid reason. Is this a valid reason? Yes, but it means that you have to state that your BUSINESS is not selling the pills to ANYONE (re: #1) so that people know to go someplace else.

The problem here is that people are coming in for medicine or procedures that the business SAYS that they do...but that certain employees have decided the person should not have done because it goes against their (the employee's) religious beliefs. That's very different from a business deciding what it will and will not do.

Now we're talking. This is what I mean here, but on the same note I posted of before, there is a difference between handing out pills and saving lives.

Any UK ambulance driver who refused a direction to take a person to hospital for elective surgery would be disciplined and probably fired. However in the UK an ambulance would probably NOT be sent anyway. The patient might use public transport or a voluntary driving service, neither of whom would know WHY the person was going to hospital.

Og

That's more like it.

Q_C

 

[Quiet_Cool]

What if Bob's Pharmacy has no official prohibitions on selling the morning after pill and Bob himself is very happy about the idea. Yet, between 10am and 3pm on a Saturday, Bob's Pharmacy won't sell the morning after pill to rape victims because Sally who works the counter, doesn't believe in it.

Patients would go down the street to Larry's. I know I would. Bob finds out and is, understandably, a little bit miffed at the fact that Sally is losing him so much business with principles that he doesn't adhere to.

Should Bob have the right to sack Sally for losing him business and refusing to do her job? Does Sally have the right to complain that she "knows her rights" when Bob fires her?

It's not businesses making the decision. Businesses I have no problem with, cause oyu can just go elsewhere and let the market decide. It's people who are doing it and that's what's pissing me (and Bob) off.

The Earl

Okay. You and I aren't disagreeing when it comes to Bob's right to fire Sally. If Sally doesn't want to dispense the pill, no she shouldn't be in the pharmacy business unless she works for a Bob who has the aforementioned (by others in the thread, not myself) signs hanging in the windows. Remember however, that all Sally really does is count pills, check prescriptions and hand them across the counter. So long as all the Bob's of the world have the right to not offer said pills in their pharmacy, then I'm pretty sure we both agree. But I think some acceptances should be made in other cases, meaning ones where counting pills isn't the issue so much as compressing wounds, stopping the bleeding, treating the infection, etc. More is on the line than someone's want of medication or option to sell it.

Q_C

 

[Quiet_Cool]

But, as I mentioned above- the ambulance driver never told her employers about her qualms, even though, according to the article, she had thought about this possibility. As you say, good attendants are hard to get. If they knew she wouldn't transport an abortion patient, they might have had her go on some other run that night-

You're touching down on my point, meaning doing more to support it than to disagree with it. The ambulance driver would have been comfronted with the things being said here about doing your job and whatnot should she have spoken up. Can you agree with that? She might not have been employed, and as I said before, if she's qualified to do the more important things (and since she was employed as a medic until then, we're assuming she is) then whether or not she'll chauffeur a woman opting for elective surgury shouldn't be the issue. She should be able to say as such, and so long as the entire shift of ambulance drivers doesn't refuse (and we're free and clear to laugh at that possibility, I think) then why should she be fired?

My point isn't that she was entirely right, merely that firing her may have hurt many more people than just her, especially when the issues being discussed here are widely discussed and these instances make it clear that some sort of medium (again, happy or not) can be reached.

if, of course they knew the patient needed an abortion, and now we are getting into privacy issues...

Privacy issues? No we aren't. Because, simply put, if we includes me, then we aren't and won't be discussing the abortion topic.

Problem solved.

Q_C

 

[TheEarl]

Okay. You and I aren't disagreeing when it comes to Bob's right to fire Sally. If Sally doesn't want to dispense the pill, no she shouldn't be in the pharmacy business unless she works for a Bob who has the aforementioned (by others in the thread, not myself) signs hanging in the windows. Remember however, that all Sally really does is count pills, check prescriptions and hand them across the counter. So long as all the Bob's of the world have the right to not offer said pills in their pharmacy, then I'm pretty sure we both agree. But I think some acceptances should be made in other cases, meaning ones where counting pills isn't the issue so much as compressing wounds, stopping the bleeding, treating the infection, etc. More is on the line than someone's want of medication or option to sell it.

Q_C

It's just that the article in question is written with such outrage that anyone would even consider firing Sally.

Adamson's supervisor fired her on the spot and dispatched another ambulance to transfer the distraught young patient.
"It was a very long drive home," said Adamson, who sued the ambulance company in May 2004, charging religious discrimination over her 2003 dismissal. "I pretty much cried all the way. I was very upset and scared."...

...others describe what amounts to a sense of siege, with the secular world increasingly demanding they capitulate to doing procedures, prescribing pills or performing tasks that they find morally reprehensible

She sued the ambulance company after she was fired for openly not doing her job? That's ridiculous!

The Earl

 

[Stella_Omega]

Privacy issues? No we aren't. Because, simply put, if we includes me, then we aren't and won't be discussing the abortion topic.

Problem solved.

Q_C

not you yourself- the privacy issue would be between the ambulance company and the hospital. An attendant might need to know the circumstances of his passenger's illness- the hospital shouldn't have to broadcast it over the phone, or however they send out the calls, I don't know the details of that.
And I have to say that in this case, there was NO need for the staff to show the driver the girl's chart at all. I bet the hospital has made a note of this...


And of course her admission would have had ramifications. And it did, the very minute it happened. It was a question of when, not if. One wonders if the ambulance company might have been able to assign her to other runs rather than that particular one. I think we are thinking along the same lines here, too.

 

[Quiet_Cool]

not you yourself- the privacy issue would be between the ambulance company and the hospital. An attendant might need to know the circumstances of his passenger's illness- the hospital shouldn't have to broadcast it over the phone, or however they send out the calls, I don't know the details of that.
And I have to say that in this case, there was NO need for the staff to show the driver the girl's chart at all. I bet the hospital has made a note of this...


And of course her admission would have had ramifications. And it did, the very minute it happened. It was a question of when, not if. One wonders if the ambulance company might have been able to assign her to other runs rather than that particular one. I think we are thinking along the same lines here, too.

Then I guess we'll just have to agree to dis...

Wait! Did you just say... thinking along the same lines?

We almost agree...

*checks pulse*

Damn. That's never happened before.



Q_C

 

[Quiet_Cool]

It's just that the article in question is written with such outrage that anyone would even consider firing Sally.

She sued the ambulance company after she was fired for openly not doing her job? That's ridiculous!

The Earl

I won't argue the emotion it was written with, but bear in mind, pretty much anything controversial is going to be written with sway and emotion these days, given our immensely unbiased news sources (unbiased from every side; not just one). Bear in mind that the patient was noted as being distraught as well, so she driver wasn't the only one whose emotions were taking into consideration in the writing of the article. I think this particualr case, offering the emotions of the patient, is a good example of how many sides issues like this truly have and how many people they affect. Regardless of the outcome, someone, if not everyone, will be treated unfairly.

Q_C

 

[Stella_Omega]

Then I guess we'll just have to agree to dis...

Wait! Did you just say... thinking along the same lines?

We almost agree...

*checks pulse*

Damn. That's never happened before.



Q_C

depends on what we're talking about, doesn't it? Sex, for instance- we both like it...

 

[TheEarl]

I won't argue the emotion it was written with, but bear in mind, pretty much anything controversial is going to be written with sway and emotion these days, given our immensely unbiased news sources (unbiased from every side; not just one). Bear in mind that the patient was noted as being distraught as well, so she driver wasn't the only one whose emotions were taking into consideration in the writing of the article. I think this particualr case, offering the emotions of the patient, is a good example of how many sides issues like this truly have and how many people they affect. Regardless of the outcome, someone, if not everyone, will be treated unfairly.

Q_C

True.

The Earl

 

[impressive]

Sex, for instance- we both like it...

Kumba Ya!

 

[AchtungNight]

This is really an issue that makes you think. Here are my thoughts:

I too am of the opinion that the ambulance driver described was in the wrong job and needed a wake-up call. Whatever happened to "Go and sin no more?" Or did she convienently forget that story because she had her head stuck in her somewhat misguided "beliefs"? What about forgiveness? What ever made her think she could actually know or fathom the will of God? Was He perhaps trying to teach her something with the situation? Why didn't she consider that, even after the consequences passed?

Keep in mind, people, this is just my opinion.

In the other cases, I have similar feelings. I too am of the belief that if you take a job, you must do the job. I also believe that one's beliefs are not everything and while one should stand by them as best one can, it is not one's right or duty to force their beliefs on others. No one's personal set of beliefs is the only correct set in this world. It is also, I believe, up to each of us how closely we follow our beliefs. In the end it is our decision if we do things like keep sex confined to marriage, bear or abort babies, and so on. It is also the right of others to not get involved in such issues if they so desire. Yet if they're in a job where they can't help it, then they need to have some plan in play for stepping aside. (Reference to another doctor without their problems is a good one- even if that reference is limited to "Sorry, I can't help you with this. Talk to him." Note how no reason is given here for why help cannot be directly passed on.)

Note the free will here. That's one thing we all have despite the laws anyone places on us- free will. Even God himself doesn't mess with free will, and IMO neither should we. Now of course I will admit free will is the ultimate double standard, and it's obviously very operative on both sides of this issue. Therefore I really can't say which side is right or wrong. But I will say what I am saying here.

I have a friend who often counsels the victims of sexual assault. The cases are diverse- every victim is different. Yet there is one similarity. They all feel pain that is neverending. They will always feel that pain, even when the attacker is behind bars and years have gone by. In the cases where pregnancy is involved, they will always feel regret if they abort the child. To not feel such emotion is to not be human, and one cannot deny these people's humanity. If one does, for whatever reason, then IMHO they are not operating with good values in play. Therefore, while my sympathy is with those who stick to their beliefs, I give greater understanding to those who dare to be brave when life shocks their consience. And contrary to the beliefs of some, hiding behind a shield- even a shield formed of "good values"- is not always the brave thing to do.

 

[elsol]

It's actually very simple.

Don't talk to me about 'moral conviction' when you signed the dotted line saying you would be there when someone in need called.

Moral conviction is walking away before someone picks up the phone.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

Yes but:
1) The pharmacist refusing to dispense such pills (refusing service) usually is an employee NOT the one running the business. In none of these examples do I see a pharmacy owner saying, "I've put up in my window that we don't sell Morning-After pills"--that'd be one thing. It's his business. All I'm see is, Rite-Aid dealing with the fact that some of their employees won't serve their customers.

So, we wouldn't have a problem with Rite-Aid saying "we won't dispense the morning after pill"?

2) For what reason are they refusing seervice. A business CAN refuse service, but there are anti-discrimination laws as well. Otherwise we're back to what color can sit at the lunch counter. Or, as in one case that the Supreme Court knocked down, a religious woman who refused to rent to couples who weren't married or who were divorced. Refusing service has to be for a valid reason. Is this a valid reason? Yes, but it means that you have to state that your BUSINESS is not selling the pills to ANYONE (re: #1) so that people know to go someplace else.

That would be the point, yes... that nobody get the pill (working from that person who wouldn't feel right selling it to someone perspectice).

The problem here is that people are coming in for medicine or procedures that the business SAYS that they do...but that certain employees have decided the person should not have done because it goes against their (the employee's) religious beliefs. That's very different from a business deciding what it will and will not do.

So, you have no problem with the business NOT giving it--using a moral and religious argument and justification for not providing medical service--just a problem with the lack of publicity or warning?

you are not making sense, joe. i am not ogg, nor making the same arguments as he.

O.k... its obvious you'd like to avoid that part of the conversation--I can move on.

your focus on 'necessary procedures' does not take into account a main focus of the articles, nor the first example i gave (MAP). here the effects are not so immediate and dramatic. merely a woman has to drive another hundred miles for the MAP, so what the fuck. the articles are concerned, inter alia, with the multiplication of these types of incidents, which you appear to dismiss as inconsequential.
(or, should i say, easily overriden by such things as the seller's rights in commerce.)

Pure, please read more carefully... I've said nothing about the necessity of a procedure--only that some of these instances (and by no means had I said all) are purely elective. Not only elective, but some have no causal connection to life-threatening, injury, or disease situations. They are purely optional choices. So a woman has to drive another ten blocks to another pharmacy to get a morning after pill prescription filled... and some of us here want to assert that its a violation not just of occupation (which is highly dependant on the terms of their hire), but of Rightness and Correctness and (gasp) free choice.
The argument I'm presenting, and clearly, is that its not an issue of free choice being balked, if the choice is present for all to participate and not-participate in the optional desire on both sides of the fence.

for MAP, you neglect to note that the 'businessman' is also a pharmacist whose duty is to carry a certain stock of drugs, and hand them to those who come in with prescriptions from drs who've decided the drug is necessary or desirable. this is not at all the same as a businessman owning a variety store and deciding not to stock condoms because he's worried about teenage immorality.

I rather think it is, though. The pharmacist's duty is to act with regard to his professional judgement and personal conscience... to sweepingly say "their duty is to... hand them to those who come in with prescriptions" is to ignore the legal right to refuse that exists out there. As such, it is just like not stocking condoms.

however, as the article indicates, clearly the 'supremacy of conscience' position of the Christian right does easily extend to necessary procedures. do i gather you do NOT generally agree with the 'conscience of the provider' position for the following kinds of cases (i leave aside abortion):

Much agreed--I haven't yet said anything about the supremacy of conscience taking precedence over imperative medical situations (defined best by life-threatening, injury-threatening, immediate danger instances).

a JW nurse who refuses to assist (as is necessary, we'll postulate) in a transfusion. a doctor who believe God calls someone at death, and who refuses to use a defibrillator.

Now, you're not making sense... do you mean a tranfusion ala "life-saving necessity" or transfusion ala "because I want to try it and people shouldn't impede my right to do WHATEVER I can afford" or some other kind of transfusion? You say "as is necessary", so I guess that means the procedure is necessary and not the assistance (sentence placement... it could be either).
So, no, I don't guess they'd be a "JW" nurse.

arguably too, a dr or nurse, who counsels a sexually active teen, and merely lectures about abstinence instead of suggesting and giving out condoms may well put that person's life in danger, e.g., from AIDS.

I find that to be an issue of different weights. Offhand, I'd say that a doctor should be free to dispense medical advice on optional experiences (sex being one, rape notwithstanding) in accordance with his professional judgement and personal conscience.

am i correct in inferring that you believe the above persons are breaching their moral and professional duties?

You would be "not correct", hoss.

now, if you indeed endorse the immorality of the professionals actions, as in the examples above, where a life is at stake, what exactly is the difference if it's just serious bodily harm or mild bodily harm?

I haven't anything intelligent to say about degrees of bodily harm from serious to mild or otherwise. However, life-threatening and elective? I do a bit.

 

[Pure]

moral conviction

as one inclined to the quaker persuasion, i must say that there is some bit of truth or correctness in joe's or even the Christian right's position.

i applaud the soldier who (not in the midst of battle) wants to hang up his gun. i applaud the executioner who sees the evil of c.p. and refuses to pull the switch, or loose the trapdoor any more.

i applaud the dr. who, having looked into an operation that's fashionable, like 'stomach stapling', says, 'it's dangerous, in my opinion, and i won't do it.'

i might ever admire the conviction of a prolife mom who, with her life at risk, says, 'save the baby, and leave my life in God's hands' and dies.

somehow, these cases though seem different from the pharmacist and ambulance driver cases. i wonder if Joe or anyone can explain why or tell me why i'm totally misguided.