Pharmacists and the Conscience Clause.

Filed under the key word(s) Catholic Persecution, CausaNostraeLaetitiae relates a story of a pharmacist who is concerned that her profession as a pharmacist is being undermined by, uh, filling drug prescriptions:

My personal thought is how can one hear the whispers of the Holy Spirit while drugged up? And drug seeking behavior can be seen from people in any walk of life. Legal drug abuse is phenomenal! It is hard to believe how many drugs some people take. Then when I realized that birth control pills had abortifacient properties, I knew I could not be a retail pharmacist that dispenses those. I left my position in Jan. 1998 and wasunemployed for about 6 months. Then I was offered a position with a home health/IV pharmacy and that was great. I did that for 7 years. Then the franchise closed. A pharmacist who I had worked for in the past offered me a part time position in a grocery store pharmacy and I was allowed a conscience clause and I did that until I moved away last year. I have not found a position here where I can work in accord with my conscience. There is a nursing home pharmacy but even there I have a prejudice that many folks are in nursing homes because they take too many drugs! Do I want to be a part of that, even if legal? So you see I have many issues with my profession. And now the coming mandating of giving vaccines and shots and following that may be the dispensing of drugs for euthanasia. I cannot do that either.

My beautiful profession! Look what has happened to it."

At least he/she acknowledges their conscience as a prejudice. Among the drugs dispensed that this pharmacist objects to? H1N1 vaccine, psycho-tropic drugs, tranquilizers, sleeping medications, of course birth control, and the "dangerous Gardasil Vaccine."

Philosophically, I support the use of conscience clauses to protect the rights of the religious in the work place. But predominantly in practice the conscience clause is used to promote a moral agenda and to shut down personal rights and choice. A woman who chooses to take birth control should encounter no problems filling that prescription; the pharmacy should be required to always have someone on staff that will fill her prescription.

Denial of access has been a profoundly effective tactic by "pro-life" groups to thwart womens' use of legal medical services like abortion. This use of conscience clauses is the exercise of prejudice, not religious freedom. Religious freedom should not mean religious imposition.