Monday, June 16, 2008

For Debate | Pro-Life Heath Care Workers Desires to Abstain

Today's Washington Post featured an article on pro-life pharmacies. The proliferation (admittedly slow) of such pharmacies are part of a (slowly) growing trend for health care workers in various fields to refuse to participate in care contributing to abortions and/or sometimes contraceptive measures. As always in America, an issue has been raised as to whether or not such health care workers should be allowed to abstain from or even flat out refuse to administer (let's call it) 'birth control' procedures, including issuing and/or filling birth control prescriptions.

This question, in my opinion, can be answered by referring to a fundamental principle: people should be free to engage in whatever career they desire, so long as it doesn't contribute directly to the harm of anyone else. And they should be able to do so in accord with whatever personal principles they subscribe to. If, for example, someone who wants to sell books and magazines for a living wants to do so without contributing to the dissemination of (what he considers) pornography, he should be allowed to do exactly that. Thus, it seems, if someone wants to be a nurse or a pharmacist, they should be allowed to do so according to whatever principles they hold dear. The only time their doing so should be questioned is if and when it contributes directly to the harm of someone else, meaning essentially, in our present case, if our nurse or pharmacist is the only person providing that skill in a given locality. To argue against this (and specifically in the following way) is basically unfair and moreover makes 'pro-life' citizens less likely to concede that in some thinly-served areas people shouldn't be allowed to be pro-life if they go into a certain profession:
But critics say the stores could create dangerous obstacles for women seeking legal, safe and widely used birth control methods. "I'm very, very troubled by this," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, a Washington Advocacy Group. "Contraception is essential for women's health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women's health."
There are so many CVS, Duane-Reade and/or Walgreens pharmacies all over America that a pharmacy based on the idea of being pro-life (and thus expressly refusing to cater to contraceptive needs) is not going to limit access to contraceptives, which are readily available at any mainstream drug store. Moreover, nurses and doctors (the issue has apparently been more pronounced re Anesthesiologists refusing to anesthetize for certain types of procedures) who are of this persuasion should simply say so at the outset and not be put into situations where they will be the only individual available to provide such care. If they are the sole provider, their situation can default to an agreement they made when they become a professional in the health care field to waive their refusals.

The point is: to tell an American that he or she cannot participate in a certain profession because of their personal beliefs is wrong. There is plenty of room in the American economy, which is more than ably served in most sectors, for people to have the luxury of working within their framework of personal belief. That (maybe particularly American) freedom should be valued to a high degree, if not to the same degree as the freedom to purchase contraceptives.


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