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Good
morning !
May Day
The first of May is celebrated as many things
http://www.theholidayspot.com/mayday/history.htm including
the day of the Communist worker
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/ws95/may45.html. Last week
I noted that Congress is considering Federal legislation that
would REQUIRE the “worker pharmacist” to dispense oral
contraceptives*. (see homework from last week’s ppp 04-25-2005.)
Presently many states have found it necessary to have laws on
the books that allow for a pharmacist to exercise a
"conscientious objector" prerogative. Most require a pharmacist
to let the employer know of objections to the dispensing of
certain medications. The employer then makes considerations to
have another employee, who has no objections, to dispense the
drugs or to send the patient to another place to obtain the
drug. This is like the allowances made for the disabled under
the AMERICANS WITH DISABILITES ACT, Instead of physically
building a "way in" to a building for the physically disabled
they have built a systematic "way out" of moral conflict for the
conscience enabled.
I
heard an associate dean from one of the colleges of pharmacy in
California discussing this topic briefly on Public Radio. It was
interesting to hear the relativism in the argument from a
“professional ethicist”. "If a drug was available that only
aborted female babies then"… the argument went…”the
pharmacist could refuse.” (Paraphrased). The moral outrage was
over using gender to select which child to let live, not that a
child would die. (For those of you who are still going to argue
whether an unborn-child is human and alive or not… shame on you
and your high school biology teacher!)
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Would you dispense a lethal dose of morphine? (Does it
depend on how sick someone is?)
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How about RU486? (Does it depend on how sick or poor
the mother is or the results of genetic testing?)
-
Do
I work for a company that used fetal stem cells from an
aborted child to develop a new drug or treatment? (Does it
depend on how serious the illness being treated is?
Baldness or brain cancer?)
I
believe that “TRUTH” exists without the “depends” clause. Truth
is what we seek in the application of ethics and the good of the
individual and, by logical progression, the greater community. I
am not a “university trained ethicist” but a humble “applier” of
ethics in the real world. Seems to me, that if a drug will cause
death then I should have the right to refuse to dispense it.* If
other pharmacists do not have “a crisis of conscience” then
they may choose to compound medications for lethal injection
(using sterile technique out of habit and not thinking about the
reality), dispense RU-486, or lethal doses of morphine to
“terminal” patients.
The age of “physician as god” and the lackey pharmacist’s
unquestioning fulfillment of the order was found not to be in
the best interest of patients. Is this recent conscription the
return swing of the pendulum to the re-deification of members of
what John Paul II termed “the culture of death”?
Most pharmacists try to find work in areas that do not force
them into situations where they might have to do something
against their deeply ingrained sense of what is right. The
saying “I was just following orders” did not stand against
charges at the Nuremberg trials. Expect both a fight over this
AND a quiet attrition from the ranks of dispensing pharmacists
into one of the many other areas of pharmacy practice.
*
MECHANISM OF ACTION:
ORAL CONTRACEPTIVES inhibit ovulation
(hypothalamic control of FSH and LH in the pituitary). OC also
produce changes in the cervical mucus preventing sperm
penetration. OC may also produce changes
in the endometrium which would prevent implantation
of a fertilized ovum. (How else could it
work as a “morning after” pill?)
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ps. Best answer this
week to the question "How are you?"
was "I’m
a beautiful, tender, caring, loving human being. See – if I
just said ‘fine’ I wouldn’t have gotten your attention."
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