Our esteemed Keloland colleague, Todd Epp, seems to think that there is some kind of contradiction between opposing abortion and favoring the right of pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives on grounds of moral or religious belief.
The Rapid City Journal reports today that Sen. John Thune is pro-choice when it comes to pill counting pharmacists having a right not to provide birth control pills to women so they can avoid an abortion...Yet Thune and his anti-choice ilk have no problem telling women that they can't choose to have an abortion--and now they can't even choose to take birth control if they have a jerk as a pharmacist.
I think that this is an example of what lawyers mean when they speak of "proving too much." Suppose Todd is right, and there is a contradiction between the two positions. Would it not work equally well the opposite way? If you are pro-choice on abortion, wouldn't you have to be in favor of choice for pharmacists?
That it doesn't work the opposite way is evident from my pal Anna's post, at Dakota Women. Anna, I gather, doesn't mind telling pharmacists that they have to fill prescriptions for birth control, but she is all
for choice on abortion. Todd has managed to convict his own allies along with Thune and himself, perhaps. It's hard to tell, given the ranting tone of his post.
In fact, neither side is guilty of any contradiction. The pro-choice side believes that there is nothing wrong with abortion, and that it falls within the realm of personal liberty. I disagree with that position, but it's surely coherent. The pro-life side thinks that abortion is a severe form of child abuse, and there can be no legitimate freedom to abuse children. The second question is how to protect freedom of conscience while maintaining codes of professional responsibility. That is a matter requires an entirely different set of judgments.
For example, see the passage that Anna quotes:
If your conscience forbids you to carry arms, don’t join the military or become a police officer. If you have qualms about animal experimentation, think hard before choosing to go into medical research. And, if you’re not prepared to provide the full range of reproductive health care (or prescriptions) to any woman who needs it then don’t go into obstetrics and gynecology, or internal or emergency medicine, or pharmacology.
That is a strong argument, but again it proves too much. Someone who cannot in good conscience sell tobacco or pornography should not accept a job where such trade takes place. But can't the business decide not to carry such items? Can't Target or K Mart decide not to stock cigarettes, or decide that it will sell only products that are friendly to the environment? If a Catholic pharmacists can be compelled by law to dispense birth control pills, can a Catholic doctor be required to perform abortions? To be sure, a PhD in biology shouldn't accept a research position that involves experiments on animals. But suppose she thinks that the same results can be achieved without such experiments? Should she not be allowed to raise capital for her own, animal-free research lab? If so, I see no reason a pharmacist should not be allowed to make the same decisions if it's his drug store.
Besides, compelling pharmacists "to provide the full range of reproductive health care (or prescriptions) to any woman who needs it" extends freedom to one set of customers while denying it to another. I would not knowingly pay for services from a doctor who performs abortions. That is my choice. I have no objection whatsoever to forms of birth control that do not involve abortion, but I respect the choices of people who do. If a scrupulous person wishes to engage only physicians who do not dispense any form of birth control, shouldn't a similarly minded doctor be able to provide that standard of service? I know for a fact that such doctors can be found. Surely pharmacists and their customers should be allowed to make the same choices.
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