My pal Anna has this at Dakota Women:
Bob Ellis has this to say:
How about a Jewish or Muslim grocery store owner being forced to sell pork. After all, don't we all (Christians, anyway) have a right to get pork without encumbrances, hardships, or even moral judgments?
It's funny he mentions that, because Target in the Mpls/St.Paul area has faced this very issue when Muslim cashiers refused to handle pork in their checkout lines.
What did Target do? THEY GAVE THOSE CASHIERS DIFFERENT JOBS.
I don't know why we should treat pharmacists who won't fill birth control prescriptions any differently.
I have this to say: "what do you mean "we"? Target is here dealing with its employees, and it seems to be well within the rights of the management to insist that their cashiers be willing to handle all the merchandise that is sold in the store. Target's willingness to find other work for conscientiously objecting Muslims, rather than simply let them go, is gracious precisely because it is not obligatory. Target would be equally with its rights if it insisted that the pharmacists it employs be willing to dispense any legal product carried by its pharmacy.
By the same token, Target, or Joe who owns his own corner pharmacy, would be equally within their rights if they chose not to carry tobacco, pornography, or birth control. A Hindu or Green Party restaurant owner may decide to serve only vegetarian dishes, for conscientious reasons. A Catholic doctor may refuse to prescribe birth control. A Jewish plumber may refuse to work on the Sabbath. Target's Muslim cashiers may decide to open their own, pork free supermarket. We don't get to decide how to "treat" such objecting parties because we aren't their employer. This is a matter to be decided by the business and its customers.
What Anna wants, if I remember her previous arguments, is to legally compel all pharmacists to carry and dispense birth control. Apparently "choice," which looked like a vital principle, was only a device to be discarded as soon as it is no longer useful. But such laws not only abridge the liberties of pharmacists, they also abridge those of their customers. Many people who have strong convictions on such matters, religious or otherwise, would chose doctors and pharmacists who share their convictions. Is it not an egregious violation of choice to prevent the objecting pharmacist from meeting their needs? Anna may have very little sympathy for these folks, but that is precisely what liberty means: letting people make their own choices, even if those choices offend Anna, or me, or all the rest of us.
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