If they want to “inform” patients about this implantation issue, then fine, I guess that is partially within thier purvue. Otherweise, they have no business withholding treatment from anyone. They are not doctors, and they are trying to override the direct advice of doctors. And that is why the pacifist argument is disingenuous. No doctor, or similarly qualified individual, has ever told anyone that they need a gun. Not so with BC. And the “take my business elsewhere” argument, as noted above has the problems of time-sensitivity, and is untenable for a relatively large segment of the population (i.e., rural people) anyway.

You probably wouldn’t suppport a pharmacist who refused to fill prescriptions for black people. This case is no different.

Pharmacists are expected to behave professionally at a key link in the process of getting the right drug in the right patient. A doctor can hardly put a treatment plan in place if the next person in the line is going to usurp the doctor’s prescribing role.

Target’s assertion that their employees can substitute their own opinions for the doctor’s prescription is dangerous. The medical system is not designed to function with that kind of input.

And, frankly, we pay a lot extra for the supposed benefits of that sytem.

Either way, applying the usual consumer model of relationship to crucial services like health care has disastrous consequences. Once this model is taken to be the only truth, one is left with mild and ineffective course of action available, such as boycotts etc.

So I certianily think women have a right to have prescription medication readily obtainable. How this is achieved in our somewhat crazy system is up for discussion, but not what I was getting into here.

And as for complaining and such, there is nothing wrong with that. Again, from what you’d said I thought you were supporting legal requirements for a pharmacy to fill EC.

I also agree with some other posters above that there is a real problem when a big store like this is the only game in town and either employs one of these people or doesn’t supply EC at all.

Contraceptive pills are a pharmacy’s bread and butter, and no pharmacy with an interest in sustaining a business would refuse to sell them. Any pharmacy that sells contraceptive pills has no rational reason to refuse to sell EC.

There is a limited window of time in which EC will be effective, which means that a woman may not have a lot of time to shop around for a pharmacy that will sell it to her. This makes the “take our business elsewhere” argument more than a little disingenuous.

Also, in what sense am I forcing anyone to do anything. I was suggesting that citizens who disagree with the action a business is taking are perfectly within their rights to call that business, complain, and to take away their business if their issues are not addressed in the way they would like. What exactly is wrong with this?

tweedledopey - I mentioned the Pacifist to argue that, while a store can have good reasons to hire her, it cannot reasonably expect her to sell guns, and it must hire someone else to do so. To complete the analogy, there could be plenty of good reasons why a store might want someone who refuses to sell ECs as a pharmacist, but it is consequently bound to hire another pharmacist willing to sell those products if, indeed, it expects to sell any. My point is that one shouldn’t demand that a particular pharmacist should provide ECs, only that there is someone available who is willing to do so.

I think it goes beyond that, however–I think that when the employer is a pharmacy, they should be required to fill the prescription. In a city, it’s no huge deal–you can just go to another nearby pharmacy. But in the small town in which I used to live, there was a small local pharmacy, teetering on the brink of extinction, and the large wal-mart pharmacy. If both of these places oppose, EC, you are screwed. Not to mention that local people in the country are really damn poor (for the non-Americans here, the rural midwest is pretty much as badly off as the inner cities are).

If we insist on having the private sector provide as critical a health-care service as dispensing medication, then they should do whatever a doctor has already told them to do.

Same with the pacifist saleswoman and guns - why in the heck would she take a job with a store selling guns in the first place - if not to make a point.

These pharmacists have a right to an opinion, but it’s not necessarily the opinion of the employer for whom they work, so they in fact, violate MY rights when the refuse to fill a prescription.

That is astonishing, because now I worry not so much about standards of conduct, inappropriate as they are, rather I am suddenly concerned about standards of competence…