Life Principles in the News
The following appeared in the Redmond Reporter on August 29, 2007
The Morality of Pharmacists
By Mark Cerasuolo
The August 11th issue of the Redmond Reporter ran a cartoon showing a Washington State pharmacist saying that it should be a matter of personal choice "whether or not to fill prescriptions of the 'Plan B' birth control drug." It depicted the pro-life pharmacist as agitated and irrational, compared to his calm and tolerant counterpart working behind the prescription counter.
Drug Topics, the 150-year-old pharmacy industry magazine, recently provided more objective insight into the moral dilemma facing pharmacists who object to filling Plan B prescriptions on the grounds that it causes early abortions. The magazine stated that because the point where life starts is a matter of personal, not scientific, judgment, "no one should be coerced into practices that violate their values, morals, or ethics."
There are good reasons for this. For one thing, the ancient rule of "first, do no harm" is also the foundation of modern medicine. For another, the idea of forcing those who respect life to harm life is alien to our culture. Exercising one's conscience is an American tradition going back to George Washington, who codified the concept of "conscientious objection" during the Revolutionary War.
More recently, in the state named after him, thousands of protestors along with Hollywood activists, Amnesty International, and the ACLU turned out to support conscientious objector Lt. Ehren Watada when he publicly refused to deploy in Iraq. And when two California anesthesiologists refused to participate in the execution of convicted murder-rapist Michael Morales, their colleagues and the American Medical Association stood squarely behind them because their involvement would be in direct violation of their professional oaths to "do no harm."
So anyone questioning whether pharmacists have the right to object to doing something they consider wrong must first answer this one: how are Watada and death row doctors somehow heroes for doing the same thing? Why are they more deserving of respect and rights than someone filling prescriptions?
The fact is, we don't ordinarily force doctors or any other medical practitioners to do something they might find morally or ethically problematic, whether it's helping with an execution, assisting in a suicide, prescribing "lifestyle" drugs, performing cosmetic plastic surgery, or de-clawing a housecat. When we deny the same basic right to pharmacists, we become moral hypocrites of the worst sort: "celebrating" conscientious objectors who conform to our way of living and thinking, while punishing anyone who holds a different position. That attitude simply defies moral reason and sound logic.
Once a group insists that their "rights" trump the morals and ethics of others and that some human life is somehow "worth" more than others, we are on the road to becoming a society where obeying orders - no matter how morally repugnant - becomes normal, and death becomes institutionalized. Once we reach the point anything is possible.
Most people who are willing to look at the abortion issue with reason and logic eventually realize that the pro-life movement is more intellectually and morally focused than cartoonish caricatures would have us believe. I made the transition from pro-choice to pro-life through just such a rational process. Anyone with an open mind who demands more than rhetoric and stereotyping is invited to join us. For more information contact us at www.healingtheculture.com.
Mark Cerasuolo
Marketing Director & Advisory Board
Healing the Culture
P.O. Box 82842
Kenmore, WA 98028
(425) 481-6563