Ed Huntress wrote:
"Gus" wrote in message
ups.com...

I think this whole "conscience clause" argument is kind of silly.
Unless you live in a town where there is only one pharmacist, you could
just go down the street and find another one to dispense whatever drug
you had a prescription for. Is this like a big problem or something?

So far, it's not a big problem. Associations of pharmacists have a
problem -- they profess to have an ethic similar to that of doctors, and I
understand that some pharmacy schools have their graduates sign an oath
that's based on the hippocratic oath, although I haven't read one. But I
haven't heard of it being much of a problem to customers. One case involved
a pharmacy that was the only one in the area that accepted a certain
prescription insurance plan, and that was the genesis of the news story. The
woman in question couldn't get her prescription filled because that
particular pharmacy was the only one she could reach. I assume that's an
extreme case and not representative of the issue in general.


Does this "un-conscience clause" also apply to doctors? Is a doctor
required to perform abortions just because he's qualified?

Another tough question. But they aren't, as far as I've heard, refusing
contraception as well as abortion aid. So they're in a place where the
hippocratic oath can be argued either way.

If they refused prescribing for contraception on grounds of their religious
belief, I'd censure them. If they continued, I'd lift their license. They
serve at the convenience of the public and under strict laws requiring that
they not discriminate in their treatment of patients' health. And
contraception inarguably improves general health.

Should the
doctor do whatever the patient asks for or else get a job in a
'biblical hospital' ?

He or she should do whatever contributes to the health of their patients.
That's their oath.

It happens that I've been doing a dossier on a new oral contraceptive and
I've read a lot of statistics on risks of contraception, births, and
abortion. I wouldn't want to be a doctor trying to argue that refusing an
abortion is in the medical interest of his patient. The evidence is
overwhelmingly against him.

And can't there be ethical questions outside of
religion?

Certainly there are. But almost all of the ones that give trouble in
medicine come from religion.

I'm reminded of an old friend of mine, taught by the Jesuits and
Harvard-educated, an old-time Catholic, who says his God "is an angry God."
g He prefers the Old Testament. And then I was reading today a reference
to a passage from Deuteronomy 21:10 that they must have skipped in parochial
school, but which I had read as an adult, in which the Bible proclaims a
right to capture women in battle, shave their heads, lock them up for a
month, rape them into matrimony, and then deny them the right to an abortion
afterward.

I guess you have a different version of Deuteronomy 21:10 than I do.

Marriage to a Captive Woman

10 "Suppose you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God
hands them over to you and you take captives. 11 And suppose you see
among the captives a beautiful woman, and you are attracted to her and
want to marry her. 12 If this happens, you may take her to your home,
where she must shave her head, cut her fingernails, 13 and change all
her clothes. Then she must remain in your home for a full month,
mourning for her father and mother. After that you may marry her. 14
But if you marry her and then decide you do not like her, you must let
her go free. You may not sell her or treat her as a slave, for you have
humiliated her."

I believe that the book of Deuteronomy records what Moses said to the
Israelites while they were in the wilderness. It records history and
does not in any way tell us to go do these same things today.


Otherwise, the Bible was pretty easy-going about abortion. So the "biblical"
morality of doctors who refuse abortions, and pharmacists that deny the
means to them, is pretty selective business. I guess it depends on how angry
your personal God is.

--
Ed Huntress