Outrageous

That is how I'd describe pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions that don't conform to their personal moral beliefs, at least those that don't make alternative arrangements.

Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

Maybe they should consider a new line of work.

When I was a fellow, I used to moonlight covering a pediatric practice and one Saturday I got a call from a teenager (I don't remember the exact age, but it was at least 18) asking for the morning after pill since a condom had broken. As a supporter of this form of contraception (and it is contraception) I called it in, warning her to be more
careful in the future. I thought about what I'd do if I was opposed, but decided I'd really have to give up this moonlighting shift (or make alternative arrangements) since there was no particular reason patients should have to be inconvenienced by my personal religious beliefs. I feel the same way about other health care workers

If a doctor is personally opposed to abortion, he or she has no duty to perform them, but then he or she needs to find a job that doesn't require performing them. He or she can't very well take a job at Planned Parenthood and then object to doing his/her job. And if you take care of women in a specialty where they might become pregant, you have to be willing to refer to someone who will perform abortions.

I don't see it as being any different for pharmacists. If they won't fill prescriptions for OCPs they should start special pharmacies which clearly state which medicines they will and won't fill. If enough fundamentalist wackos want to go to those pharmacies, fine for them, but the average person deserves to have their prescriptions filled in any pharmacy that doesn't clearly and publically proclaim that there are certain prescriptions they won't fill.

I have little patience with the idea of "transferring" the prescription either. If it is a big pharmacy and they always make sure to work with another pharmacist who will fill those prescriptions that is no big deal, but I don't see why customers should have to schlepp all over town because somebody doesn't want to do his or her job.

This quote, I can hardly even comment on:

Brauer, of Pharmacists for Life, defends the right of pharmacists not only to decline to fill prescriptions themselves but also to refuse to refer customers elsewhere or transfer prescriptions.

"That's like saying, 'I don't kill people myself but let me tell you about the guy down the street who does.' What's that saying? 'I will not off your husband, but I know a buddy who will?' It's the same thing," said Brauer, who now works at hospital pharmacy.

Comparing morning after contraception, must less OCPs (Oral contraceptive pills is medical argot for birth control pills) to murder is way, way over-the-top. Morning after contraception probably works primarily by preventing implantation of the fertilized ovum (aka embryo) in the uterus. Guess what? The majority of fertilized embryos don't implant anyway. I haven't seen a lot of "funerals" for embryos that didn't implant or much medical research devoted to decreasing all these tragic deaths (ed: be careful what you wish for).