August 2006 Weddings
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Re: Growing Trend: Pharmacies refusing to stock/sell contraceptives
A question for those of you (namely Caden and Marquis) who think it's OK for a pharmacist or pharmacy to refuse to fill a BC prescription: What if the pharmacist refuses to give the prescription back or transfer it to another pharmacy? That was the case of a pharmacist in Wisconsin - a young woman brought in her birth control prescription, and the pharmacist refused to fill her prescription, but he also refused to give it back to her or to transfer it to another pharmacy. So she had to call her doctor to get another prescription. The pharmacist was reprimanded by the state board. He appealed it on religious freedom grounds, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court said that the pharmacy board did not violate his right to religious freedom.
As I understand current constitutional jurisprudence, the issue of whether a pharmacist can refuse to fill a birth control prescription on religious grounds is a state issue. If a state's regulations require licensed pharmacists to fill all prescriptions unless they believe they are fraudulent (or other criteria), then the First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Oregon does not require a free exercise exception to a neutral, generally applicable law. Basically, religious freedom can't be used to escape the requirements of state licensing boards.
Well that's theft and is and should be illegal. If I were arguing with that guy on the street and wanted to use religion to fight his religious argument, I would remind him 'Thou shalt not steal'.
Wait, you think, MD, that people should just drive to the potentially one public hospital in the state? 2 things are wrong with that. 1) not everyone has access to transportation to go that far and 2) in some places, the public hospital is actually a private religious hospital receiving public funds (which is a whole 'nother mess that I think is wrong).
States don't have a right to legislate morality which is why they cannot ban individual drugs unless for health and safety reasons. There is no medical reason why birth control is unsafe, so that pharmacist is imposing their religion on a customer, not their knowledge and training about safety. How is that right?
I do understand the argument that a customer can go elsewhere. And, in general, I'd say that's ok. That happens all the time with brand preferences for instance. But, to me, drugs are a different issue. Withholding medicine without a medical reason is a violation of ethical standards. Now, maybe it is something for state licensing boards to deal with rather than a law, but it is something that needs to be regulated not simply left to consumer boycott especially in places where consumers might not be empowered like if there's only 1 pharmacy, and they don't have access to one further away.
If the public hospital is too far away, there are mail-order programs. And that's just if every single pharmacy decides to stop stocking birth control altogether, which is highly unlikely. But, worst case scenario, the mail-order pharmacies can still mail you your pills, which is arguably even more convenient than going down to the corner Christian pharmacy.
Yes they do. Morality is the reason child porn, polygamy, prostitution, etc are all illegal. The point of laws is to codify a society's morality.
Not only would mail-order be more convenient, but under many prescription drug plans it's a lot cheaper too.
Yes, but if you need to get your prescription ASAP, or if you need the morning after pill you might not have the luxury of waiting for it to come in the mail.
And again, I worry about the slippery slope. What's to stop pharmacists from deciding not to stock other medications they deem unnecessary or immoral? What's to stop a pharmacy from refusing to fill a blood pressure medication on the grounds that that person should just lay off the hamburgers (gluttony is a sin, after all)? Or as someone mentioned earlier, refusing to fill AIDS medication for someone because they believe AIDS is punishment from God for homosexuality and/or sin?