free enterprise, free conscience

there's a great new bill going through the tennissee legislature. it's called the "pharmacists freedom of conscience act" and would allow pharmacists do refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs that they morally oppose. birth control is the key issue in this debate.

forcing a businessperson to engage in something s/he feels morally wrong does not seem justifiable, so as long as pharmacy owners are allowed to fire pharmacists for refusing to fill prescriptions, this makes a lot of sense to me.

i'm not concerned with any negative effects of this law. most, if not all, towns have more than one pharmacy, and i am fairly sure at least one will be entrepreneurial enough to exploit the need for birth control pills. the withholding pharmacy will loose profits from those pills while, perhaps, gaining some of the other pharmacy’s clients who would prefer to go to a "moral" pharmacist. i bet it may even out in the end and allow people to act in accordance with their own beliefs.

and if there is only one pharmacist and he's a zealot catholic looney? there is no reason why one can't order birth control pills online or via mail. it's often cheaper anyway.

for more information, visit the protection of conscience project's website, a religious group pushing all kinds of laws against "force[ing] health care workers and others to participate, directly or indirectly, in morally controversial procedures".

via the fayette county review

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