It's Your Job!

Reading bills is generally an excercise in concentration. They're usually boring, and usually take ten times the words to communicate half the content that a normal person would use in even formal written conversation. So I won't fault you if you don't read this one.

I'll summarize the part that I'm interested in, though. This bill would require every licensed pharmacy in Missouri (you can't operate as an unlicensed pharmacy) to do the following:

1. Dispense any over the counter contraceptive or prescription drug in stock (when presented with a prescription), health contraindiciations aside and assuming the customer can pay.

2. If it isn't in stock, the pharmacy is required to order it expeditiously to sell it to the customer, or find the customer a pharmacy that can get it for them.

Quite a few states have introduced similar bills, and quite a few other states have introduced bills protecting the right of pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to fill prescriptions when doing so would conflict with their religious convictions.

I hear two common arguments to support this kind of bill. First, proponents argue thatlaws like the one above are being put in place simply to keep pharmacists from imposing their own convictions on other people. No one, it is said, should be allowed to force someone else to submit to their own personal convictions.

That's a somewhat valid argument, I admit; problem is, as applied to this situation, it works in favor of allowing the pharmacist to refuse to fill the prescription. That's because when he refuses to dispense medication, he's not trying to force compliance with his own convictions. He's simply refusing to participate affirmatively. If he were to rip up the prescription slip, or slash the person's tires so they couldn't go elsewhere, then sure, he'd be imposing his convictions on the other person. But in this case, he's simply not offering his own help to the person in their venture to obtain medication. Not actively assisting someone is a far cry from actively working to stop them.

These laws do exactly what the proponents claim to be trying to prevent; they force the pharmacy or pharmacist to affirmatively engage in an activity that violates their religious convictions. These laws force the pharmacist to comply with the personal moral convictions of... the legislator.

"But it's the job of the pharmacist" you'll hear some people protest. "They shouldn't have taken a job dispensing medication if they didn't want to really do it!"

Er, no. It's obviously not legally the job of the pharmacist, or you wouldn't hear of these laws being introduced. And it isn't nominally the job of the pharmacist, either, since opening up shop as a pharmacist isn't a tacit guarantee that you'll dispense every medication known to man, just like opening a tire shop isn't a guarantee that you'll stock Firestone, opening a movie store isn't a guarantee that you'll keep Fight Club on the shelf (curse you, Winchester Movie Gallery!), and opening a grocery store isn't a guarantee that you'll stock IBC Cherry Limeade (curse you, Wal-Mart!).