Marquette Tribune: No Right of Conscience for Pharmacists

An editorial in the April 14 Tribune addresses the issue of laws that force pharmacists to supply “emergency contraception.” A recent court ruling in Illinois found that such laws violate the rights of pharmacists. But the Tribune did not agree.

Plan B, commonly known as the morning-after pill, is an emergency contraceptive that provides women with the option to prevent unwanted pregnancy if taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex. It is readily available to women in pharmacies across the country.

According to NBC Chicago, an Illinois judge recently sided with two pharmacists claiming that prescribing Plan B violates the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which protects health care providers from being forced to perform duties that conflict with their beliefs.

However, this freedom violates the rights of consumers who rely on pharmacies to provide them with emergency contraceptives if needed. Plan B, unlike the abortion pill, prevents ovulation or fertilization, not implantation, which would terminate a pregnancy.

The six-year-old state law requiring pharmacies to fill prescriptions without making moral judgments is now abolished, granting pharmacies the right to choose whether to stock them or not.

Regardless of religious beliefs, pharmacists have an obligation to their clients to fill their prescriptions.

Simply put, it is not the pharmacist’s choice. Imposing personal moral judgments on another individual’s life choices in the medical field is unprofessional and intrusive.

Pharmacists should not be granted so much power. The power of choice should belong to the individual making the decision. Consumers should not have the burden of worrying whether their prescription will be honored due to someone else’s beliefs.

Encouragingly, the state attorney general’s office plans to file an appeal in the near future. But, the moral argument still stands. An individual’s own beliefs cannot be imposed on others, especially concerning one’s medical choices. Personal beliefs must be kept in the background in professional settings, not interfering with decisions of others.[emphasis added]

That’s a stunning statement.

It’s typical of liberals that they preen and prance and talk about the evil of imposing one’s moral beliefs on others, all the while imposing their moral beliefs on others!

When liberals talk about “choice,” they are always talking about people making choices they think are acceptable. Like the choice to have irresponsible sex with no consequences or the choice to have an abortion. Liberals don’t believe people should have a choice to own a gun, or drive an SUV.

The Tribune doesn’t believe medical personnel should have any choice to avoid dispensing medicines they think are immoral. The editorial doesn’t address this issue, but the exact same logic would say that doctors and nurses should be forced to perform abortions, or drummed out of the medical profession.

If the morning after pill is legal, women have a right to buy it from any willing seller. They don’t have the right to coerce an unwilling seller to provide it.

Consider, for example, Supreme Court decision Lawrence v Texas. It ruled that people have a Constitutional right to have homosexual sex. That’s bad constitutional law (although we wouldn’t vote, in a state legislature, to outlaw any consensual sexual activity among consenting adults). But suppose you can’t find a willing partner? You have to do without. It would be a very odd idea that your right to have homosexual sex means that somebody has to be coerced into having sex with you.

One expects young journalists to be liberals. Conservatives tend to self-select out of the profession, knowing that it will be hostile territory.

But a supposed Catholic university should have at least some fledgling journalists with a bit of respect for Catholic moral teaching, and tolerance for people whose consciences are formed by that Catholic teaching.

But Marquette isn’t really a Catholic university. Given the choice of siding with pharmacists whose consciences are formed by Catholic teaching, or young women who have engaged in slutty sexual behavior, the Tribune has sided with the latter.

The Ad the Marquette Tribune Rejected

Newspapers always have the right to reject ads. They may reject them for reasons of taste, or (being private sector businesses) for taking a political position with which the editors disagree.

But why in the world did the Marquette Tribune reject this ad?

It basically encourages young women, going on spring break, not to put themselves into the position of having to use the “morning after pill.”

We talked to a member of the Tribune advertising department who said in effect that it was rejected for being “too harsh.”

Huh?

We also talked to Kimberly Zawada, Faculty Advisor to the business side of the Tribune. She obviously is being highly risk averse, pointing out to us that a Tribune ad showing the bare midriff of a young women -- in a rather innocent context -- generated objections. “You never know what your readers will think,” she observed.

The “harshness” of the ad supposedly centered around the phrase “chemical abortion,” and “blood clots” as something caused by the “morning after pill.”

The Tribune has run ads for abortion counseling services -- ones that encourage young women not to have an abortion -- in the past, according to Zawada. She added “if you present pro-life, you have the pro-choice people coming at you.” She added that the Tribune would not run a “pro-choice” ad.

The irony, of course, is that even Planned Parenthood, which strongly favors all kinds of abortion and contraception, could hardly object to the message to young women: don’t put yourself into a position where you feel the need for “emergency contraception.”

The issue is hardly resolved. It is being taken up by the Student Media Board, and by Dean John Pauly. The ad might still run. In fact, acording to Zawada space has been set aside to run it.

Hat Tip: Brian Collar