New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | February 8, 2006

Bernard-Henri Lévy's not the only one who can update Tocqueville: Shikha Dalmia looks at the controversy over pharmacists' refusal to dispense emergency contraception through the eyes of the author of Democracy in America and wonders why both sides insist on being so... French.

Comments

|2.8.06 @ 3:56PM|#

For instance, women in remote areas might have to drive several hours for a morning-after pill. But this inconvenience is minor and short-lived compared to...

This "inconvenience" is "minor" and short lived for the author or anyone who doesn't have to deal with this. Having to drive hours potentially to get a morning after pill whose effectiveness diminishes with the passage of time is more than a "minor" inconvenience to the person who needs the pill. Especially if one needs to maybe get to work or something.

if doctors can be required to dispense treatment against their moral views, why can't conscientious objectors be forced to fight wars that they find morally repugnant

I was under the impression that conscientious objectors can and are at times forced to conscript or are threatened with jail time or prodded into doing some kind of alternative service of national importance. I don't think this analogy is very apt.

|2.8.06 @ 3:59PM|#

Prediction: 200+ posts.

Well, to offset the fact that I added a post without commenting on the topic, I'll predict 201+ posts.

|2.8.06 @ 4:00PM|#

We're all Jacobins now. :)

|2.8.06 @ 4:01PM|#

To add to the conscientious objectors analogy,
maybe there should be an equivalent evaluation of people who deny certain drugs for moral beliefs on par with that of conscientious objectors. Maybe they should have to submit to evaluations and hearings can answer questions like "Do you believe in the death penalty" to see if their position is legit or if its politically motivated.

|2.8.06 @ 4:13PM|#

If you value ready convenience then you shouldn't live in a remote area in the first place. Choosing to live deep in the woods of Maine means you accept the trade-off of peace/solitude for the loss of the benefits of settled areas so don't start complaining about this problem.

|2.8.06 @ 4:13PM|#

I know a doctor who has occasion to prescribe emergency contraception. She maintains a stockpile of the pills, which she is happy to send home with her patients. Why not? A doctor is allowed to dispense medication. And this way, she knows that her patients are getting the treatment they came to her for!

I asked her about this controversy - she doesn't seem to know - I asked why so many doctors get away with playing hide-and-go-seek with the pill. They pocket $100 or $200 or $300 for a 5 minute appointment, in which the patient explains that she has recently had unprotected sex and fears pregnancy, write out a prescription for a pill they don't have and that they aren't sure anyone has, and send her on her way. Is this ethical? It's cowardice, I think, and it's being a bad doctor.

A doctor who regularly prescribes an antibiotic, knowing that nobody in town has it, knowing that it is the only acceptible treatment, collecting a fee regardless, is not treating the patient well. This doctor does not justify his fee. He should lose his license, I think.

But perhaps - you might say - a doctor is caught in a bind here. A doctor might not wish to give out emergency contraception, for their own moral/religious beliefs, or even because they fear reprisal from religious partisans upon their own person - yet for various reasons they feel obliged to "treat" patients seeking emergency contraception anyway - so why shouldn't they duck the moral dilemma and place it on the shoulders of the pharmacist? Yet I say that the ultimate responsibility for a patient receiving the treatment they need is the doctor's. A doctor who does not like EC is free not to prescribe it in the first place.

We hear constantly about these pharmacists - yet we never hear about the doctors. It takes 2 people here, to not have the pill, folks! Why don't the doctors speak out! They would rather collect their fees in silent cowardice - then they should be the target of protest until they reform. There is no reason to let them off the hook so easily.

Not so long as my friend maintains the pills in her medicine chest! She knows how to treat patients. Some doctors don't.

|2.8.06 @ 4:17PM|#

Oh, and certified conscientious objectors serve their time working in a hospital or similar duty in leiu of military service. Later, they become infamous vigilanties after finding out they are gifted marksmen and their families are killed.


This, of course, was back when there was a draft.

|2.8.06 @ 5:14PM|#

The concept that one adult (labelled "patient") needs the permission of another adult (labelled "doctor") before being allowed to buy pills, etc., is so silly, expensive and dangerous that it trumps all other medical concerns.

|2.8.06 @ 5:15PM|#

if doctors can be required to dispense treatment against their moral views...

...does the doc have to honor the patient's wish to perform an assisted suicide?

Does that mean the State is forcing someone to be a murder (at least in that person's mind - and likely in the minds of many)?

Larry A|2.8.06 @ 11:32PM|#

What the "there ought to be a law" folks don't realize, of course, is that if government regulates morality then individuals will no longer have a moral choice to make.

And since there's no such thing as a moral government morality will disappear.