An Outrageous Price of Doing Business

I don't understand the prohibition Catholicism and other religions have against birth control. Simultaneously, I can not say that a person has a right to acquire birth control from a pharmacist that does not wish to dispense it. While the article does not go into detail about the pharmacy's participation in state programs, I can not see how this case can merit any more than excluding the pharmacy from state health plans. The pharmacy in question is part of the Osco chain. If Osco has a problem with the way the pharmacist handled the matter, then it is an issue to be settled between themselves.

The following quote from Steve Trombley, CEO for Planned Parenthood in Chicago, shows just how far off the board the rights of private business have become:

"When medical professionals write prescriptions for their patients, they are acting in their patients' best interests," Trombley said. "A pharmacist's personal views cannot intrude on the relationship between a woman and her doctor."

One idea that has been lost here is that a prescription is permission to dispense a medication, not an order to do so. If the pharmacist chose not to dispense, then he loses the business, and the patient is only out the time it would take to go to another pharmacy. If there had been a real emergency need for contraception in this case, I would think that the Planned Parenthood office would know of a pharmacy that would be happy to fill the prescription.

The use of law to compel the pharmacist to dispense medication for a purpose he finds immoral would be the same as compelling a newsstand owner to carry "The Ku Klux Klan Kwarterly" because he may not deny his customers' First Amendment rights to read it. I think that "the customer is always right" has gotten out of control on this one.