Religion vs Employment

[Schlottke]

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"My local pharmacist told me that he had to take the hippocratic oath just like the doctors do and he thought that dispensing morning after pills violated that oath just like killing someone would. It was not a religious issue, just one in which he gave his word."

Okay, we're off on a tangent here, but I disagree. The pharmacist's job is to fill the doctor's prescription . . . PERIOD! He can point out potential side effects or drug interactions, but he is no more than a subordinate to the physician. If he doesn't like what the doctor prescribed, he should take it up with the doctor. If he feels he's being a party to malpractice because a prescription is medically inappropriate or illegal (like heroin, but not like the morning after pill), he may refuse to fill the prescription and contact the proper authorities, but it is not his job to make moral judgements about the doctor's prescription.

The judgment is not necessarily a moral one. In many people's eyes- it is killing a baby. While the law says one thing, many people hold views that differ from what the law thinks is correct. If law allowed Kavorkian to end people's lives while they were in pain (and that could happen...many of these people are closer to death than the baby is to life outside the womb), he wouldn't be looked at as a madman in the media.

(Just another perspective- I happen to think that if you're doing the job, you better be able to dish out whatever they tell you to, or expect to get fired.)

[Spider]

Schlottke,

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I don't think we disagree here. Whether it's a quesiton of morality, religion, or whatever, unless you are being asked to do something illegal, either do the job or get out. My point in my previous post was that the pharmacist is obligated to carry out the physician's orders unless he detects an error which could jepoardize the patient's health, or unless he's asked to do something illegal. Christian Scientists probably think that the dispensing of any medicine is improper, so they'd really make lousy pharmacists.

[Schlottke]

The Scientologists would definitely not be my pharmacist of choice... lol