Asymmetrical Information

Yes! I said the same thing on my blog. I think it really is a no-brainer.
http://redneckfeminist.blogspot.com/2005/04/conscience-clauses-let-businesses.html

Yes: everything is now officially a federal case. Arm yourself for the civil war to come.

I'd concur. If a pharmacist is morally oposed to birth control, or the morning after pill (subset of typical b.c.), let them start their own pharmacey. Their employer should have a bigger say in the matter than the government.

I agree that the decision ought to be left to the marketplace, which is both this bill and any attempt for the government to force a pharmacist to fill a prescription (including by using their license as leverage) are both wrong.

I understand your point Jane but would you be OK with a doctor unwilling to provide care to minorities because of his beliefs?

Doesn't that warrant state intervention?

GT - You raise in interesting point. When is it appropriate for the government to intrude into what should be a private interaction among private parties? Society answered this question in combating segregation and racism in the 50's and 60's. We decided it was NOT alright for a cafe to refuse to serve someone based on race. But in enforcing one person's "right to be served" we stepped on another person's "right to refuse service".

I think the circumstances at that time may well have justified government's intrusion into people's lives. What about today? I long for the day when we can trust that most of us are adult enough to play in the sandbox without supervision.

Yes David, I hope for that too.

If I want bacon with my eggs, should a Muslim cafe owner be forced to provide it?

Sticky. I guess we all agree there's no such thing as "separate but equal," yet it does seem that where the marketplace can provide plenty of options (as in the case of Chris's Muslim cafe owner), there's no need to mandate that All Breakfast Joints Will Serve Pork-Based Breakfast Meats.

It seems to me that the question about pharmacies is a little different, though. Restaurant menus are accepted to be limited, and their limitations are accepted to be at the discretion of the owner. Pharmacies are expected to provide the full range of available drugs, except compounded ones unless it's a compounding pharmacy. As the piece Jane links to points out, in rural areas where there isn't but one nearby pharmacy, a woman who wants a morning-after pill and can't get to another, farther-away pharmacy within 72 hours may be out of luck if the pharmacist refuses to dispense it, which may lead her to seek a later-term abortion. (It may also result in her not having an abortion, of course, if her decision to terminate before any potential pregnancy became "real" to her was shallow-rooted but her morals and upbringing tend her toward having a baby in spite of high personal cost. But it could go either way.)

Shoot, I dunno. My inclination is to say that at minimum, if you have a "conscientious objector" on your pharmacy staff and that person's so valuable that s/he must be kept on, you ought to put up a sign to that effect. Or, if you want to run a no-contraceptives or no-morning-after-pill pharmacy, post it on the window so there's no doubt. Docs in underserved areas may have to find an expedient, such as keeping the pills in their offices and dispensing them themselves, as they do samples. (Can they do that? Is there a mechanism for doctors to dispense scrip medications that aren't free to them?) If you're going to take a moral stance, you ought to be willing to bear the consequences of that stance - in this case, less business if people are offended by your position.

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