pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It has to do with moral objections over dispensing legal treatments like the morning after pill. Not like a moral objection over a course of treatment being too risky or some such thing.

or any other legal treatment. it can't just be about abortion and be a legal policy. if the patient is supposed to receive it for some condition or treatment, and you don't prescribe it or won't give it, you're a jerk who puts yourself above others

i don't understand how i even have to talk about this and defend it.

yeh, the real problem is that this opens a can of worms for any treatment that a doctor doesn't want to perform for whatever reason. And then maybe other professions start to say the same things. Pretty soon nobody has to do anything they don't want to do. Don't believe in divorce? Refuse to work with anyone who has had a divorce, even if you're a lawyer charged to defend a client. Don't believe in certain tax breaks? Refuse to offer tax breaks to a client, even if you're an accountant and it helps his/her family. I know I'm stretching it a bit here, but this just seems like a Pandora's box.

pacino wrote:

Allow healthcare workers to opt out of giving treatment for religious or moral reasons, thus weakening abortion rights.

No, weaken the rights of all patients period, for any treatment. Poor people in rural areas are screwed if someone just decides they can't do something for whatever moral reason.

YOU ARE A DOCTOR/PHARMACIST. YOU CHOSE THIS JOB. NOW DO IT.

That's what you wrote. Here's my last post:

You're so right that you don't care to explain what the rule would do? I'm confused. In your first post, you're talking about compelling doctors and pharmacists to do what the patient wants, and give them certain drugs. Now how do you justify this law? I agree with you on the morals of what you're trying to accomplish, but I think the law is not effective (because it could have a ton of unintended consequences, which you seem unwilling to entertain).

Anyone care to propose a law that would punish doctors for not writing prescriptions that their patients demand? I don't see how this is a hands-down good thing. Yeah, it will make the morning-after pill more accessible, for the handful of people who have a doctor that refuses to prescribe it and are unable to go to another doctor. But for every other person in this country, this will lead to self-medication (as if it doesn't happen enough already). It's just very difficult for a law like you propose to have the desired effect without negative consequences, in my opinion. And it's weird that you won't explain it to me how it's such a great thing, even though I agree with your end goal (make the morning after pill more easily available).

Monkeyboy wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It has to do with moral objections over dispensing legal treatments like the morning after pill. Not like a moral objection over a course of treatment being too risky or some such thing.

or any other legal treatment. it can't just be about abortion and be a legal policy. if the patient is supposed to receive it for some condition or treatment, and you don't prescribe it or won't give it, you're a jerk who puts yourself above others

i don't understand how i even have to talk about this and defend it.

yeh, the real problem is that this opens a can of worms for any treatment that a doctor doesn't want to perform for whatever reason. And then maybe other professions start to say the same things. Pretty soon nobody has to do anything they don't want to do. Don't believe in divorce? Refuse to work with anyone who has had a divorce, even if you're a lawyer charged to defend a client. Don't believe in certain tax breaks? Refuse to offer tax breaks to a client, even if you're an accountant and it helps his/her family. I know I'm stretching it a bit here, but this just seems like a Pandora's box.

They don't.

Try going up to a tort lawyer and demand that he defends you in traffic court, and see where that gets you. I think you're mixed up here. Most professionals offer very specialized services, and it would be ludicrous to compel them to service you outside their specialty. Go to a divorce lawyer for a divorce.

If you're so worried about doctors getting in the way of dispensing necessary medication, then here's a solution:

Allow it to be sold over the counter. Heck, you can put an age restriction on it (must be 18, like cigarettes). But you will still run into the possibility of a place not having it, just like you would run into the possibility of a doctor not prescribing it.

The doctor thing is tricky, but there's no question that this is an anti-abortion measure, and to pretend otherwise is rank foolishness.

As far as pharmacists, I do not see how pharmacists should be able to refuse to honor legitimate prescriptions. What if some jerk started telling people with scrips for pain medication said, you're not really hurt...

TenuredVulture wrote:The doctor thing is tricky, but there's no question that this is an anti-abortion measure, and to pretend otherwise is rank foolishness.

As far as pharmacists, I do not see how pharmacists should be able to refuse to honor legitimate prescriptions. What if some jerk started telling people with scrips for pain medication said, you're not really hurt...

I would use a different pharmacy.

Do people have a problem with some businesses not selling cigarettes? Or not serving alcohol to someone of age who demands it? While I'd be pissed to be denied alcohol, what can you do? Just go somewhere else. It doesn't sound like a good business plan, though, to refuse to sell your product.

Well the idea is that in rural places there might only be one pharmacy. And those places are probably also the same areas where you'd find pharmacists who refused to dispense the morning after pill.

• Allow people to carry loaded and concealed weapons in national parks.

Hot damn! Watch out Yogi and Boo-boo, I'm packing heat and I'm a'comin' fer ya, you pick-a-nick basket bandits!

::Pacino barges in to say this isn't only about abortion::

jerseyhoya wrote:Well the idea is that in rural places there might only be one pharmacy. And those places are probably also the same areas where you'd find pharmacists who refused to dispense the morning after pill.

Yes, I know. A pharmacy is a private business, and if they only were willing to sell cough medicine, cigarettes, and condoms, then I wouldn't shop there for all my needs.

jerseyhoya wrote:Well the idea is that in rural places there might only be one pharmacy. And those places are probably also the same areas where you'd find pharmacists who refused to dispense the morning after pill.

Not just the morn after pill... wasn't there a couple of examples where pharmacists refused to sell other birth control (the pill, rain coats, etc.) too?

Only in the really dumb rural areas would they actually consider a rain coat a form of birth control!

/Phan in Phlorida

Isn't that the charm of living in small towns, going down to the corner drugstore on Main St, and hoping they carry advil that day?

Werthless wrote:Isn't that the charm of living in small towns, going down to the corner drugstore on Main St, and hoping they carry advil that day?

Where I'm originally from, they sold ammo and live bait too.

Pat Burrell in a box?

I don't think condoms are gonna be the issue. But I hate arguments that assume that somehow a market fairy will come a fix these things. There is no market fairy. Markets are distorted and manipulated all the time, and not just by governments. The ability of a few powerful people to manipulate markets is easier in smaller and rural areas, and this can include raising barriers to entry.

Cletus' Five Forces

Werthless wrote:

Monkeyboy wrote:

pacino wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:It has to do with moral objections over dispensing legal treatments like the morning after pill. Not like a moral objection over a course of treatment being too risky or some such thing.

or any other legal treatment. it can't just be about abortion and be a legal policy. if the patient is supposed to receive it for some condition or treatment, and you don't prescribe it or won't give it, you're a jerk who puts yourself above others

i don't understand how i even have to talk about this and defend it.

yeh, the real problem is that this opens a can of worms for any treatment that a doctor doesn't want to perform for whatever reason. And then maybe other professions start to say the same things. Pretty soon nobody has to do anything they don't want to do. Don't believe in divorce? Refuse to work with anyone who has had a divorce, even if you're a lawyer charged to defend a client. Don't believe in certain tax breaks? Refuse to offer tax breaks to a client, even if you're an accountant and it helps his/her family. I know I'm stretching it a bit here, but this just seems like a Pandora's box.

They don't.

Try going up to a tort lawyer and demand that he defends you in traffic court, and see where that gets you. I think you're mixed up here. Most professionals offer very specialized services, and it would be ludicrous to compel them to service you outside their specialty. Go to a divorce lawyer for a divorce.

So a public defender doesn't have to defend someone who has had a divorce if they don't want to? I know most lawyers don't have to take a cse if they don't want to. And the accountant example would be someone just not telling someone that they have an option to get around a tax. A naive consumer might not know about that option. Maybe they were dumb examples, but like I said, I was stretching it to make a point that you are opening a can of worms, IMHO.

Monkeyboy wrote:Maybe they were dumb examples, but like I said, I was stretching it to make a point that you are opening a can of worms, IMHO.

Upthread...

Phan In Phlorida wrote:Where I'm originally from, they sold ammo and live bait too.

Monkeyboy wrote:So a public defender doesn't have to defend someone who has had a divorce if they don't want to? I know most lawyers don't have to take a cse if they don't want to. And the accountant example would be someone just not telling someone that they have an option to get around a tax. A naive consumer might not know about that option. Maybe they were dumb examples, but like I said, I was stretching it to make a point that you are opening a can of worms, IMHO.

The can of worms, as you put it, has been open for centuries, and is the way that the US has always operated. Legally binding businesses to serve does not mean more better service, generally, and that's what I was trying to show. Forcing non-specialists to perform a service (ie. traffic court) is just an example. As is forcing pharmacies to serve all medicines.

We'll be left with only Walmarts and Walgreens if you had your way, because they have the cheapest supply network. Not that it's a bad thing, but that could be the resulting reality. This regulation would hurt small businesses and small-time suppliers of medicine (ie. the people that actually supply the small towns with this much needed service). The small-town supplier may not be able to handle the business if he HAD to hold YYY number of medicines in order to fill all the possible prescriptions. And if a town was too small to support a fully stocked pharmacy, the pharmacist may decide to move somewhere that could, then they'd have nothing. Morning after pills would be the least of their worries.