A woman wants to obtain emergency contraception, more commonly known as “the morning-after pill,” which can reduce the risk of pregnancy by 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.
A pharmacist, who holds devout religious and/or moral beliefs that emergency contraception is wrong, refuses to prescribe the pill, claiming he is enacting his “right to refusal” based on his beliefs.
While the woman has a right to obtain health care, the pharmacist – or any other health care provider – should not be forced to perform a procedure or fill a prescription that conflicts with his beliefs.
The last attempt in Louisiana to codify this law was in 2004 when Rep. Sydnie Mae Durand, D – District 46, submitted a bill that would have created the Health Care Rights of Conscience Act. The bill was assigned to the House Health and Welfare committee and died there. Louisiana allows individual and institutional health care providers to refuse to provide abortion services but does not protect individual providers, pharmacies, pharmacists or institutions that refuse to provide contraception or sterilization, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit organization focused on sexual and reproductive health research, policy and public education.
According to The Washington Post, which has been following this story for the past few months, by the end of January more than a dozen states were considering new laws to protect health workers who do not want to provide care that conflicts with their personal beliefs.acc Some of the proposals would shield pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions, such as the aforementioned example, while other, broader legislation would shelter doctors, nurses and even ambulance drivers who object to any therapy.
Francis J. Manion of the American Center for Law and Justice told the Post “the right to not be required to do something that violates your core beliefs is fundamental in our society.”
I agree with that statement to some extent, but is it not also fundamental to provide people with health care when they need it to possibly save their lives?
Many “right to refusal” supporters are self-proclaimed pro-lifers. I fail to understand how denying an abortion patient medical attention in the name of religious or moral beliefs is pro-life, especially if the patient is in critical condition – where an abortion is the only thing that will save the woman’s life. It seems these people are choosing one life, the fetus, over another, the mother.
Life-threatening or not, denying someone their right to receive medical attention should trump health-care providers’ desire to abstain from behavior they find morally wrong. Morally wrong is not the same as legally wrong – not in a secular society like the United States.
My concern with this issue is the potential for this idea of “right of conscience” to be written into law without being narrowly defined and restricted. The broad bills that legislators are attempting to push through have the potential to deny patients health services other than those related to abortions and embryos.
Lois Uttley of the MergerWatch project, which monitors treatment of reproductive rights by religious hospitals, told the Post “the so-called right-to-life movement in the United States has expanded its agenda way beyond the original focus on abortion.”
I agree. Social conservatives are positioning to potentially get legislation passed in some states that would give protection from punishment by state licensing boards to health care workers who refuse to provide care to anyone they hold opposing views about.
Doctors who think homosexuality is a sin could refuse to perform surgery on a gay man. Doctors who don’t believe in physician-assisted suicide could refuse to acknowledge terminally ill patients’ decisions to refuse resuscitation, a feeding tube or other invasive measures.
Patients have a right to say “pull the plug” and should receive the medical care they request, regardless of their doctor’s religious or moral beliefs.
The best way to avoid this conflict, aside from settling something into federal law, would be for physicians and pharmacists to identify their beliefs upfront and have an alternative system set up so the patient has access to treatment.
Susan C. Winckler, vice president for policy and communications for the American Pharmacists Association, said pharmacies should make sure another pharmacist is on duty who can take over or make sure there is another pharmacy nearby willing to fill the prescription.
The same should happen with doctors. I have no problem with health care providers objecting to certain procedures or treatments because of their beliefs.
It is when they spring their morality into their practice at the moment it is most crucial to provide care – such as with emergency contraception or an abortion patient in critical condition - that I object.
 
Dennis is a theatre senior. Contact him at [email protected]