abortion morality vs professional ethics

There have been reports of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth-control pills. These illustrate the fundamental contradictions in the conservative case against abortion, which I think ultimately harm the pro-life cause.

Make no mistake on my own position here - I agree that a pharmacist shoudl be able to refuse to dispense a medication on moral grounds. However, professional ethics require that they acknowledge the patient's medical needs - as prescribed by a doctor.

For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's prescription because she did not believe in birth control.
[...]
Lacey, of North Richland Hills, Texas, filed a complaint with the Texas Board of Pharmacy after her prescription was refused in March. In February, another Texas pharmacist at an Eckerd drug store in Denton wouldn't give contraceptives to a woman who was said to be a rape victim.

In the Madison case, pharmacist Neil Noesen, 30, after refusing to refill a birth-control prescription, did not transfer it to another pharmacist or return it to the woman. She was able to get her prescription refilled two days later at the same pharmacy, but she missed a pill because of the delay.

She filed a complaint after the incident occurred in the summer of 2002 in Menomonie, Wis. Christopher Klein, spokesman for Wisconsin's Department of Regulation and Licensing, says the issue is that Noesen didn't transfer or return the prescription. A hearing was held in October. The most severe punishment would be revoking Noesen's pharmacist license, but Klein says that is unlikely.

As the article notes, the American Pharmacists Association has a policy that says pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so the patient can still obtain their meds. However, the fact that in the Madison case, Klein admits that license revoication is unlikely, suggests that the policy has no teeth.

Pharmacists who refuse to accomodate a patient inconvenienced by that pharmacists' personal moral principles are essentially appropriating the role of the doctor in determining what is best for the medical health of that patient. Confiscation of the Rx slip is a gross abuse and demands license revocation.

This speaks to a larger issue. Why is birth control an issue? If the pro-life position seeks to stop abortions, then birth control seems an inherent piece of that effort. After all, without birth control options, the number of unwanted children rises, and the number of abortions will increase. Attempting to stifle birth control - even prior to conception! - is completely counter-productive to the fundamental goal of preserving life.

Note that we aren't talking about morning-after pills here. These religious pharmacists are trying to impose an "every sperm/egg is sacred" ethos upon the population, by denying them a basic and essential piece of family planning.

Now, a possible counter-argument is that abstinence would work better than birth control. However, abstinence is a lifestyle choice when it comes to adults. While I share conservatives' horror at teaching explicit sex education to grade school kids, I think that expectations of abstinenec are ludicrous for married couples who need to do basic family planning.

What's needed is a new way of formulating the case against abortion so that it is more results-orienetd rather than means-oriented. The latter is completely counter-productive. I seriously doubt that these pharmacists have really given any serious thought to their crusade, it's more of a knee-jerk reaction. With some effort, a more sensible position could be articulated that synthesises left and right that actually makes a genuine difference in reducing abortion nationwide.