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Making Pharmacists Into Mere Pill Counters

  /   Wednesday April 09, 2003  

Well, I guess I won’t be moving to Nevada if this bill goes into effect. From reading this article, it appears that this bill is designed to obligate the pharmacists to dispense any legal prescription.

Originally, the bill was designed to allow refusal to dispense a prescription on moral grounds, but apparently lobbyists for Planned Parenthood got this changed so that it prohibits refusal based on moral grounds. Granted, if the pharmacy doesn’t stock contraceptives and abortifacients, the bill still doesn’t force them to. Many pharmacies don’t stock them because they don’t want to deal with the issue. However, it is absolutely sickening to think that those who say they are in favor of “choice” and “freedom” do not want to grant that freedom to others.

However, even if a conscience clause is introduced into the bill, it is still totally unacceptable to require a pharmacist to dispense all legal prescriptions. The role of a pharmacist is not just to count pills but to ensure the safe and effective use of medications. We go to six years of school to do this and obtain doctoral degrees.

Believe me, there are plenty of legal prescriptions out there that have nothing to do with abortion or contraception that ought not be dispensed because they are dangerous. Sometimes, two physicians write for two different drugs that can kill a patient when taken together. Sometimes the same physician does this. I intervened in a case once where it was obvious to me that the physician had written for the wrong drug for the patient’s diagnosis. We see a completely different perspective than what the doctor sees and can put it to use. Not every doctor will admit his mistake when confronted with it, and I don’t want the fact that I dispensed something that I knew was not right on my conscience.

Category: Posts imported from Danger! Falling Brainwaves, Uncategorized

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