David Ancell / Monday August 28, 2006
NOTE: I just read some stuff on the regrettable decision by the FDA to make the morning-after pill available without a prescription. The site named PharmacyOneSource posted some students’ opinions on this. Most of them were moral relativism, and a few said that they covered the issue in ethics class. I posted a comment on their board, and the text of it is below.
It seems that something has been lost in this discussion about a pharmacist’s right to refuse to dispense certain medications. Almost every post takes it for granted that whether the use of a morning-after pill is immoral is simply a matter of opinion. Well, if that were so, then I’d be one to dispense this whether I agreed with one’s opinion or not.
However, there seems to be so little consideration of a larger issue. Are we taking a human life by using this medication, at least some of the time (e.g. in use after ovulation)? Well, either we are or we aren’t. Both can’t be true.
Maybe some people will read this and think we just don’t know, so why worry. Well, if we really don’t know whether we have a human life or not, we should err on the side of caution. We wouldn’t fumigate a building until we knew everyone was out. We wouldn’t do so simply on the basis of not knowing whether there was anyone there or not.
The question that I see is: Do we care about whether we are extinguishing a human life? Well, either we will be called to give an account one day, or we won’t. Both can’t be true. Once again, it seems dangerous not to err on the side of caution here.
Many in our profession live with the idea that we can’t know anything that isn’t provable by science. Well, if so, then prove that by science! Many “ethics” classes that are being presented (including the one that I suffered through) are hindered by this. They are closed-minded to even the possibility that there may be a truth in this matter that binds all of us.
Well, by now I’m sure you are aware of where I am coming from. Simply put, we will have to give an account of what we did to preserve human life at any stage. We can’t afford to shrug this off as a matter of opinion.
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