Pope: Don't Dispense Drugs For Immoral Use

Urges Catholic Pharmacists To Refuse Prescriptions Used For Abortion, Euthanasia

(AP)  Pope Benedict XVI urged Catholic pharmacists on Monday to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing drugs with "immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia."

In a speech to participants at the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists, Benedict said that conscientious objection was a right that must be recognized by the pharmaceutical profession.

Such objector status, he said, would "enable them not to collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products that have clearly immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia."

In his speech, the pope also said that pharmacists have an educational role toward patients so that drugs are used in a morally and ethically correct way.

"We cannot anesthetize consciences as regards, for example, the effect of certain molecules that have the goal of preventing the implantation of the embryo or shortening a person's life," he said.

Emergency contraception pills, which can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, work by preventing ovulation or by preventing the embryo from being implanted into the womb.

The pope said pharmacists should raise people's awareness so that "all human beings are protected from conception to natural death, and so that medicines truly play a therapeutic role."

The issue has been debated extensively in the United States.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich introduced the rule more than two years ago requiring pharmacists to fill all prescriptions. Pharmacists challenged the rule, and a legal settlement earlier this month allowed pharmacists who object to dispensing emergency birth control to step aside while someone else fills the prescription.

In Washington state, pharmacists have filed a federal lawsuit over a regulation requiring them to sell emergency contraception, saying it violates their civil rights by forcing them into choosing between "their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs."

A few states in the U.S. have passed laws that specifically allow pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to provide health care due to religious or moral objections, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive rights think tank based in New York.

Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota have legislation that explicitly permits pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives, according to the Institute, and Florida, Illinois, Maine and Tennessee have broadly worded legislation that may apply to pharmacists.

In California, on the other hand, pharmacists are required to fill all valid prescriptions and can only refuse with employer approval and if the customer can still access the prescription in a timely manner.

In Britain, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has a code of ethics allowing pharmacists who have religious objections to refuse dispensing certain drugs, such as emergency contraception. But their objection must be stated to their employer before they start working, and they must refer patients to other pharmacists who can provide the requested drugs.

[michellem99-2009]

I went thru the adult program years ago..It is a lovely faith..I use to make rosaries.Gramma my stand on abortion is this if the lady must have it for health reasons only..It is not birth control..The Pope, the holy father must get them predators out.. Stop worrying about this/that for meds..We have a saying back home..Clean out yer church sir before yer clean out my back yard.And leave the doctoring to them...

[grammawhamma]

klingon69: The way the catholic hospital here got around that situation was the ob/gyn docs have their office off hospital property. They can prescribe birth control from the office. As far as tubal ligations and abortions...they will refer you to another hospital to have it done.

[klingon69]

Scenario is that you live in a very small town and the only hospital you have access to is a Catholic hosptial. You get terminal cancer. One day the pope decides that morphine and all pain killers need to be with held from terminally ill cancer patients because it might hasten their death. Your choices now are to die a painful death or move your pain wracked dying body to another town that has a non catholic hospital.
Posted by GrammaWhamma at 07:00 PM : Oct 29, 2007

We had two hospitasls in our town for years, one was Catholic. The Catholic hospital as far as I know never had a maternity ward, because the law required if they handled births, that they would also have to provide family-planning services such as abortion & contraceptives.

[klingon69]

Posted by psk123 at 05:12 PM : Oct 29, 2007

I actually had a Hindu doctor tell me once in the emrgency room, that he didn''t believe in giving narcotics for pain, said that meditaion would take care of it.

[klingon69]

Who runs America? Us, or the Pope?
Posted by ibsteve2u at 05:00 PM : Oct 29, 2007
Well, let''s see. Over 1 billion Catholics world-wide, and over 64 million in the US alone, one could see how Catholicism affects our political arena.

[readbetween]

The pope is an idiot what gives him the right to practice medicine. He needs to stick to wearing dresses and acting like a drag queen.

[andor3]

===Rafterman, the pharmacist IS following the rules of medicine. The pharmacist believes that life begins at conception and that by administering that drug, he/she would be ending a life......in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.===
Posted by blazercoach1

Really have to twist the facts to try to make any argument here eh? First, pharmacists do not administer drugs. second equating contraception with ending of life is nonsense. third a pharmicist who refuses to honor a doctors order is in violation of the oath, not upholding it. fourth, if you look into it, pharmacists are being fired, fined, facing criminal charges, and censure from licensing boards and professional organizations--as they should be.

[andor3]

===You mean that a person who had to leave work prior to work on friday before sun down as Orthodox Jews do or work on Saturday should be forced into fields that don''t have working hours.===
posted by alanrobisch2

what is the point here? yes of course, if you have moral objection to doing X, you should not enter a field where X is required. If you cannot work on Saturday you should not take a job requiring Saturday work. If you can''t fill prescriptions as written, you have no business being a pharmacist. No one if "forcing" anyone into or out of any field--we are talking about choice.

[grammawhamma]

brianbwb: Excellent post.

[brianbwb-2009]

Brianbwb....please inform your opinions. Posted by blazercoach1

Simple enough, anyone positing that their interpretation of religion is the only "correct" one, is automatically and obviously mistaken, hence the betrayal of the concept of infallibility. To apply the concept of infallibility to one circumstance and not others (as indicated by your statement that it has so far only applied to the concept of "Mary") is basically saying "the guy can be wrong, except for this instance, when we say he cannot be wrong".

In short, exceptions logically must negate absolutes, thus, my opinion that there is no such thing as human infallibility, and since the Pope is all too human, he can, and has, made mistakes, he has been wrong, as have most probably all Popes before him.

Regardless, however of my opinions, many see shortcomings in the operation of the Catholic church, such as reluctance to protect children from abusive priests, the expenditures of vast sums of money for expensive material trappings rather than on the best efforts to help the needy, and the endorsement of anti humanistic and illogical political positions, and these sights are causing many to leave the church.

[grammawhamma]

I am no longer a catholic...I broke free from that cult. I am a RN. However, I am anti-abortion and I would refuse to participate in that proceedure. That is why I chose to work in a catholic hospital.

[grammawhamma]

No one is forcing the pharmacist to take the medication their pope is against...that would be wrong. But it is also wrong to force the pharmacist''s religious beliefs on some one who has a different belief. If they can''t deal with it then get a different job...or work in a pharmacy at a catholic hospital. If their is not a catholic hospital in their area...then relocate.

[grammawhamma]

blazercoach: If you ran out of gas in an isolated area and walked miles and miles to the next gas station to get gas...only to find out that the person working there at the time was a global warming enthusiast and would only sell you ethanol and your car was not equipted to run on ethanol...would you complain?

[susanhelit]

A vegetarian believes that when you eat meat, you participate in murder - should they be allowed to work at McDonalds, and have a consciencous objector status to not take any order that involves meat?


There is no free market about pharamcists nor doctors. They''re regulated to protect us from quacks and false medicines. They''re licensed by the state to practice. If you can''t dispense all of the drugs in a pharmacy, you can''t be a pharmacist - period. This isn''t like some book, you are choosing a job where you know you''ll have responsibilities to dispense whatever the doctor orders.

[rafterman1]

===The pharmacist believes that life begins at conception and that by administering that drug, he/she would be ending a life......in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.===

Which pharmacist? All of them? I doubt they all believe that. And life at conception is not part of the hypocratic oath.

===You have that right! But don''''t YOU turn around and tell someone else how to morally live their life! (I''''m sure you THINK that''''s an ironic statement....)===

Sorry, but just like a person who doesn''t believe in killing shouldn''t join the military, a person who might be religiously influenced should not be in medicine. Medical people are one of the few that are not allowed the luxury of their religious beliefs in their job.

[blazercoach1]

Papal infallability has been used only a couple of times in the entire history of the church....and all of those occasions dealt with Mary.

Brianbwb....please inform your opinions.

Rafterman, the pharmacist IS following the rules of medicine. The pharmacist believes that life begins at conception and that by administering that drug, he/she would be ending a life......in violation of the Hippocratic Oath.

It is a TRUTH that nobody..not even scientists KNOW when life begins. There are many VALID viewpoints. (Remember that so-called educated people used to believe black people weren''t human or deserving of rights?...some still believe that about people who aren''t out of the uterus yet.....)

If you feel so strongly about it, please....boycott your local pharmacy that has hired a person who won''t fill the prescription. Go ahead! You have that right! But don''t YOU turn around and tell someone else how to morally live their life! (I''m sure you THINK that''s an ironic statement....)

[brianbwb-2009]

So Joey the Ratz ("ours is the one true church") Ratzenberger, scion of a Nazi officer, presumes the right to dictate morality? His inanity has already exposed the "Papal infallibility" concept as a false assumption (as if any human could be infallible), and threatens to marginalize the organization, already rife with corruption, and persuade many to leave.

Sad, because millions who take comfort in the concept of religion will lose their spiritual "sanctuary".

[rafterman1]

===You mean that a person who had to leave work prior to work on friday before sun down as Orthodox Jews do or work on Saturday should be forced into fields that don''''t have working hours. My hero Sandy Koufax a Jew refused to pitch on Yom Kippur a high holy. He gained respect for that not attacks as religious belief and observance gains now.===
posted by alanrobisch2

There is a difference between an office worker or even a baseball player vs. someone who is responsible for affecting the health of a person. If an office worker misses a day of work, it''s not the end of the world. But if a pharmacist or a doctor does not strictly follow the rules of medicine and lets faith dictate the way they do their job, lives could be harmed or even lost.

[blazercoach1]

When all bookstores are forced to sell Bibles as well as porn, when all sporting goods are stores are required to sell fire-arms, and when all car salesmen are required to sell hybrids as well as the worst gas guzzling cars on the market.........then you can argue that PRIVATELY owned pharmacists be required to fill any prescription.

Do any of you recognize a bookstore or car dealership owners right to sell what they WANT to sell? Do you consider it a denial of 1st Amendment rights if a book dealer doesn''t sell a book that gives a certain viewpoint? Do you believe that a sporting good''s salesman that doesn''t sell guns is denying a person their right to bear arms?

If not, you are not being consistent if you argue that a pharmacist choosing not to fill a prescription is denying anyone a so-called right.

If I want a certain book, I''ll find a bookstore that sells it. If I want a gun, I''ll find a store that sells it. If I want a hybrid car or a gas guzzler, I''ll find a dealership that sells them. If you want certain medicine........FIND A PHARMACY THAT SELLS IT!

Enjoy the free-market, folks!

[rick_vt]

This is the same Pope that brought Cardinal Bernard Law from Massachusetts to Rome and gave him an important role there. Cardinal Bernard Law protected numerous pedophile priests, hid them and deliberately covered their crimes, obstructing justice. Cardinal Bernard Law should be in jail, not living well in Rome and now this pope is an accessory to the crimes in America against children committed by the priests Cardinal Bernard Law protected.