I’m a busdriver. I believe it’s wrong to use buses in the country. I refuse to drive them out of the city. And you still have to pay me for not doing part of my job. Right.

“A pharmacist, by refusing to cooperate in evil, is not denying a person a contraceptive.”
Erm, the pharmacist is not cooperating in evil. If he refuses to give out the prescribed medicine then he acts evil. Against the Bible.
Funny how christians always violate one of their most important commandments.
“Don’t judge…”

Sorry, you’re wrong. Contraceptives are also prescribed to balance hormones.

I fail to see how the fact that somebody else gave birth to me denies me the right to decide about myself, but thank you for all your comments so far!

The doctor and the pharmacist both have consciences. No one has the right to force someone, under threat of removal of one’s paycheck, to do what one beleives is wrong. When someone fills a perscription, one is aiding someone to treat an illness, or to take a life. The same ethics apply. A pharmacist, by refusing to cooperate in evil, is not denying a person a contraceptive. That person can get his perscrition filled by another person, without violating anyone’s consciene. Respect pharmacists’ rights to guard their morality. When conscience is controlled by the state, consciene no longer exists.

Look, one must assume the best intentions of a person buying drugs that NORMALLY treat illness. One cannot assume so about contraceptives, which ALWAYS AND ONLY have ONE PURPOSEFUL effect. It seems to me that you’re saying that the state, a la, “1984″ has th eright to arbitarily define morals, and that those who don’t fall in lock-step with said arbitary “morals” must quit their jobs, thereby losing their Livlihood. That is wrong.

why do you think it is okay for YOU to kill others in certain very specific circumstances, but not okay to others to kill (themselves!) in other very specific circumstances?

Human life is sacred. I believe that the ordered, purposeful universe has in orderedm, purposeful Origin. When human #1 seeks to to what is NOT his to take, that is, the life of human#2, who is not purposely threathening his life, Human #2 can defend himself (or herself), if necessary, by killing Human #1, provided human #1 will not stop sekking Human #2′s life without dying himself. I think we agree that no created human gave himself life. it follows that no created human has the right to decide when to take his own life. I understand suffering, but killing oneself will not lead to peace. Also, you may say “but you think that a person can give his life for his country. Isn’t that like suicide?” No. A soldier who dies does not kill himself. He dies when an unjust aggressor kills him. I’ve spent too much time here already, so I must taake my leave from further discussions. Thank you.

I guess there’s a similar number of people who like britney spears music, but that does not automatically mean the music is any good. And, note that I’m not telling the pope to be silent, I would never do so. Instead, I’m telling him (or rather, people reading this) that he is wrong.

Also, from elsewhere in the thread I assumed you said it is sometimes OK to kill – in self-defense if I’m not mistaken. If that’s what you think, why do you think it is okay for YOU to kill others in certain very specific circumstances, but not okay to others to kill (themselves!) in other very specific circumstances? That sounds terribly inconsistent to me.

I don’t think so – it’s easy to come up with a scenario where it is necessary to kill an innocent person in self-defence, which would make a nice conundrum of this thread.

John is not just defining evil for himself-he is saying that doctors must either conform to laws which would force them to fill perscriptions for what they consider to be evil purposes, or quit their jobs and go broke. The pope is the leader of a religion which has one BILLLION members- his calling is to shepherd souls, and to defend the consciences of his flock from lawmaker forceing them to choose between one’s job and one’s conscience. How can you dare to tell the pope to be silent? It is his duty to speak to truths of the Faith.

I *think* that American papist did not mean to say that it is never justified to kill a human-provided that doing so is in self-defense.

Of course. You’re right in many of the things you say (although the rabid anti-abortionists and right-to-lifers are mostly evangelicals, not catholics). And you’re right that we should stand up to it. But you can’t say “X is worse than Y so why do you worry about Y?” I worry about both.

So, now tell me why it is that these people who are so adamant that abortion is killing innocent lives and must be made illegal, are so vocal in their defence of the right to own guns? And that’s before we even get to the fact that these same people are more than happy to send the ones who make it to 18 off to fight and perhaps die in Iraq or Afghanistan. It seems to me that this “culture of life” only exists before the child is born. After that, all bets are off. Limited access to health care, plentiful supply of guns to shoot each other with, and a war to send the ones who make it that far off to. And you worry about the abortions?

We’ll see.

Something similar came up with gay marriage over here – city officials who were tasked to perform the marriage ceremony were told they had to follow the law, and those with religious objections were told they would no longer be able to perform the ceremony. At all, including heterosexual couples. Since the position was a voluntary one and is usually performed in addition to their normal civil service work it didn’t really present too big of a problem, but a few cases got national attention. Now admittedly marriage isn’t a life-death situation, but the secularization of society will bring a lot of these conflicts to light. Or, in short, karma will run over your dogma in interesting ways…

But the point of the post still fits… can a pharmacist still pay a valuable service to the sick in the community if he is unwilling to give medication to certain types of illnesses? What if he is the only pharmacist in a small town, and the entire community will suffer because of it? Some might blame the pharmacist… I blame the law that won’t let a person practice their religion faithfully.

The point being made here is that certain groups, including the catholic church, seem to feel that they have the right to both judge others and impose their beliefs on others at will. Neither of those actions are acceptable behaviour. The pharmacist can choose not to use a drug personally, but has no right to judge another person who wishes to as long as it is in compliance with the laws of the country.
I have a different spin on this issue… First, EVERYBODY including the Catholic church has the right judge others behavior and to impose their beliefs on others. Its not unacceptable at all. Even by saying that “The Church has no right to…x” is judging the church and imposing your belief on it. Should we use force to do this? no. I think the human community has learned enough times that this is bad. But can we do it through civil disobedience and policy? Yeah… sure… why not? I think we should all try to impose our beliefs on others and we shouldn’t be offended when people try to impose their beliefs on us. In america, some people got together and imposed their belief that slavery was immoral. What I’m trying to say is that imposing belief on people is not that bad of thing.

That being said, I have second comment on this point. Let me suggest that you are not hearing the pope in the way he wants to be heard and in the way that Catholic Pharmacists are hearing him. As a Catholic, I want to be the best Catholic I can be. I need guidance in this way, and I rely on statements like this one to educate me and advise me in such matters. Thus, I do not see this as scaring or intimidating Catholics into a mindless obedience, but rather as a service being paid to the pharmacist trying to be the best Catholic he can be.

No, as established elsewhere in this thread I will say that he may be mistaken about the nature of the prescription he has to fulfill, and that it is not his job to judge on that.

You saw reason when I explained that, he should as well – if he can’t do that, he isn’t qualified to be a pharmacist, and he should indeed quit the pharmacy business. Not because he won’t prescribe certain drugs, but because he doesn’t know what the job actually is.

You will then say, “They don’t! They can quit the pharmacy business.”

I will then say: But that seems unjust because there are many already established Catholic pharmacists who are being pushed out of work due to these laws. Not only that, but it disregards all the positive work that they do aside from this. Its like the whole homosexual adoption thing that has happened in Boston. Catholic agencies were not placing children in homosexual homes. So, the government told them they could no longer place children at all, disregarding all of the good work that the adoption agencies were doing. Thus, the government really wound up punishing orphans and prospective parents because with one less ‘supplier,’ the time it takes to adopt gets longer. This seems similar: Pharmacists provide a valuable service to a community, which we no doubt both agree upon. But if you force a pharmacist to leave his profession based on one or 2 drugs, you are really removing many drugs from the market and causing longer lines at other pharmacies, and it is sick people that are being punished.

Even from your perspective on this issue, it seems as though pharmacists that refuse to sell these drugs can still be of service to the sick.