Hippocrates and Hypocrisy
In keeping with this "right to life" theme that I started early this afternoon, I'd like to touch base with another topic that hits really close to home. My father printed an article off of MSNBC for me to read. The article is entitled - "Pharmacists' Rights at Front of New Debate." Apparently there are some pharmacists out there who believe they have the RIGHT to refuse to fill birth control and morning after pill prescriptions. Ok, last time I checked, the Oath of a Pharmacist says nothing about pushing one's personal or religious beliefs on anyone. The only reason a pharmacist has a legal right to refuse a prescription is if he/she feels that the patient will be harmed from the medicine or if the pharamcist feels the prescription is being used to maintain an addiction. Let me read that again...nope, still don't see anything about personal beliefs. Simply put - if you join a healthcare field, you have to put your person beliefs aside. If we allow this to happen, where to we draw the line? The religion of Islam does not allow followers to use alcohol, even for medicinal purposes. So, if a Catholic pharmacist has the right to refuse a birth control prescription, doesn't that mean that a Muslim pharmacist has the right to refuse all medications containing alcohol? That may sound trivial, but let's take a look at medications that contain alcohol - cough syrups, Benadryl elixir, Decadron elixir, Dimetapp elixir, syrup of IPECAC, Lanoxin pediatric elixir, Phenergan syrup, Phenergan with codeine syrup, phenobarbitol elixir, Tylenol with codeine elixir, and Vick's 44 - just to name a few. For those of you not pharmacologically oriented these medicines are used to treat anything from the symptoms of the common cold to seizures to heart disorders to pain. Is this a game we're really willing to play? I think not. The basis for the Hippocratic Oath is to do no harm. By denying the patient a prescription, I believe a pharmacist has violated the most sacred of all health care professional oaths. Apparently for the right to life movement, the right to life does not include the right to a life with access to healthcare. Hypocrisy anyone?
posted by ahsirt at 11:28 PM
3 Comments:
Very good points, especially about the Muslim pharmacist. This is yet another edition in a long legacy of hypocrisy practiced by members of a certain major religion. People who don't use common sense are doomed to be a hazard to society. They will continue plowing through life, pushing their beliefs on others, breaking oaths, and trampling the constitutional right to separation of church and state. No patient should ever have a health care provider deny them what the law allows them.
Come on Kit you can not lump all Christians into the same category with the right wing, Republican, fundamentalist Christians. I am a Christian and totally disagree with the way they abuse the Bible and Christianity to further their political and exclutionistic, elitist principles. It makes me sad that SOME Christians can not see what they are doing.
You are right, Roma. I was wrong to lump all Christians together. It is the product of me being frustrated with some right-wing Christians who use their religion as a foundation for their medling. I know that Christianity is fundamentally good, as most religions are.
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