Category: Procedures & Services

Freedom of Conscience Protected in Virginia

American Center for Law and Justice

Edward White

The American Center for Law & Justice (ACLJ) recently represented a pharmacist in Virginia who was the subject of a formal complaint and investigation owing to her refusal to fill prescriptions for oral contraceptives due to their abortifacient properties. We are glad to report that the investigation has been resolved in her favor.

While oral contraceptives are intended to prevent ovulation, they also have a secondary mechanism of action that attempts to end pregnancy after fertilization occurs. Many individuals, including many pharmacists, believe that this post-fertilization action is immoral because it intentionally ends a human life, and also believe that its morally impermissible to personally facilitate such activity.

Earlier this year, an individual contacted our client to request a refill for oral contraceptives. The pharmacist said that the individual could have the prescription filled two days later by someone else, but she was not comfortable dispensing it herself due to the drug’s abortifacient properties (acting post-fertilization). The pharmacist felt that it was her professional obligation to make sure that the individual was aware of how the prescribed drug works in light of the fact that many women object on religious or moral grounds to taking it once they understand how it works.

Shortly thereafter on the same day, the individual’s father called our client and angrily questioned her about her refusal to fill the prescription. He also claimed that oral contraceptives never act post-fertilization and warned her that he was going to make her life “a living hell.” . . . [Full Text]

Ontario physicians college draft policy would trample conscience rights

Canadian Catholic News

Deborah Gyapong

OTTAWA – The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario’s draft human rights policy would trample religious freedom and freedom of conscience, say groups defending those rights.

“Prominent academics and activists want to force objecting physicians to provide or refer for abortion and contraception,” said a news release from the Protection of Conscience Project.

“They and others have led increasingly strident campaigns to suppress freedom of conscience among physicians to achieve that goal. The College’s draft policy clearly reflects their influence.”

While the draft policy does not require doctors to perform treatments that violate their consciences or religious beliefs, it does require them to refer patients to doctors who will. . . [Full Text]

Assistant minister says issue of access to abortion resolved

Dalje.com

Assistant Health Minister Dragan Korolija Marinic said at a thematic session of the parliament’s Gender Equality Committee on Thursday that the issue of access to abortion services in five medical institutions where the procedure was not performed because of doctors’ conscientious objection had been resolved and that the procedure was now available in all state hospitals.

The general hospitals in Nasice, Virovitica and Vinkovci have hired external gynecologists to perform such procedures, some of the gynecologists at the Knin General Hospital who previously cited a conscientious objection have changed their opinion, while Zagreb’s “Sveti duh” hospital has signed a contract with the “Sestre milosrdnice” hospital to perform abortions on request, said Korolija Marinic. . . . [Full Text]

Customers claim Walgreens refuses to fill legitimate prescriptions

wftv.com

Several Walgreens customers contacted Action 9, claiming that the pharmacy chain refuses to fill their pain prescriptions.

Walgreens has a policy to curb narcotics abuse, but Action 9’s Todd Ulrich found that the company won’t reveal its guidelines, and its secret policy can punish legitimate customers, too.

Manuel Rabell’s back pain was so bad that his doctor prescribed the potent painkiller hydrocodone. But at Walgreens, the pharmacist refused to fill it, saying that it didn’t fit their policy guidelines. [Full text]

 

With assisted suicide, what begins in compassion seems to end in eugenics

National Post

Andrew Coyne

The case for assisted suicide and euthanasia, at least as it has been presented, is that we may freely dispense with certain moral distinctions, once considered of some importance – between killing yourself and having someone else kill you; between refraining from prolonging life and deliberately ending it – while continuing to insist on any number of others.

The issue is thus invariably cast as if the practice would be reserved for adults of sound mind, in the final stages of a terminal illness, suffering unbearable physical pain, freely consenting to have done to them what they would surely choose to do themselves were they not so disabled. In its most complete form, the patient must not only consent, but actually initiate the process in some way (hence “assisted” suicide, versus euthanasia, where someone else does the deed). At all events we are assured the task would be performed by a licensed physician, no doubt with a sterilized needle. . . [Full text]