Category: Morning after pill

Attacks on freedom of conscience in pharmacy in Canada continue

The Toronto Sun published an article by columnist Marianne Meed Ward mocking the position taken by conscientious objectors among pharmacists.

In May, 2000, prior to the decision by Manitoba pharmacists, a letter to the editor of the Pharmacy Practice (an on-line publication) had argued against the idea largely on grounds of economic self interest. (See the response of the Project)

Also in May, the Canadian Pharmaceutical Journal, owned by the Canadian Pharmacists Association, published a column asserting that pharmacists must dispense drugs despite conscientious objection, or refer patients to a pharmacist who will The column was written by Frank Archer, described as a bio-medical ethics tutor at the University of British Columbia, and a member of the ethics committee of the College of Pharmacists of British Columbia. In the same issue, the editor of the Journal declared: “Emergency contraception is here and the majority of Canadians – including most health professionals – are firmly in support. Pharmacists have a professional responsibility to help ensure safe, efficient access to all approved medicines, whatever their personal beliefs.”

Pharmacy colleges quash conscientious objection

Canada

Greg J. Edwards

Pharmacists are critically thinking individuals who integrate their values into their work life-and they are not mere robots who are glorified order-takers for physicians. We should be promoting such thinking, not punishing it.–Nancy Metcalfe, pharmacist

Pharmacists are said to be the most trusted professionals in medicine; they’re conscientious; we rely on their discretion and their judgment; they have our confidence; we respect them; but do pharmacists respect themselves, let alone one another?

It’s a good question, because in Canada, pharmacists, unlike doctors, find that conscientious objection is a bitter pill for their professional licensing organizations to swallow.

The pharmacists’ governors pay lip service to a pharmacist’s right to refuse to dispense products, but, in fact, a customer’s convenience trumps a pharmacist’s freedoms of conscience and religion: pharmacists are free to object but in the end they must refer or otherwise help customers get the objectionable product. [Full text]

Letter to the editor, Globe and Mail

Reproduced with permission

Re: April 27, 2000: Don’t let drugstores become pulpits

An “inability to distinguish between emergency contraception and the abortion pill”, and “irresponsible and blatantly uninformed” actually describes Planned Parenthood, not educated pharmacists. Planned Parenthood eagerly wants women to ingest dangerous hormones, which in the case of the morning after pill, fails at least 25% of the time. Planned Parenthood, not pharmacists, makes the choice for women by withholding facts and “spreading misinformation” in the name of sexual freedom.

Let every woman exercise her right to make an informed decision: the scientific literature is clear and abundant that the morning after pill (post-coital interception) acts primarily to prevent implantation, not ovulation. Therefore, to call it a contraceptive is false and misleading. To argue that pregnancy is not already established is a minority viewpoint ignoring virtually all embryology, biology and genetics texts.

Dr. Albert Yuzpe invented the morning after pill, yet does not mention ovulation prevention in his Contemporary Obstetrics and Gynecology article in 1994. He does mention, however, structural changes in the endometrium might “represent a hostile or non-receptive site for implantation”.

Futhermore, Jennifer Kessell, spokewoman for the company making Preven, confirmed that “more often it would prevent implantation” (The Report, Dec 6, 1999).

Pharmacists are objecting to participate, not attempting to block patient access to products. Doctors cannot be forced to perform procedures that violate their consciences, why should pharmacists? By pushing their morality on health care workers, the public violates a pharmacist’s autonomy, integrity, and basic human rights in a country that protects its minorities

Maria Bizecki
Concerned Pharmacists for Conscience

 

 

Controversy continues over ‘morning after pill’

The BC Ministry of Health continued to work toward making the ‘morning after pill’ more readily available at pharmacies, though it abandoned its orginal plans for dispensing the drug without prescriptions. Spokesmen for Planned Parenthood and the company marketing the drug denied that it was an abortifacient, ridiculing conscientious objectors. Planned Parenthood and the drug company use a different definition of conception and pregnancy than the objectors. See responses from the Project and Concerned Pharmacists for Conscience (not published).

 

Project letter to the editor, Globe and Mail

(Not published)

Joy Thompson and Hazelle Palmer betray a fundamental misunderstanding of conscientious objection in their criticism of Concerned Pharmacists for Conscience (Don’t let drug stores become pulpits, Globe & Mail, 26 April 2000).

Pharmacists who have moral objections to dispensing the morning after pill usually assert that a new, unique and living human being begins to exist – and pregnancy begins – with the union of sperm and egg. This union they call conception or fertilization. These are hardly novel propositions in an era when fertilization is accomplished routinely in petri dishes, the resulting early embryos kept alive and matured pending implantation – or civil litigation.

The morning after pill prevents the union of sperm and egg only if it is taken in time to suppress ovulation. In other cases, it brings about the death of the early embryo by preventing implantation in the womb. This is the crux of the moral problem faced by pharmacists who hold that it is gravely wrong to deliberately cause the death of the developing human being at any point after conception.

Planned Parenthood and The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada think that the morning after pill is a good thing. They call it ‘emergency contraception’, they claim that it does not cause abortions, and they ridicule those who disagree. “Out of step with medical community”, “professionally irresponsible, or blatantly uninformed”, and “inventing a controversy” are the accusations hurled from the Planned Parenthood pulpit at conscientious objectors.

The controversy being invented here arises from a difference in terminology. Thompson and Palmer et al define conception – and the beginning of pregnancy – as implantation of the early embryo in the womb, not as the union of sperm and egg. Thus, in their view, ‘contraception’ includes not only drugs or devices that prevent conception (fertilization), but anything that prevents implantation of the early embryo. That is why they describe the morning after pill as a ‘contraceptive’, regardless of its mechanism, and insist that it does not interfere with pregnancy. In their lexicon, the existence of the early embryo following fertilization does not count as pregnancy unless implantation occurs, and the destruction of the embryo prior to implantation is not abortion. The public can hardly be expected to make sense of the present dispute unless these points are clarified.

Out of step with medical community? The Canadian Medical Association advises physicians who have moral objections to abortion to explain this to their patients, and insists that there be no discrimination against physicians who refuse to perform or assist with abortions. Dr. John Williams, the CMA’s Director of Ethics, recently confirmed that doctors are not obliged to refer patients for abortions. “Respect for the right of personal decision in this area must be stressed,” states CMA policy. Is the respect given to doctors to be denied pharmacists and other health care professionals because powerful interests are able to shout them down?

Contrary to Thompson and Palmer’s assertions, conscientious objectors are not trying to prevent the introduction of abortifacient or contraceptive drugs, nor are they attempting to block access to them. These are impossible objectives for such a vulnerable minority with limited means. Instead, they simply ask that they not be hounded out of their professions because they will not do what they believe to be gravely wrong. Does The Best Country in the World have room for such people?

Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project