{"id":10220,"date":"2004-02-07T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2004-02-07T20:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=10220"},"modified":"2020-08-15T13:17:32","modified_gmt":"2020-08-15T20:17:32","slug":"when-rights-collide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.consciencelaws.org\/?p=10220","title":{"rendered":"When rights collide"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a9 Copyright 2004 Calgary Herald<\/a>
Reproduced with permission<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nigel Hannaford<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

A few years ago, a customer asked Co-op pharmacist Maria Bizecki to fill a prescription for an abortion drug. For Bizecki, a Roman Catholic and active pro-lifer, this was akin to being invited to become an accessory to murder. She declined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a risky stand against the prevailing view of pharmaceutical professional associations, and employers retailing drugs. Yet, ultimately it led to a small step forward for Albertans’ religious freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Alberta College of Pharmacists (ACP), for instance, her profession’s ethics watchdog, emphasizes a client’s right to have pharmaceutical needs met. It grants conscience leeway to its members, though this did not save Bizecki from facing complaints about her stand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More particularly, the conscience clause is little help to pharmacists dealing with unsympathetic employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter one Pro-Life Ontario pharmacist got from his boss (quoted in the Pro-Life paper, Interim) eloquently expresses the all-business perspective: “You are not employed by the company to make moral or philosophical decisions about whether birth control is appropriate for the customer . . . we are engaged in a retail activity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter concluded with a threat of termination, noting that if the pharmacist couldn’t separate his beliefs from his job, he should “think long and hard about whether you could continue in your capacity.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Co-op was comparatively gentle. Bizecki had been straightforward with them about her views, and was known in the community as a pro-life activist. She was suspended with pay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She doesn’t talk about the complaints which led to her being investigated by the ACP; the details are subject to her duty of confidentiality. Still, when in 2000, a pro-choice website challenged the conscience rights of pharmacists, the prompt arrival of the first complaint was no surprise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation was a pickle of contending rights and obligations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obviously, if a prescribed drug is legal, a client has a right to buy it, and a druggist to sell it. But, only the wilfully blind wouldn’t admit honest people can sincerely disagree over abortion. As employees are not mere instruments of an employer’s will, but have a right of conscience, even an obligation, how does one loosen the tangle?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way is to choose. When human rights commissions do so, religious freedoms sometimes lose. The case of a Catholic school board
compelled to allow a gay student to bring his boyfriend to a prom, is illustrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other way is negotiation. It took nearly three years for Bizecki’s lawyer, Gerry Chipeur, the college and Co-op to work it out, but there was a happy ending. That is, something which worked for everybody, and it serves as a useful template.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasonable accommodation of Bizecki’s principles was a written agreement in which she recognized the public’s right to have a prescription filled by a pharmacist, and that she could not and should not obstruct it. But, employers have a duty to reasonably accommodate employee scruples, and Co-op agreed not to demand she fill prescriptions for drugs which effect abortions. Thus, with the college’s blessing, she would always be part of a two-person dispensary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chipeur adds this might not be a reasonable accommodation for a one- person pharmacy: “However, in Canada employers have always had a duty to be reasonable, so long as there’s no undue burden. This is the first time that I’m aware, that there has been such an accommodation. If there’s a similar breakdown in Alberta in the future, it would be unwise for any health employer to not accommodate a pro-life position. I’d just say this to pro-lifers: Don’t take a job in an abortion clinic and then say you don’t want to do abortions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What distinguishes this case from some of the head-on rights collisions we’ve seen in Canada, is that the parties would accept a solution, not hold out for a victory. Canada aspires to be a tolerant country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what tolerance looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Links:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n