Access Denied explores the growing trend among religious doctors and pharmacists to refuse to write or fill prescriptions for birth control pills because these people believe that in some small number of situations, a fertilized egg will fail to attach to the woman’s uterine lining. These religious nuts, if I can use that term with semi-politeness, state that life begins at fertizilization, even though generally accepted medical practice finds that pregnancy begins ony when the fertilized egg attachs to the uterine lining, and hence the pill causes a chemical abortion and since they believe that abortion is murder, they cannot help women with the drugs.
This is, to me, one of those interesting questions about where reasonable lines can be drawn between good and bad. My intitial reaction on following Joe’s link was the same as his–what do these people think they’re doing, don’t they have an obligation as medical professionals to serve all people equally without inputting their personal beliefs? But as the morning wears on, my certainty is fading at least a bit.
We all live in a universe of uncertainty and lack of control over our own cricumstances, subject to personal limitations and imperfections and, in the end, victims of culturalization–brainwashed by the environment in which we’re born and live. So some of us, in Alabama or Fallujah, make decisions based on the personal understanding of religious doctrine and try to live by what appears internally to be righteousness. And then others disagree with that personal understanding.
Should such people be harshly criticized for making professional decisions on this basis? I wonder, especially since I’ve always believed that we work to live, not live to work, that the personal comes ahead of the professional. Having said this, I would add that individuals who make professional choices based on personal preferences ought to do so based on facts; in this instance, whether or not birth control pills actually do cause an abortion, which the linked article casts into doubt. Then again, what is a fact? People like me who believe that science is the answer to that question will almost always find agreement impossible with the previously-mentioned medical professionals since they look to the Bible for truth.
America is the land of the free, the focal point of today’s celebrations, and how can we argue with another American’s freedom to base behavior on such core beliefs? While that sentence might read as rhetoric, I actually mean it. The patients surely have other doctors and pharmacies to patronize and if there are no doctors or pharmacists in a given area willing then perhaps some true believers of the opposite stripe need to get the necessary education and relocate. So in the end I guess my position is completely opposite to where I began.
[Access Denied via Jennett.Radio and Wake Up]
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