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With the Obama admin­is­tra­tion look­ing like they will be rolling back Bush era poli­cies allow­ing doc­tors to refuse to per­form cer­tain pro­ce­dures and/or refuse to pre­scribe or sell cer­tain med­ica­tions (let’s say RU-486 for exam­ple) the Internet’s polit­i­cal debate hotspots have erupted as expected. Over at the Some­thing Awful forums I saw a great post that com­pletely explains my posi­tion on this issue:

It’s a sad reflec­tion on the influ­ence of the reli­gious right that this is even a note­wor­thy issue. If you work at Burger King, and one day you decide that you don’t like the Dou­ble Whop­per and won’t serve it to peo­ple any­more (say, for rea­sons of their health), you get fired. If you’re an net­work admin­is­tra­tor and one day decide that TCP/IP is the devil’s pro­to­col and you won’t use it, you get fired. The list goes on. Giv­ing peo­ple the legal med­ica­tion they need is the job of the phar­ma­cist and doc­tor. Their job is not “Make value judg­ments about my patients and then pre­scribe what med­ica­tions I per­son­ally believe are good”. We have a cen­tral reg­u­la­tory body that deter­mines what med­i­cines and pro­ce­dures are legal to give out and per­form. Doc­tors and phar­ma­cists are expected to adhere to these. A phar­ma­cist who decided that he would no longer give can­cer patients their drugs or a doc­tor who decided he will sub­sti­tute phrenol­ogy for a gen­eral exam would find them­selves out of jobs in short order. The only rea­son this is an issue is because for some rea­son “It’s my reli­gion!” is taken as a valid excuse for not doing your job.

If you are a phar­ma­cist, it is your job to dis­pense med­ica­tions as pre­scribed. Your per­sonal morals have absolutely no legit­i­mate influ­ence on this. If you do not like this fact, find another job. What the right wing wants here would be equiv­a­lent to a paci­fist join­ing the Marines and then com­plain­ing that they were being sent to war.

If you’re still con­vinced that this “reli­gious free­dom” is the right option, pre­tend you live in a small town with one local doc­tor. Now pre­tend that doc­tor is a Jehova’s Wit­ness. Now think about what hap­pens if you or a loved one needs a trans­fu­sion. Your local doc­tor would then be fully able to refuse to give you/your loved one a trans­fu­sion because it goes against their religion.

If you don’t like the job require­ments, find another job. Don’t whine that you chose a job that con­flicts with your beliefs. Put up or shut up, either way your morals don’t have any effect on me.