religion and profession

[cellio]

osewalrus posted an excellent essay on conflicts between religion and one's profession. He and I agree: you are completely free to practice your religion, but if doing so causes complications in your life, you -- not the rest of society -- need to deal with that.

Comments

Re: A particular about changing situations...

[osewalrus.livejournal.com]

Case #1 and Case #2 strike me as giving rise to a similar result. The pharmacist must decide if his or her job is ethical for him or her to perform. If not, the pharmacist must talk to his/her supervisor or superior and see if an accomodation can be reached. If not, the pharmacist may have to quit and seek other employment.

Case 3 varies a great deal depending on the local situation. If the other pharmacist is standing next to me ("Fred, can you fill this order?"), then no problem. Other than that, I think it is morally wrong for the pharmacist to hold him or herself out as capable of performing all the duties of his or her profession when this is not the case.

The exceptional case is the Pharamcist proprietor (or one who works for someone with similar moral qualms) who puts a big sign up saying "We Do Not Carry Any Contraceptives OR Fill Prescriptions for Abortificients" (I'm excluding drugs where this is a possible side effect but not the reason for the prescription -- a fact that will likely be evident to a professional pharmacist). Here, the pharmacist does not hold himself out to the public as carrying the medication, and those seeking the drug will need to go elsewhere.

It has been argued that all pharmacies should be required to carry such drugs and all pharmacists required to fill such prescriptions. But that is a different level of argument. It is one thing to say that a pharmacist must diclose any known moral objections that would interfere with performance of his or her duties. It is another to require a pharmacist to always perform an action he or she finds morally repugnant, even where disclosure is made. I'm not saying the argumnent cannot be made -- there are times when society choses to impose duties that create such choices -- but it is a different argument.