Monday, January 30, 2006

It all depends on whose version of the news you read.


[UPDATE: That first link apparently requires registration so you'll have to trust me that the story didn't contain the important details mentioned later on here.]

First, the good news: there's one less ignorant, dumbfuck pharmacist to piss you off with their sanctimonious moralizing:

A suburban St. Louis pharmacist filed a federal complaint after being fired from a Target store for refusing to dispense the so-called "morning-after" birth control pill.

Heather Williams had worked at a Target store in St. Charles, Mo., for five years before being fired last month. Her attorney says that until recently, the company accommodated her objection to dispensing the morning-after pill

But notice how this is being reported -- as if Williams had been accommodated all this time, and only now did Target (arbitrarily, it would seem) decide to do something about it. How strange. Or ... maybe not so strange when you read a different report that provides a little more detail:

Paula Gianino, chief executive of Planned Parenthood for the St. Louis Region, lauds Target’s commitment to fill such prescriptions, and contends that Williams is at fault because of her refusal to refer patients or physicians elsewhere.

“She could refuse to fill the prescription, but she took it to the next level,” Gianino said. “Target has done everything possible to try to fill patients’ health-care needs and accomodate individual pharmacists.”

Ah, that's kind of a crucial detail, isn't it? Williams not only refused to fill the scrip, she refused to refer the customer elsewhere. Yes, the devil is in the details, isn't it?

More on this later.

THAT GOOD OLD RIGHT-WING HYPOCRISY: It's amazing how right-wing sites are slanting this story. Consider this article at the anti-choice site LifeSite, which has the dishonest headline: "Target Pharmacist Fired for Refusing to Dispense Abortifacient Morning-After Pill."

No, she wasn't fired for "refusing to dispense," she was fired for refusing to refer. If you're bored, feel free to scan the net for related stories and see how many of them gloss over this distinction.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let me see:

So a woman has a medical condition where becoming pregnant would be fatal. And let's say she was raped. (Or maybe she is taking the medicine for completely unrelated reasons.) Now good ole Heather's actions seem to indicate that she believes that this woman should die.

Pharmacists should not have the right to refuse to fill prescriptions. It is not possible for a pharmacist to know why someone is taking medicine. They may have a good idea, but they can not know for sure. That difference could easily kill someone. Target should have fired this creep the second she decided not to fulfill a prescription. Remind me not to shop at Target. (Ok so there isn't a Target within – say 200 km and a border so you won't really have to do all that much reminding.)

I don't think that the details matter at all in this case.
-edwin

Dave said...

It is interesting how the christian wanks have turned what is in actuality a "super birth control dose" and have made it into an "Abortifacient" medication. The wanks are not only stupid, they're outright liars.

Anonymous said...

If the pharmacist's religion conflicts with her job duties, then she should get a new job. As the right wingers like to say, it's a free market out there.

Anonymous said...

Read the whole LifeNews article, pinhead. Right off the bat, they state:

"A Target pharmacist has lost her job for refusing to dispense or refer for the abortifacient morning-after pill."

Reading comprehension is obviously not one of your strong points. I suggest you go back to reading "Dick and Jane."

CC said...

Oh, yawn. I do love it when the wankers drop by to visit. Commenter 4 makes a perfect ass of himself, writing:

Read the whole LifeNews article, pinhead. Right off the bat, they state:

"A Target pharmacist has lost her job for refusing to dispense or refer for the abortifacient morning-after pill."

Reading comprehension is obviously not one of your strong points. I suggest you go back to reading "Dick and Jane."


Note carefully what I wrote about that LifeSite article (emphasis added for the intellectually handicapped):

Consider this article at the anti-choice site LifeSite, which has the dishonest headline: "Target Pharmacist Fired for Refusing to Dispense Abortifacient Morning-After Pill."

As those of you who are not mentally retarded can see, I was specifically referring to the headline being dishonest, not the entire article.

Would anyone else like to make a fool of themselves, or are we done here?

Alison said...

Remember this from Bill Maher? :

"More and more American pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control because of their personal moral objections. Hey, you know what would really teach us a lesson? If you took off your pretend doctor jacket and got another job.

Or maybe I'm wrong. Maybe cutting off the pill doesn't even go far enough. Yeah, it's high time activist drugstores stopped coddling sluts on every aisle. Let's not sell any more makeup either---a good woman doesn't paint herself. And no more deodorant---you should smell bad, keep the boys from getting ideas. And no suntan lotion---I've seen what happens at the MTV Beach House, you whore. You want to avoid melanoma, buy a veil.

[snip]

In conclusion, let me say to all the activist pharmacists out there---the ones who think sex is bad probably because sex with them always is---fellas, a pharmacist is not a lawgiver, not even a doctor. In the medical pecking order, you rank somewhere in between a chiropractor and a tree surgeon. You don't answer to a law above the laws of men. You work for Sav-On."

Anonymous said...

If she wants to decide what prescriptions she should fill, let her open her own pharmacy. Since she is an employee and the requested action (filling the prescription) is not an illegal act (at least not for now!) she should have been terminated for not fulfilling her duties.

Seems like Target gave her the option of not filling the prescription as long as she referred the customer to another pharmacist.