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Just a few comment s upon reading further....
Speed..where did you get the idea that all pharmacy students who graduate have to be a Dr of Pharmacy?? Yes it is a 6 year course, but, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, you then have 5 weeks before you are allowed to take the State boards (to verify that you did indeed graduate and pass required courses). Then you get a nice Registered Pharmacist title (RPH) That is the 6 year degree. It is yet more schooling to get your "Pharm D" or Dr of pharmacy degree. I work with someone who has just graduated from pharmacy school and is soon to take the boards, and I have also worked with a Pharm D (an overachiever who is also a nationally registered EMT and an Registered nurse practitioner...so he can write the scripts that he then fills for patients!) I think Kwea has been trying to explain his thoughts and somewhere along the line they were misinterpreted. I agree with Allucard..there have been people who rant and rave and act like fools (for lack of a worse adjective), but we do still fill their scripts if they are written properly and do not conflict with other meds or present a possible allergic reaction. We grumble behind the counter and fill the stupid thing just so they will stop staring at us and go away, but we do fill them.
You have to love this "fun with pharmaceuticals" topic don't ya?
.....oh yeah...at the chain that I work for, if a pharmacist refused to fill a legal script for ethical/moral reasons, and a customer complained (which I would do if it were me), they would be written up and told that they will fill such legal scripts in the future if they did not pose a threat to the life of the patient... (the patient is considered to be the person whose name appears on the script.. therefore the pharmacist should not assume that the patient is the fetus). If they did not comply, they would be asked to seek employment opportunities elsewhere.
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The R.Ph. is the name of the license. The Pharm. D. is the name of the degree you get from the school. Up until a year or two ago, some schools allowed you a choice between a B.S. in Pharmacy and a Pharm. D, although many schools were only offering a Pharm. D. Now as far as I know they're all mandated to offer only the Pharm. D, although if you know a school that is still offering a B.S., post a link and I'll retract my statement. Anyway, you can have a degree without having a license, although it would be kind of pointless, but you can't have a license without having one of those two degrees. Either degree gives the exact same license, but some jobs will consider a Pharm D more qualified than a BS. I don't know of any retail setting in which it makes any difference. Most younger pharmacists now do have Pharm Ds and the proportion will obviously increase until it reaches 100% several decades from now.
Back to my stand... I wasn't saying that certain chains might not legitimately fire a person for doing what was mentioned at the beginning of this thread. I never said I would refuse to fill such a prescription. I never said that I wouldn't consider a person that did it a complete and utter bastard. All I said was that pharmacists have, at this point, a legal right to exercise their moral principles (as long as doing so isn't an immediate threat to a patient's life), and there is no purely legal mandate for a pharmacist to fill any non-life-threatening prescription if they don't feel like it. Of course, there are plenty of things that people are legally entitled to do that they still shouldn't do, and you won't hear me saying that this isn't one of them. It's a limited statement that I made... don't read anything into it that isn't there.
[edit: although I don't support the idea of a pharmacist doing something like this, I do support the fact that the law gives a pharmacist discretion. Pharmacists have more training, responsibility, and subequent liability, than most people realize. There's no way to deal with this responsibility without being able to selectively refuse or delay to fill a prescription if they honestly believe it is a mistake. I hope pharmacists don't misuse their discretion in this way, and I honestly don't think any more than a negligable few ever will, but I don't believe we can take away their right to use discretion for fear that they might.]
Dangit, I used another post. This landmark is coming up way too fast. Kirk out.
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My understanding of the law was that they are allowed to refuse any script that could cause damage to the patient, or complications due to drug interactions. Also one that the dosage is off, or one where they think there might have been an error, or that they can't read, or even one that isn't filled out correctly.
Also, the have the right to refuse to fill any script that they feel is fraudulent, or might have been altered.
I might be wrong, though. I haven't looked up the laws. I think I will mention this conversations to my pharmacists and get their impressions again. Maybe talk to more than one at a time. Should be very interesting.
I did mention some of the arguments to them in passing, but they were busy so I didn't go in depth...
Jenni works with several people who have just graduated from pharm school, and none of them have a pharm D. According to the one person she knows has it, it involves more schooling, and different courses on top of the regular pharm lic.
Could be wrong, or she might have misinterpreted, but they talked about it in depth a while ago, when she had to pass her test/certification as a pharm tech.
quote: I agree with Mabus that incidents like this are what will make the Pro-Life position a lost cause, for possibly similar reasons (or not). Claiming to fight for (a) life at the expense of another's (well-being or life in general) is not really fighting a just battle to begin with, and doomed to failure or self-destruction. That's pretty much the nit and the grit of why this "grass roots movement" is utterly full of horse manure.
Jutsa...can you explain? I honestly don't comprehend why someone would think this. I see the end coming, but I can't figure out what it is that makes us so despicable in the eyes of pro-choicers. No one except a few racists looks at the civil rights movement this way, and all we've done are the same things they did. How are we saying anything should be done at the expense of someone's life?
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Really? I don't think there were a lot of bombings during the civil rights movements. Plenty of violence, but no one I know sees that as a good thing.
I know that not all pro-lifers are violent, but I have seen so-called non-violent protests at abortion clinics, and they made me sick to my stomach. A lot of the practices are horrible.
Science supports that fact that all races are human. It doesn't support ANY theory on when life begins. There is a huge difference between the two, and I am sick of pro-lifers trying to equate themselves with the civil rights movement when the parallels aren't really that close.
Also, granting civil rights to all people equally wasn't done at the expense of the rights of others. It cost people some of their "privileges", which they never should have had in the first place (riding in front of the bus, separate bathrooms, better schools), but none of those things were basic fundamental rights - they should have never had that right in the first place!. The right to control your own medical treatment, to have some sort of choice on your treatment,is basis, and belongs to all people.
Unless you are pregnant, according to pro-lifers. Then their opinions, all their questionable science, is more important in determining your treatment than anything you have to say about it.
I believe that life is sacred, and that abortion is wrong most of the time. I would never have wanted my wife (or girlfriend when I was single) to have one, even if it had meant I would have been a father way before I was ready. If my wife had one, things would never be the same between us; that is why we discusses this before I proposed. Barring medical necessity, I can't really think of her ever having one.
That is my opinion , and i have a right to act according to my morals. However, I don't have a right to force those opinions on others. It simply isn't as clear cut as either side wants us to think it is. I recognized that there are things I don't know that could affect this type of decision, and i simply don't have the right to decide such a personal issue for others. Thank God. It isn't my burden.
It goes back to my opinion on public morality vs private morality. I have the right to think whatever I want, but when it comes to pushing those morals onto others, I am very hesitant to do so. I don't have that right, IMO, unless it directly affects me. If it was my child, then i can say whatever I want. Otherwise......
So many issues converge on this point that is one of the most emotionally charged issues we have. I don't expect to persuade anyone else on this issue; and I have really thought out my position on this, so please don't expect me to change it here either.
We have the right to say whatever we want here in the USA, within reason. But just because we have the right to say anything doesn't mean that it is OK. It isn't always moral or ethical to say it.
Intimidation and anger are not good, moral techniques for expression. That is what I see at most abortion protests, from both sides. It just makes tough decisions harder for all involved, and saddens me.
quote:Science supports that fact that all races are human. It doesn't support ANY theory on when life begins. There is a huge difference between the two, and I am sick of pro-lifers trying to equate themselves with the civil rights movement when the parallels aren't really that close.
Science now supports this claim (Edit: That all races are human). Back when abolitionists were fighting to end slavery, they were fighting to have a class of people recognized as human beings and to secure their legal protection under the law. Sounds pretty parallel to me.
And science does support the fact that at the moment when conception is complete, a living, discrete being with the same unique genetic identity as the baby that will pop out 9 months later has been created.
Go back and read Dred Scott sometime - the definition of the personhood and legal rights of blacks was at the heart of the slavery issue.
quote:It goes back to my opinion on public morality vs private morality. I have the right to think whatever I want, but when it comes to pushing those morals onto others, I am very hesitant to do so. I don't have that right, IMO, unless it directly affects me. If it was my child, then i can say whatever I want. Otherwise......
That's exactly what slaveholders used to say. If you don't like slavery, don't own slaves. Let us live according to our morality. Sometimes you can't let others live according to their morality and be a moral person yourself. Very few people committing systematic evil think they are being immoral. Most think they are living according to their private morality.
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9 months later you can arrest me if you like. If you stop the mothers heart, no baby. They aren't separate or discrete entities until they leave the womb.
Thank you for pointing that out. It's more that a process has begun that will result in a human being born.
Unless slaves were living in symbiosis and I am unaware of it, it isn't the same thing at all.
Not that there aren't parallels, but there is a difference between owning an individual person and and forcing a woman to sacrifice her health and wellbeing.
Also, science did prove that other races were people, as common sense had shown people for years. Science has proven no such thing in regard to unborn children, nor does it look to do so any time in the near future.
It comes down to choices. In most cases, not just abortion, I believe that individuals should have the right to decide for themselves what is the proper course of action. What is right for me may not be the same for you; but that doesn't give you the right to force me to do what you want me to, usually.
And yes, I know we live in a society with rules, and compromise all the time. That "argument" gets as old as the slavery allusions, only faster. I'm talking about the right to choose, without intimidation tactics being used, about having a right to have your own morals and ethics. We have no clear consensus abut these issues, unlike murder or rape. That is why it is a personal decision.
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A newborn can't live without having EVERYTHING provided for it by someone else. The only difference is that more than one person can do the providing.
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And that someone other than the mother can do it.
It has it's own lung power, it's own circulatory system active at that point. It lives on it's own, so we are obligated to allow it to continue to live.
Once again, pointing out the differences.
Enough of this, I guess... we are repeating ourselves again..
quote:It has it's own lung power, it's own circulatory system active at that point. It lives on it's own, so we are obligated to allow it to continue to live.
By doing more overt work than it requires to keep an unborn child alive. We impose duties on people all time, including both mothers and fathers.
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Overt, not required...a mother can give her child up after birth. We do have resopnsibilities, but there are alternatives after birth.
In your world there would be none for the 10 months before birth, merely because you think a embryo should have greater rights than the mother.
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quote:In your world there would be none for the 10 months before birth, merely because you think a embryo should have greater rights than the mother.
A born child has the right to be taken care of, and people can face criminal liability for refusing to do so. The difference between the dependence on others of an unborn child and a born infant is the fact that only the mother can provide the care before birth.
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As of the class of 2004 all graduating pharmacy students will have a PharmD.
The entity that acredits pharmacy schools will no longer acredit(acredidate?) programs that offer a B.S. in pharmacy.
Many schools of pharmacy converted years ago. Some are converting with the class of 2004. Others, like mine, offered both degrees for a period of a few years.
For those pharmacist who have a B.S. in pharmacy can take a post-bac PharmD course and get their new degree.
At this point in time I really don't see what advantage a PharmD gives over a B.S.
Some pharmacies (hospital most likely) may prefer a PharmD, but with current pharmacist shortage, no one is being too picky.
Pharmacist can also go on and complete post graduate training called a residency. Usually you start with a general practice residency for 1 year (at about half pay). If you want you can do a specialty residency for another year. There are many different types of specialties such as cardialogy, endocrinology, women health, pediatrics, neonatal care, geriatrics, managed care, oncology and on and on.....
Some pharmacist even complete a fellowship which usually runs about 2 to 3 years in lenght, not sure of pay. Fellowships generally focus on research.
quote:Jutsa...can you explain? I honestly don't comprehend why someone would think this. I see the end coming, but I can't figure out what it is that makes us so despicable in the eyes of pro-choicers. No one except a few racists looks at the civil rights movement this way, and all we've done are the same things they did. How are we saying anything should be done at the expense of someone's life?
Well, as a general and non-specific movement, your general "we" are not. However, in ways that specific movements, much like this "grass roots" movement by pharmacists and doctors (a few hundred total at this point, according to the article?), are very much insisting it be done at the expense of someone's quality of life, at the very least.
Of course, to those who are ardently pro-life, that just seems a small price to pay for these poor babies who never had a chance.
However, that's really the point of using the "racists" accusation to begin with, right? Funny, someone else got all ingignant and insulted when they believed I was making such an accusation (even though I wasn't). I won't bother pointing out the hypocrisy of it. Instead, I'll reply by pointing out that militant fundementalist groups also believe that they are fighting for the greater good.
See? We can always demonize those things we disagree with to make ourselves feel better. It makes us believe we are truly more righteous to begin with. And before you (or someone else ) decides to claim I did it first, I'll be happy to inform you that all I mentioned were ideological extremes, of which such demonizing is a perfect example of, and which you have so perfectly demonstrated.
That's the problem with extremes, and that's the problem with both extremes on issues like abortion to begin with. The Pro-Life camp is, to date, far more extreme with its position in organizational form, even if not in general form. That constant propensity towards extremes is, ultimately, why the Pro-Life movement is doomed to obsolescence, whether abortion is right or not.
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just to make a small point about the difference between fetus vs. slavery and how they are different..... the slaves were already born, living, breathing, moving, working, speaking,individuals and therefore, considered, by some (primarily in the north) to be human "endowed by God with certain inalienable rights".
Not to say that I personally could ever have an abortion, but that is my decision, my personal beliefs and values have made it impossible for me to consider such a course of action. My cousin, however, was 13 when she was kidnapped, drugged, beaten, and raped repeatedly before being left for dead in the woods. Luckily an off duty police officer found her while hiking and saved her life. She went through every test imaginable, and is now terrified of Dr's, but was more terrified of having the child of a murderer. (he had a newspaper clipping in his wallet [when found] of a girl from Wisconsin matching my cousin's description with the same M.O., found dead in the woods, and is now serving a 120 year sentence without the possibility of parole because my then 14 year old cousin testified against him) It took years for her to heal enough emotionally to consider marriage,let alone consider having children, so a Dr. or Pharmacist that won't write or fill a script for birth control could potentially cause her severe emotional/mental harm. Would that be in the best interest of the patient?
Just a new twist to throw in. For a sense of perspective my cousin is 3 months younger than I am and I was not allowed to know the details of what had happened until after she testified in Massachusetts and Wisconsin. She still, at the age of 29, cries for days before she has a Dr. or dentist appointment and has to be given a mild sedative before each appointment.
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Dag, my point was that the same thing you said. Only the mother has the ability to care for the child, because the process of becoming a complete, self-sustaining human being hasn't occurred yet.
A child needs care for years, but they are much further along the path toward the end....and the line has to be drawn somewhere.
Right now, the best compromise we have been able to come up with is that a child is human when it is born...out of the womb for good, even if it is very early.
Until then they are potential individuals, locked in a symbiotic relationship with the mother.
At least that is what the arguments for pro-life are. I am not really sure what to believe, but I know that forcing others to give birth to babies they don't want or can't raise is not a viable option. Forcing a woman to abide by my beliefs, even when I am not sure when life begins, is wrong, and violates everything I believe in about individual freedoms and rights.
Well, I know there have been many threads about abortion here on Hatrack, and if you were to look through every one you would never, ever find my name on a post in one of them. I avoid them because they are so polarized that most people in them become angry, and an opinion is rarely changed. I don't really want to participate any further in this conversation now that it has morphed into yet another abortion thread.
However I do appreciate the tone since we "changed" topics...no one has gotten flamed, at least about this part of it...lol.
Tullan, you were closer to on-topic than we have been lately! Thanks for the info, but that isn't what the pharmacists told JenniK when she asked about it. Maybe it is different here in MA< or perhaps this represents changes in curriculum that they were unaware of at the time of her conversation.
My points, a few pages back, I think:D, were more about the differences between Md's and Pharmacists, particularly in the differences from a patient perspective. I know that there are specialties in pharmacy as there are in other branches of the medical field, and i respect the job they do. However, it is a different job than a MD has, even if there is quite a bit of overlap in practice.
Hell, I have trouble remembering to take a vitamin every night...
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That was weird, I couldn't post that for a while...had to remove a set of parenthcies...lol...
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Jutsa, thank you for your thoughts. It seems to me that a lot of the extremism among pro-lifers is more desperation than anything else, but what can I say? I'm not all that involved.
Kwea, earlier I was too annoyed to notice that you kept repeating that "the mother is the patient, not the child". Can you explain why the distinction is necessary? Don't people have obligations to each other aside from their professional relationships? I barely know you, but I hope I'd try to save your life if you needed it.
And I apologize if I have angered or annoyed you. I have strong feelings about this, and I know you do too. I just don't understand a moral universe where killing babies, born or not, is morally acceptable and preventing it isn't.
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This discussion has gone so far afield, I just want to make sure that I haven't missed something...
The article that started this whole thread was not about abortion, not even about the controversial Morning After Pill ("MAP"). It was about birth control pills. As far as I know, birth control pills are not abotifacients; they prevent fertilization--they do not stop it after it has happened.
I just don't get why this should even be a controversial topic. It's just birth control, plain and simple (not as plain and simple as other methods, but it is a pre-conception control). Is the pharmacist going to stop selling condoms next?
I have always felt that if one is going to "make a case" to fight post-conception birth control (abortions, the Morning After Pill, and similar abortifacient medications), then one had damn well better support pre-conception birth control, where nobody gets "hurt" (and yes, I understand that the Pill is not without its medical dangers).
Unless its just some masked desire to force more babies into this world...in particular, more babies of certain religions.
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Whoo boy...my first post and it's in a doozy of a thread. Let's see if I do this correctly...
I don't think it's been touched on in this particular thread, but I'd like to bring up the FDA Plan B approval debates. In short, the drug, aka the morning after pill, was prevented from being sold OTC because there wasn't enough research, in the minds of some doctors, done on how this drug effects children of 12-14. Once this research was done, implied the FDA, Plan B would be a-okay.
The problem, if anyone followed the debates, was that the FDA advisory boards decided that Plan B was safe enough to be sold OTC. The squall about preteens and young teenagers was manufactured to cover an ultimately political move by the FDA: Bush is against abortion and the FDA is, for all intents and purposes, following his wishes against that of its own advisory committees. I remember reading that this was one of the first, if not the first, time that the FDA had gone so blatantly against its own review.
We now have an uncomfortable precedent in the government. When the administration doesn't like the science, the scientists are replaced, occasionally with political pundits. (Witness the replacing of a respected and well-published cell biologist with a political science professor on a stem cell committee).
If the precedent is set at the highest level that science can take a back seat to personal preference, is it any suprise that vigilante medicine is beginning to come to bear?
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Since there's not much more I could add to the main topic at this point, I wondered if anyone else noticed this part of the article.
quote: As for Williams, she got her prescription that day. Desperate--new to her job, she couldn't afford to take off another day without pay--she asked for help from an employee in Jones-Nosacek's office, who told her there was an OB/GYN in the same building. Williams went there directly and asked one of the doctor's assistants to relay her story to the gynecologist. This new doctor wrote her a prescription, no questions asked.
Is it OK for a doctor to prescribe even birth control pills without seeing a patient, but only listening to their story second-hand from the assistant?
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quote:The article that started this whole thread was not about abortion, not even about the controversial Morning After Pill ("MAP"). It was about birth control pills. As far as I know, birth control pills are not abotifacients; they prevent fertilization--they do not stop it after it has happened.
Right. And the whole thing that sprung into the current discussion is that there are people who are more willing to believe inconclusive and unproven theories about birth control as abortives than to actually use modern medical science knowledge about the products from which to base their decision. Obviously, since doctors and pharmacists are deciding now that contraception equals abortive, then there must be a kernel of truth to it, right?
Of course not. However, what the extreme behavior does do is bring up the issue yet again, with only slightly different playing field markers. We all already know that it is not unexpected of those affiliated with the Catholic church to be against even contraceptives, and that's fine. The problem comes in when those who are against contraceptives are denying those who are not against them, for dubiosly-arrived-at medical reasons.
That's why I called the situation extreme to begin with, and why I feel that this behavior actually reflects badly on those who are Pro-Life.
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zgator, normally I would agree with you. However, to give the doctor the benefit of the doubt, it seems clear that part of what was relayed was that the patient had JUST seen another doctor, and had been given no medical reason for the prescription to not be renewed.
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quote:The article that started this whole thread was not about abortion, not even about the controversial Morning After Pill ("MAP"). It was about birth control pills. As far as I know, birth control pills are not abotifacients; they prevent fertilization--they do not stop it after it has happened.
It was the manufacturer of the Pill that brought up prevention of implantation of a fertilized embryo as benefit of the Pill.
The pharmacists who choose not to dispense do so because the possibility is too great in their mind. I've just been arguing that freedom of conscience in general is a good thing.
Were I a pharmacist, I'd have a much better handle on current science of the pill preventing implantation. But I have no need to reach a decision on this. I don't want the Pill banned, I know enough about it to support the decisions made about it for our marriage
Even if it did sometimes prevent implantation, I'd still have to consider whether it stops implantation or generally makes the uterus more hostile to implantation to decide if it was the agent that caused the failure.
All I've been arguing for, given the doubt that seems to exist right now, is for the right of individuals to decide whether they will be part of the dispensing of this medicine.
If physician-assisted suicide were legalized, would you support a pharmacist's right to not dispense medication for ending a life?
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My women ain't takin' no pills. Gotta breed 'em fast and strong iff'n they're gonna survive out here. An' if there's a runty one, all ya gotta do is leave it out for the mountain cats.
'Course my Jenny wouldn't let me do that, and now we got a bunch o' scrawny brats runnin' round the cabin. So's I take my time runnin' the traps. An' let Jenny take care o' her runts by herself.
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Mabus, I kept saying that because in some ways, to some people, that is what the whole issue is about.
Some pharmacists would use the argument that the fetus is a patient as well, and that their oath to do no further harm applies to the fetus as well as the mother.
By all legal standards I am aware of, this is false. I also feel it is a cop out.
I feel that we do have responsibilities to each other, far beyond that of legal responsibilities, but I know that defining those responsibilities would result in many different opinions as to what they were...so I'll pass, if you don't mind. I am in enough trouble as it is here...
Most of my argument has been based on the ethical teachings I received as an EMT when i was in the Army. I was taught that the standard towards care of a patient is the largest ethical consideration a medical care provider has to consider. I was taught that it was the patients right and responsibility to determine their own care, and that while I may not agree with their choice I, as a care provider, must honor their choices, providing what they request is legal.
Abortion was provided as the example in this instance, but it carries over to all aspects of the medical profession, not just in that case.
And I was told, repeatedly and by many different instructors, that in a case where there is a conflict between my morals and theirs, their opinion/choice was always the one that was more important...once again providing what they wanted was legal.
It is the same thing as DNR's (Do Not Resuscitate orders); the medical team is responsible for obeying them because the patient has the supreme responsibility for determining what care will be provided, even if the doctor/staff feel they know better.
If your ethics prevent/interfere with a patients right to choose treatment plans, then you need a new field.
I believe that their obligation to their patients should be the foremost o their minds, and if they refused to fill the script it wouldn't be. They would be more concerned with their morals than in assisting their patients, which would be a very dangerous precedent.
In practice, Dag and I have almost the same view on the practicality of these pills, and probably on abortion as well...at least in our own lives. I feel that since the companies made claims that they can't prove they have made themselves targets on this issue, and feel it is fair to discuss this now.
WasabiTurtle: Decent first post. Looks like you read the thread, and didn't just jump in and start blabbing like some newbies(no poke at anyone specific intended here)....great to meet you! You're braver than I was, that's for sure! See ya around!
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I guess from that perspective your position makes sense, Kwea. OTOH, that now means I have issues with the whole medical profession. I guess it's a good thing I didn't go into med school after all.
I don't so much see a doctor (or other health care professional) as even having specific patients, or a quid pro quo relationship for treatment. A doctor gets paid (to me) not for a specific service to a specific person, but so that he can stay alive to heal people in general. By being a doctor, he's just fulfilling his general obligation to help people in the way best suited to his talents.
So since there's no specific patient, he has only the moral obligation to help those he sees need help--including a patient's fetus or embryo, if he knows it exists. I suppose this would put me at odds with most of the profession, so I guess that's a bullet dodged.
Anyway, I suppose I should say that I changed my mind about the specific pharmacist in question. Unless and until it were proven that the pill really does act as an abortifacent, this kind of scenario falls under the "disputable matters" Paul mentions in Corinthians (or maybe Romans) as something you're not supposed to impose on others.
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quote:Jutsa, thank you for your thoughts. It seems to me that a lot of the extremism among pro-lifers is more desperation than anything else, but what can I say? I'm not all that involved.
I understand. As someone who has no sexual life to speak of currently and not planning to go out and get one, I can say I don't have that much involvement on the personal level as well.
I agree about some of the extreme behaviors. On both sides. I'm also glad you didn't immediately assume I was insulting you with my example, because I wasn't. It makes for very pleasant discourse this way.
With regard to the issue discussed in the article, the question about contraceptive being a useful abortive is why I am mostly appalled at these otherwise educated people behaving this way. I could understand if there were more to go on with their assumptions, but there isn't. Which makes this behavior highly extreme on their part, and ethical issues aside, it does little to help the Pro-Life stand anyway. As for the issue on Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice, I think that I can accept our different views as something that each of us is pretty much resolute in, and I promise not to make you have an abortion if you promise to not take away my condoms (bad analogy, I know). Posts: 1170 | Registered: Jan 2003
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So, Kwea, would you support policies that could result in women being forced to abort a baby that she wants? (Yes, this is, I suppose, a "trap")
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The patient has the right to decide on her treatment, remember?
No, never...unless...
Unless she was unconscious, and it was her or the baby and the doctor (MD) decided that she had a better chance of living than the baby did...but only if the woman hadn't made it clear that she would rather die.
A doctor could object, but I really can't think of a situation where a woman could be forced to abort....not if she has the final say, which is how it is suppose to be in regards to medical decisions.
quote: If your ethics prevent/interfere with a patients right to choose treatment plans, then you need a new field.
This has nothing to do with abortion, just ethics in general.
An old friend of my mom's who we've known forever is bipolar. She's also poor. So she's been going to a shrink as a pro bono patient for over a decade. She's on about a dozen meds that she gets free, she doesn't take any of them properly, and she's only crazy when she isn't getting her way.
I've watched this woman in action for close to two decades now. She's only crazy when it's the easiest way to get what she wants. Don't want to see the parents but are too chicken to say so? Go crazy. Don't want to go to church but feel guilty about not? Go crazy. Aren't getting enough of hubby's attention? Go crazy.
She's not crazy, she's manipulative. She doesn't want to deal with life, so she gets high on legal drugs. She enjoys the manic part and dopes up during the downs.
So the old shrink retired. My ethical question is, would the new shrink be moral obligated to continue perscribing meds to a woman who doesn't need them becuase she really thinks she does? To me, the old shrink was nothing but an enabler and immoral himself. But this is the treatment plan she's chosen for herself. She wants to be high. Does the doctor have the right to deny her more meds for the good of society since you and I pay for them with our tax dollars? Or is that us shoving our morality down her throat?
Posts: 2283 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
No, that is a matter for him to decide. A patient has the right to participate in his/her treatment decisions, but they aren't the doctor. If, in his opinion, she is faking, then he is obligated not to perscribe the meds she has been abusing. That is why he is the doctor (MD, or whatnot).
Now, if a pharmisist feels that a patient has been "Dr shopping, they have an obligation to report that, it's the law (I think). That is one of the reasons pharmisists had that law passed, so that if there is abuse they can withold meds.
But overuling a MD's decision on proper treatment sue to personal morals is a different kettle of fish.
It is a completely different issue, not really related.
A patient can't perscribe meds for themselves, they have to go to a doctor(MD) for that. But they have the right to refuse meds, and possibly change meds with the help of their doctor if it isn't working. Providing there are treatment options, the doctor is obligated to share those options with the patient if they ask.
quote: She's not crazy, she's manipulative. She doesn't want to deal with life, so she gets high on legal drugs. She enjoys the manic part and dopes up during the downs.
[derail] I think this is why I can't stand Robin Williams[/derail]
Kwea, I can't recall exactly what I was thinking. I still haven't settled conclusively on when I think "life" begins, but I don't think it is whenever the mother decides it does.
I guess there is no such thing as a compromise that everyone will be happy with. I just think our culture will suffer if we continue to support abortion.
Posts: 11017 | Registered: Apr 2003
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quote: I promise not to make you have an abortion if you promise to not take away my condoms (bad analogy, I know).
???
I don't recall asking that women be forced to have abortions. All I said was that if you're going to take the "moral high ground" and ban abortions, then it is only morally proper to allow the discussion of pre-conception contraceptive use as an alternate. For instance, our wonderful government will not pay for international Aids prevention because the parental planning institutions that typically provide information ands medication in support of the fight against aids do not recommend absitinence, they recommend birth control, and make abortions available (and may, for all I know, recommend abortions).
But if you are going to disallow the discussion of condoms, or fail to prevent them as a viable option to prevent further viability, then I feel you're being manipulative and/or hypocritical.
quote:It was the manufacturer of the Pill that brought up prevention of implantation of a fertilized embryo as benefit of the Pill.
Fertilized embryo? Well, I guess. I would have called it an cellularly-undifferentiated blastocyst. If that.
Next step: masturbation and periods become illegal.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Fertilized embryo? Well, I guess. I would have called it an cellularly-undifferentiated blastocyst. If that.
Next step: masturbation and periods become illegal.
ssywak, even if you don't agree with the distinction being made, please don't pretend it's not self-consistent. There are clear, logical reasons for choosing conception as the point where life begins, and there's a clear distinction between a zygote and a gamete.
posted
Wow, what a long thread! I wanted to read the whole thing so I would be sure not to repeat anything already said. (It's clear from reading the posts that I made the right decision. )
After reading that article, I was in shock. My taking birth control pills can be compared to having an abortion?? After reading several of the posts here, I see that it's not all that cut and dried. Maybe they do, maybe they don't.
The issue, though, is an important one to me, and I would have appreciated it if my doctor had mentioned the possibility to me. I'm very pro-life for myself personally--although I do believe in pro-choice in many instances--more on that later.
When I got the prescription, I wasn't sexually active, but since then, I've gotten married. I got the prescription for PCOS symptoms. I would have been mortified if my pharmacist had refused to fill the prescription. There I was a virgin, standing in a brightly lit drugstore, completely red-faced because I didn't want anyone to think I was sexually active. (And I was 25 at the time!) Don't get me wrong, I was proud of my decision to wait for sex until marriage, but it isn't something I wanted to discuss with my pharmacist in a not-very-private setting. I don't care if we live in a world where sex is no big deal.
But even that isn't the issue I take with pharmacists refusing to fill the prescription. I think several people (MrsM, especially) have made excellent points about when it is unethical NOT to fill a prescription. I am not in that situation. I could easily go down the road to another pharmacy. My issue is with the groups who want to make it illegal for Birth Control Pills to be prescribed at all! I realize that is a very small group, but obviously it is catching on with enough doctors and pharmacists to begin having an effect on the real world. I agree that illegalization is not very likely at all, but that doesn't mean we should just sit idly by while it happens a little at a time.
As for abortion, personally, I'm against it. The thought that taking birth control pills for the last 8 months that I've been married could have caused an abortion in me is sickening. I have dreams sometimes about having my own children--and the thought that I could have lost one or more makes me very sad. Having said that, though, I'm not willing to stop taking the pills because the chance is so very slim. Taking them now, according to my doctor, could very well increase the likelihood that I would even be ABLE to get pregnant later.
I am against a flat-out abortion ban, however. There are many medical and ethical reasons to allow abortions. While I would hope that all abortions are completely necessary, I don't believe it is right for the law to take much of a role in that decision. That's a behind-closed-doors doctor/patient thing--I just hope, again with the hoping!, that the patient is well-informed of their options and the effects of their choice.
Partial-Birth Abortion, however, is blatantly evil! Disagree if you want, but I think it's ridiculous to make a distinction of life for a few inches. Oh, the head is still in the mother's body, if we just inject something here, or suck something here, it's an abortion and not murder. Give me a break! That baby could live and function just like a normal baby outside of the womb. I wasn't aware that Bush had signed a ban on partial-birth abortion, but if he really did, then I'm very pleased.
So, my response to the article:
1. My doctor should have brought up the issue of the possibility of some sort of abortion, and the science behind it either way.
2. I would have been mortified to have my pharmacist refuse to fill the prescription in a public place. (Those mini-walls aren't enough for privacy--you can hear everything just being a few feet away waiting for your own prescription.)
3. We have to be careful that this doesn't turn into an illegalization of BCP, a very unlikely, but seemingly wanted result from Anti-BCP activists.
The abortion rant is just my response to the thread here.
posted
Just found this article... most of this (if not all) was already said, but it's nice to have it in "official" article form... (After all, if it's in print, it MUST be true... ) The Post-Fertilization Effect: Fact or Fiction
posted
Dagonee: Embryo is... "In humans, the prefetal product of conception from implantation through the eighth week of development." Dictionary.com
There exists a broader definition of embryo, but that's like calling a plum a vegetable. Embryo is used medically and should be used in this conversation as its medical term. That means from implantation to 8 weeks, roughly from week 1 to week 8 not week 0 to week 8.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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not to confuse anyone, but when I wrote "week 1" I meant starting day 7'ish, so after one week. Counting all funny, you see.
Posts: 1892 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Good to know. I guess I mean zygote. It changes the argument not at all. Although I note there are other definitions in the same dictionary that meet the specifics of my usage.
quote:[even in women not taking "The Pill"] fertilized eggs fail to implant 40 to 60 percent of the time
1) "Fertilized eggs." Not "Embryos." Not that it really makes much of a difference.
2) What are we to consider those 40 to 60% of fertilized eggs that do not implant? Has nature aborted these embryos? Has God? Are we to try and do something to make sure that 100% of all fertilized eggs implant successfully? If a drug was created that could guarantee 90% succcessful implantation, would the government have the right (or the obligation) to mandate its use?
How can we allow 40 to 60% of all unborn children to die at conception?! This is worse than the current abortion rate in the United States! This is worse than the Holocaust! This is almost worse that the infanticide rate in China!
Is it fair to say, "How can God allow 40 to 60% of all unborn children to die at conception?"?
From a humanist point of view, it is sad that there is a 40 to 60% failure rate for implantation--especially for couples wrestling with infertility. But, apparently, it's natural; it's the way the human body works. From a larger (global population explosion) point of view, it's not something I would recommend playing around with. You'd, uh, be "Playing God."
Back to that article: The article states, though, that "nobody knows" if that implantation prevention aspect of BC Pills really takes place. The article hints strongly that it does not (my opinion).
quote:Consensus comes from a surprising source. "The post-fertilization effect was purely a speculation that became truth by repetition," says Joe DeCook, MD, a retired OB/GYN and vice president of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. "In our group the feelings are split. We say it should be each doctor's own decision, because there is no proof."
Even though there are some very well presented arguments for the "unborn child" status of a foetus at the end of the first trimester, the undifferentiated ball of cells at initial conception--the same ball of cells that nature/God sees fit to kill off up to 60% of the time, the same ball of cells that may or may not be affected by birth control pills (though it appears that what little evidence we have indicates it has no such effect)...I cannot see a misplaced concern for such a ball of cells as rationally leading to opposition to the use of birth control pills.
I'm not currently making a statement on the use of abortifacients, or on abortion itself. Just on Birth Control Pills. That is, after all, what this thread is about, neh?
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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