In this article I will argue that a pharmacist should not have the right to refuse to fill a prescription for religious reasons. The article I read questioned whether or not pharmacists should have the right to refuse medications due to their religious beliefs. It should not be allowed to refuse to dispense a drug. The negative impact that refusing medications will have on the patient is unnecessary and does not take into account the patient's thoughts and feelings as a human being. As Americans we have fundamental rights to several types of freedoms, and by refusing to give a customer his prescription based on religious beliefs, the pharmacist is also refusing to give the customer the right to religious freedom and autonomy. Allowing a pharmacist to refuse one type of drug based on religious beliefs will open the door to refusing more drugs, and this will allow pharmacists to make snap judgments about customers and refuse them drugs. In turn, this will open the door to discrimination disguised as religious belief. Ultimately, the only reason a pharmacist should be allowed to refuse a patient's medications is due to a legitimate medical concern. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayTopic 1: Being denied medications has a negative emotional impact on the patient and violates their autonomy. The negative emotional impact that comes from being denied medications is destructive to the patient. For example, a woman is raped. She has just left the hospital after being examined and goes to a 24-hour pharmacy to get Plan-B pills to prevent the possibility of getting pregnant. Upon arrival she asks the pharmacist for pills and they refuse and tell her to come back when someone else is working or to go to another pharmacy. Unfortunately this is the only 24 hour pharmacy in town. The woman, already emotionally distraught, leaves feeling judged by the pharmacist, embarrassed that she was denied pills, and worried that the likelihood of her becoming pregnant with her attacker's baby increases with each passing hour. The woman feels judged for wanting to use the only pregnancy prevention method available to her. He didn't have the chance to use a condom; she didn't know she needed to take contraceptives; all he can do is take a Plan-B pill, but now he can't even do that because of the pharmacist. Denying a patient their medicine is a violation of their autonomy, or right to live their lives as they want. . The pharmacist controls the woman's decisions and takes away her freedom of choice. It is not fair to the patient for the pharmacist to revoke his right to do what he wants with his life. The patient has become an object, without rights and without logical thoughts. As a person the patient has rights, thoughts and feelings. By refusing to administer pills to the patient, the pharmacist ignores his feelings and does not value that person. Chapter 5 “The Ethics of the Person” talks about how we need to value people and treat them like the human beings they are, realizing that they have feelings and taking into account how they will react to different situations. The pharmacist does not value the patient when he refuses medicines. No thought is given to how the prescription recipient will feel after being denied their medications. The emotional trauma the client has already potentially experienced may be so great that refusing the pills pushes them over the edge and causes them to take drastic measures. Bad things could happen.The pharmacist does not take any of this into account when refusing the drug, and such reckless behavior could be harmful to the patient. Argument 2: Refusing to provide the drug due to religious beliefs is a violation of the patient's fundamental rights to freedom of religion. In America, everyone is entitled to basic rights. These rights include freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Everyone is allowed to express their religion as they see fit, as long as this is permitted by the government and other religions are not persecuted. When a pharmacist refuses to administer medications to a patient because of his or her personal religious beliefs, he or she violates the patient's freedom of religion. The patient does not necessarily adhere to the pharmacist's religious beliefs and therefore is not required to abstain from receiving the medicine prescribed to him. They are forcing the customer to respect their beliefs. This is a form of proselytism, which involves trying to educate or convert someone to your religious beliefs. They are rejecting medications because their religion does not agree with medications. For example, a Catholic pharmacist would be against the distribution of birth control pills. If a woman who was not Catholic came in and tried to get pills from the pharmacist and he refused, then the woman would be forced to adhere to Catholic practices for that period of time. The pharmacist forces the person to function without that drug and follow their belief system, which is a violation of freedom of religion. If the patient wants to take a contraceptive and has no opposition, then he is acting inappropriately. their religious freedom through this. Their religion, or lack thereof, may be fine if they take birth control pills. You don't have to oppose something to practice your freedom of religion. If your religious beliefs do not limit you in one area, then you are still respecting your religion and using your freedom to express your religious beliefs. Freedom of religion is a fundamental right in the United States, and every person has the right to it. If a pharmacist refuses a drug for religious reasons, he deprives the patient of freedom of religion. Argument 3: If a pharmacist has the right to refuse medications such as birth control, then they will be able to refuse all types of medications, and this can have serious repercussions. If a pharmacist has the right to refuse birth control because he is religiously opposed to it, then he can refuse other drugs on whatever basis he makes and claim it is for religious reasons. Let's say a man walks into the pharmacy to pick up his HIV medications. He approaches the counter to take the recipe. The pharmacist examines the medicine he is requesting and then assumes that he contracted HIV through homosexual sex. Because they believe homosexuality is wrong, the pharmacist refuses to fill the prescription because he claims this would support homosexuality, which he is religiously against. The customer leaves without his pills. Not having access to medications can be harmful to him because his health worsens every minute he doesn't have the medications in his body. The pharmacist has no idea how the man contracted HIV. He may have been born with it. Yet they may refuse the drug because they think they are religiously against it. If the pharmacist knew that the man was born with HIV, he would have no problem giving him medicine. The fact that someone can be denied needed medications because of a pharmacist's superficial judgment is unethical. In Chapter 5, “Personal Ethics,” we learned that notwe must act on stereotypes and hasty judgments. Treating someone a certain way because of something you have taken for granted is not valuing that person. I am a person, not a stereotype, and deserve to be treated as such. Allowing a pharmacist to refuse a drug because of his or her religious beliefs is opening the door to judging customers based on their opinions on drugs, and this is devaluing customers as human beings. Argument 4: If pharmacists are allowed to refuse medications because of their religious beliefs, then this will open the door to discrimination. Everyone is allowed to believe what they want. You can't be forced not to believe in something, you are protected by the Constitution. People say it would be wrong to allow the government to regulate what you can and cannot believe. Consider this: If a pharmacist is allowed to refuse a drug because of his or her religious beliefs, that will allow people to refuse a drug for other reasons. They can discriminate and cover it up by claiming it is against their religion. If a pharmacist can deny a patient birth control because he or she does not believe in using contraception, then a pharmacist can deny serving a patient based on his or her race and defend his or her actions by claiming that it is against his or her religion. If a pharmacist doesn't like Arabs because he thinks they are all Muslim terrorists, he can refuse service to them and claim that doing so is against his religious beliefs. Allowing a pharmacist to refuse someone a medication based on religious belief opens the door to justified discrimination. In America, discrimination has been a problem. Racial, religious, and sexual orientation discrimination have plagued America at one time or another. Discrimination is a current problem that is dramatically infecting our justice system. If pharmacists were allowed to refuse medicines for religious reasons, it would open the door to discrimination, which would begin to spread to other sectors of society. The act of discrimination devalues ​​man. The “Person Ethics” tells us that everyone must be treated as equal human beings. Discrimination is exactly the opposite of that. If pharmacists were allowed to abstain from medications, the seed of discrimination would be planted and begin to grow. We need to stop it before it can spread more than it already has. We cannot change the past, but we can prevent a worse future. Objection 1: If everyone is allowed to do what is good for them, then we are functioning under relativism, which is wrong according to Weston. If every patient can go to the pharmacy and they get whatever prescription they want and the pharmacist has to ignore their feelings, then they function on relativism. Anyone can decide that whatever prescription they want is what works for them and pharmacists can't say it's wrong, just different. Pharmacists would be forced to respect patients regardless of their feelings. Weston tells us that relativism is wrong because there is no moral progress and everyone's moral opinion is as good as any other. This will pave the way for eliminating other rules. Next thing you know it will be legal to kill people. If we allow people to do what they want, the structure of society will begin to deteriorate and eventually everyone will create their own set of rules. We cannot live under relativism, and by revoking pharmacists' right to refuse medicines, we are taking a step towards relativism. Answer 1: (Person ethics?) Everyone should have the right to control their life as they choose, as long as it does not cause any harm to anyone else. The pharmacist does notsuffers because he is administering drugs to the patient. It might be a little uncomfortable, but once they hand me the medication, it'll be over. They are simply allowing the customer to live how they want to live and, in most cases, providing them with the medications they need to live a better life. The fact that the pharmacist allows the recipient to have the prescription regardless of religious opinions is not a step towards relativism. It means granting the person basic human rights by allowing them to live their life the way they want. Objection 2: The pharmacist is required to provide the patient with an alternative way to obtain the drug, so that the patient still receives the prescription. The customer still receives the medications, but not from that specific pharmacist. It might be a little uncomfortable, but they get it anyway. In this way the pharmacist's ethical beliefs are preserved and the patient can still obtain the medicines he wants. The pharmacist is not obliged to give the pills to the patient, as long as he receives the medicine he wants. It is not necessary to revoke the pharmacist's right to retain medications, as long as the customer has alternative means of obtaining the medications. Answer 2: Providing an alternative source for medications still means providing the medications, just more indirectly. If the pharmacist were actually against giving the drug to the person, they would not refer them to someone else. The pharmacist is still violating his code of ethics, he is just making the patient wait longer for the medication. If a pharmacist refuses to dispense a prescription, he or she is required to provide the customer with an alternative source for obtaining the medication. This could be sending them to another pharmacy to get their pills or simply having someone else serve them. In any case, they indirectly provide the drug to the person. This still violates their beliefs. If the pharmacist were really against supplying the drug, then he would refuse to supply it to him and that would be the end; no alternative options. By providing the patient with an alternative means of obtaining the medications, the pharmacist is still violating his or her ethical beliefs, he or she is only causing further conflict for the patient and wasting his or her time. It would save time and effort if the pharmacist simply gave the patient the prescription. Not allowing the pharmacist to refuse the medication is not that bad because he is already violating his ethical beliefs by providing the customer with a way to obtain the prescription. Objection 3: The pharmacist has the right to refuse a drug if he is trying to prevent something bad from happening. They may be concerned about the patient's health and well-being. If the pharmacist is trying to prevent harm to the patient, he or she should be able to do so. By withholding medications, the pharmacist prevents possible dangers such as mixing medications or a potential lawsuit. The pharmacist is simply concerned about the health and well-being of the patient and should be allowed to do so. Answer 3: The pharmacist must provide a legitimate medical reason; a religious reason alone is not a sufficient reason to refuse someone medications. A pharmacist refusing to provide a woman with Plan B pills because he is Catholic and does not believe in contraception is not the same as preventing a lawsuit or being concerned about the customer's health and well-being. Religious beliefs will become the excuse for refusing drugs. If the pharmacist can find a legitimate medical reason why the patient should not be allowed to take the prescription he or she wants, then the pharmacist should have the right to refuse service. A religious belief alone is not a sufficient reason to refuse i.