Tuesday 7 February 2006

Ethical Dilemma

This issue was merely an idea a year ago and now it's directly relevant to how I'm going to practice.

Today we had a lecture on the Pharmacist's Conscience Clause: California Senate Bill 644 which basically says that a pharmacist is able to refuse to dispense a certain medication of device if it is against their religion/morals to do so.

Emergency contraception.

A year ago, I wasn't faced with the choice of counseling and dispensing it. Now, I am. Weird. There's an EC training session coming up in a couple weeks and I need to decide by then whether or not I should choose to take this class and ultimately choose to dispense this medication.

Here's what I'm struggling with. Emergency contraception is a stronger dose of birth control hormones in one pill. It prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Those in healthcare stress that this is NOT an abortive pill. I believe that life starts at conception, not whether ot not it has implanted or not. But at the same time, I'm in a position to provide care for a patient that walks into the pharmacy. And if that patient "needs" or is "asking for" emergency contraception, what do I do? If I refuse, I would be essentially refusing care which is not something I want to do, but at the same time, do I want to dispense a drug that would terminate a life even though it is so young?

It's not my place professionally to put the patient in a difficult situation.

I guess the question is should I dispense emergency contraception? And HOW is my faith manifested in my professional career, is this one of the situations where it is?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

convictions should be convictions. they should play into how you work.