Pharmacist Refused to Provide Abortion Pill

Search the Scriptures Daily Program #0305b Transcript follows:

Gary: This is Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call. Still ahead, answers to your questions in Contending for the Faith, and in Understanding the Scriptures, Dave and Tom will resume their conversation on God’s salvation.

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Now, Religion in the News, a report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media. This week’s item is from LifeNews.com, May 21, 2004, with a headline, “Eckerd Pharmacist in New York Condemned for Refusing Prescription, Rochester, New York—Another pharmacist at an Eckerd Drug Store is coming under fire for her refusal to fill a prescription for a customer seeking the so-called ‘morning-after pill.’ Three Eckerd pharmacists in Texas were fired in February when they refused to fill a similar order. This time a pharmacist at an Eckerd Drug in Rochester, New York, refused to fill the morning-after pill prescription of a woman who says she obtained the script from a doctor when her contraception failed.

“WROC-TV reports that Ann, the pseudonym of the woman in the incident, says the Eckerd pharmacist said, ‘We would have it in stock but based on my moral and religious belief, I will not give it to you.’

“’Those were her exact words. I was shocked, outraged,’ Ann says.

“Ann told the Rochester television station that the woman pharmacist offered to call in the prescription to another store. That action saved the pharmacist her job. According to Eckerd police, pharmacists who refuse to fill an order for a prescription are obligated to refer the customer to another store that can. By making the referral, the pharmacist will not face disciplinary action.

“Though, one other Eckerd store didn’t have the drug (which can cause abortions) in stock, and another was closed, Ann finally obtained the drug in a nearby town. That inconvenience upsets abortion advocates, who say Ann shouldn’t have been forced to go to other stores to obtain the drug.

“ ‘No one should have to run around to four pharmacies to get a prescription written from her doctor. That’s outrageous,’ Carol Love, director of Planned Parenthood of Rochester-Syracuse told WROC-TV.

“Pro-life groups say pharmacists should be allowed to exercise their conscience and opt out of dispensing drugs that cause significant moral or religious problems. ‘If morality and ethics don’t impinge on professional life, there’s no use for it,’ says Karen Brower, president of Pharmacists for Life, International.

“The State Board of Pharmacy in Austin said pharmacists can refuse to fill a prescription but only on medical grounds, not over moral concerns. ‘Health care providers, including pharmacists, should never be forced to participate in procedures or practices to which they are morally opposed,’ Elizabeth Graham of Texas Right-to-Life, told LifeNews.com. ‘Forcing a pharmacist to participate in abortion through prescribing a pill that could cause a chemical abortion is outrageous,’ Graham added.”

Tom: Dave, you remember last week, when we were dealing with drugs related to children—toddlers being put on drugs, psychotropic drugs. Well, here’s another issue related to drugs. I guess I hadn’t thought about it until this came along.

But the Scripture, in the Greek, uses the term pharmakeia for sorcery. Now, we have sorcery—and we know in sorceries there are sacrificial kinds of things, and rituals, and so on. And, I think that there may be an application here. For example, these people, for self—the god of self—are sacrificing life.

Dave: A profound question, Tom. Should a pharmacist or anyone give a substance to someone else that they know will take life? That’s the issue here.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: And the right-to-life people are saying, “That’s not right. It shouldn’t be. No one should have to participate in what they would call a murder, against their conscience.”

Now, there are people who would say, “Well, that’s not murder.” I mean, even a partial birth abortion—if you can imagine that—with the crown of the head still inside, and then they suck the brain out, and they kill this infant—and if it happened to slip out before they did that, it would be murder. They would be prosecuted for murder.

So, what kind of a fine line are we drawing? And, then, people say, “Well, you know, it doesn’t really become a human being, you know, until this point, and so forth.” But there are those who have a conscience—this is murder. And we have murdered how many millions of babies?

Tom: Right.

Dave: Sacrificed them to self, really, is what it amounts to.

Tom: That was my point. Self has been deified, and this is the altar in which sacrifices are made.

Dave, the other thing is—the show of perspective against the sanctity of life! Here you have this woman from Planned Parenthood being very upset because this other person had to go to another store….

Dave: Mm-hmm.

Tom: …now, to get this drug to destroy this life. And this person said, “Oh, well, they had to drive down the road…or something.” Wow!

Dave: But, Tom, I don’t hold out too much hope—maybe I’m too negative, I don’t know. I don’t hold out too much hope that it’s going to get better. We live in a society where—not everyone is this selfish, but, most people don’t care, or they don’t want to bother. We live in a society where if someone is being murdered, you know, and you just turn away and walk away. You don’t even phone the police, you know. There have been many cases like that—people looking down from their apartment windows when someone is being beaten to death in the street and nobody has even phoned in to 911! Also, the immorality of our day—the political consequences, you know, for many politicians—“let’s go the way it will give us the most votes.” It’s all about retaining their office.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: Again, it’s selfishness.

Tom: Mm-hmm.

Dave: So, that we’re going to somehow change the world and make it a better place to live in—safe for unborn babies—I doubt that that’s going to happen.

On the other hand, each person ought to be able to act according to their moral convictions.

Tom: Dave, a similar subject—we’ve talked about this in weeks past—the rise of anti-Semitism; we have the Holocaust. People stood by as 6 million….

Dave: Right.

Tom: …Jews were sent to the gas chamber, the ovens; and that’s on the rise, especially in Islamic countries.

Dave: Hitler made it very clear in Mein Kampf what he was going to do. And Mein Kampf is still a best seller in Muslim countries….

Tom: Yeah.

Dave: …today. It is a tragedy—the world we live in. So, Tom, we’re going to have to follow the Word of God; see to it that each one of us who knows the Lord is living in accordance with His Word.

Tom: Right, and we cry out, “Maranatha, come Lord, come quickly.