Always Let Your Conscience Be Your Guide?
Ever since I first learned about “conscience clauses,” which allow medical providers to refuse to provide medical treatment or referrals based on their own personal beliefs, they have fascinated me. I find pharmacist refusal clauses to be particularly interesting. While I whole-heartedly support each and every person’s right follow his or her conscience, I, as an RJ advocate, can’t help but notice that one person’s conscientious refusal is another person’s barrier to obtaining a necessary reproductive health service (for example, emergency contraception). In rural communities, which may only have one pharmacy or pharmacist, a conscientious refusal can altogether prevent women from obtaining the health care services they need. I find myself thinking, “you are a pharmacist, dispensing prescriptions and behind-the-counter medication is your job – so do your job.” Nonetheless, I am uncomfortable compelling individuals to perform an action merely because that action is a commonly accepted practice in the profession.
A perfect case-in-point is the emerging “Refuse to Sign” campaign. Begun by clergy in Ohio, the Refuse to Sign Campaign seeks “the separation of church and state by advocating equal marriage rights for all people, regardless of sexual orientation, by encouraging faith communities, and their leaders, not to sign state-issued marriage licenses.” Some religious leaders are merely refusing to sign the licenses; some are refusing to perform marriage ceremonies at all. Following my pharmacist refusal logic, I should think that performing marriage ceremonies is the clergy’s job, and they should do it. But I don’t. I realize that the analogy isn’t a perfect fit, but it raises some interesting questions for me. Can I both support a pastor’s right to refuse to marry people and oppose a pharmacist’s right to refuse to dispense prescriptions? Or does support of one logically require support of the other?
Supporting the clergy’s refusal and opposing pharmacists’ refusal is logically consistent from an RJ perspective – we support both the right of all to enjoy equal protection of the law and we support equal access to contraception. But is it logically inconsistent from a moral perspective? If I believe, as I do, that everyone should follow his or her conscience, do I have to support the effects of doing so?
- Megan Mullett