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OREGON-CONSCIENCE Jul-18-2006 (620 words) xxxn
Policies challenge conscience rights of Oregon pharmacists, doctor
By Ed Langlois
Catholic News Service
PORTLAND, Ore. (CNS) -- A new policy of the Oregon Board of Pharmacy has prompted objections from pro-life supporters because it requires pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for drugs such as the morning-after pill or medications used in assisted suicides to actively help a patient find a pharmacist who will dispense the drugs even if it violates their consciences.
"Fully respecting the consciences of pharmacists should extend to respecting the professional ethical integrity not to refer for prescriptions which violate the conscience of the individual pharmacist," said Bob Castagna, executive director of the Oregon Catholic Conference.
"Whether contained in administrative regulation or state statute, public policy should recognize that freedom of conscience is rooted in the federal and state constitutional protections of freedom of religion," he added.
Pharmacists who fail to refer would be guilty of "unprofessional behavior," the board said in the new policy statement, approved June 7.
"Just as other health care professionals and practitioners in Oregon have a choice, so do pharmacists have a choice whether or not to participate in activities they find morally or ethically objectionable," the board said. "Oregon pharmacists cannot, however, interfere with a patient's lawfully and appropriately prescribed drug therapy."
The changes came at the request of the Northwest Women's Law Center in Seattle on behalf of Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette and NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon, which works to keep abortion legal.
"I am proud to have been part of this process, resulting in reproductive justice and individual freedom for all parties," said Michele Stranger Hunter, executive director of NARAL Oregon. Stranger Hunter went on to thank Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a Catholic who backs supporters of unrestricted legal abortion.
The morning-after pill has been available since 1999. In some cases it prevents conception; in others it is an abortifacient.
"A person should not be forced to violate his or her conscience," said Gayle Atteberry, executive director of Oregon Right to Life. "I am very disappointed that the pharmacy board did not stand up for those pharmacists who feel offended in their moral and religious conscience."
The new Oregon law is similar to a rule endorsed June 2 in Washington state. The policy there allows pharmacists to refuse to fill drugs such as the morning-after pill, but forces them to make a referral.
Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and others working to keep abortion legal wanted a code that forces pharmacists to fill the prescriptions.
Meanwhile, a physician and professor at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is hopeful that revised ethical guidelines at the university, expected to be released soon, will affirm his right to continue his 20-year refusal to take part in procedures that violate his Catholic beliefs.
Dr. William Toffler, a member of Holy Rosary Parish in Portland, has refused to participate in procedures such as abortion and assisted suicide, to refer patients for such procedures or to prescribe the morning-after pill.
Over the past two decades, Toffler never had any problems with patients and few with hospital officials. But last year, a university ethics committee revised the medical center's code on conscientious objection, saying medical providers could not refuse "indirect involvement" in procedures that trouble them.
Toffler decided to violate the guidelines. "I ask my colleagues who disagree with me, 'What if a couple from North Africa wants to have their daughter circumcised, meaning you mutilate a part of her anatomy? Would you do it? Would you refer? There is no law against it,'" he said. "Or I say, 'Would you participate in an execution? Would you refer?'"
Toffler said he hoped the university's revised ethical guidelines will protect patient rights and providers' morals at the same time.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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