Law Archives - Page 21 of 43 - Protection of Conscience Project Library

Refusal to Dispense Emergency Contraception in Washington State: An Act of Conscience or Unlawful Sex Discrimination?

Dana E Blackman

Extract
This Article will demonstrate that a pharmacist’s refusal to fill a valid prescription for emergency contraception constitutes sex discrimination and violates the WLAD. Part I explains the nature and function of emergency contraceptive pills (ECPs) as well as their role in basic health care for women and the importance of their accessibility. Part II addresses federal civil rights protections and the failure of these protections to provide relief for women facing refusals. Focusing on the WLAD, Part II also explains how state public accommodation statutes protect women from discrimination in places of public accommodation. It further sets forth the prima facie case of such a claim where a woman is refused access to emergency contraception. Part III presents arguments likely to be submitted by a pharmacist facing litigation under the WLAD. Finally, Part IV illustrates how Washington public policy supports women and the protection of reproductive freedom. The Article concludes with suggestions for judicial interpretation..

Blackman DE. Refusal to Dispense Emergency Contraception in Washington State: An Act of Conscience or Unlawful Sex Discrimination? Michigan Journal of Gender & Law. 2007;14(1):59-97.

Conscience Clauses and Oral Contraceptives: Conscientious Objection or Calculated Obstruction?

Mary K Collins

Abstract
The ideal conscience statutes will balance the interests on both sides. Conscientious objectors should be free to practice in accordance with their beliefs, but should have to give employers and patients reasonably advanced notice that they may not be reliable in certain situations.173 The individual objector should avoid knowingly entering into employment situations guaranteed to create conflict. While health care providers have a duty to ensure informed decision making, women seeking unbiased clinical care should not be subjected to lectures on personally held views of morality. Places of worship are a more appropriate arena for proselytizing. Institutional and individual objectors should develop appropriate accommodations through referral and notice to avoid inconvenience, delay, and possible injury to the patients who depend on them.

Collins MK. Conscience Clauses and Oral Contraceptives: Conscientious Objection or Calculated Obstruction?. Ann Health Law. 2006 Winter;15(37-60.

Rx for Drugstore Discrimination: Challenging Pharmacy Refusals to Dispense Prescription Contraceptives under State Public Accommodation Laws

Charu A Chandrasekhar

Extract
The problem of refusals to dispense prescription contraceptives in pharmacies is real and urgent. State public accommodations statutes offer an excellent vehicle in many states for challenging these discriminatory practices. State public accommodations lawsuits should ideally be brought solely against the pharmacy, not against the individual pharmacist who refuses to dispense a prescription. Pharmacies are best positioned to make institutional adjustments that ensure the filling of prescription contraceptives while accommodating the views and legal rights of their pharmacist employees. Moreover, a state public accommodations lawsuit will likely have a greater remedial and public relations impact if brought against a pharmacy as opposed to against an individual
pharmacist and will result in broader systemic change.

Chandrasekhar CA. Rx for Drugstore Discrimination: Challenging Pharmacy Refusals to Dispense Prescription Contraceptives under State Public Accommodation Laws. Albany Law Rev. 2006;70:55-115.

Scope Note 46: Pharmacists and Conscientious Objection

Richard M Anderson, Laura Jane Bishop, Martina Darragh, Harriet Hutson Gray, Anita Nolen,Susan Cartier Poland

Extract
The literature and online resources cited below include (1) policy statements and codes by professional organizations; (2) review essays on conscientious objection in health care and articles on the current debate regarding the field of pharmacy; and (3) legal perspectives and cases.

Anderson RM, Bishop LJ, Darragh M, Gray HH, Nolen A, Poland SC. Scope Note 46: Pharmacists and Conscientious Objection. Kennedy Inst Ethics J. 2006;16(4):379-396.

Ethical misconduct by abuse of conscientious objection laws

Bernard M Dickens

Abstract
This paper addresses laws and practices urged by conservative religious organizations that invoke conscientious objection in order to deny patients access to lawful procedures. Many are reproductive health services, such as contraception, sterilization and abortion, on which women’s health depends. Religious institutions that historically served a mission to provide healthcare are now perverting this commitment in order to deny care. Physicians who followed their calling honourably in a spirit of self-sacrifice are being urged to sacrifice patients’ interests to promote their own, compromising their professional ethics by conflict of interest. The shield tolerant societies allowed to protect religious conscience is abused by religiously-influenced agencies that beat it into a sword to compel patients, particularly women, to comply with religious values they do not share. This is unethical unless accompanied by objectors’ duty of referral to non-objecting practitioners, and governmental responsibility to ensure supply of and patients’ access to such practitioners.

Dickens BM. Ethical misconduct by abuse of conscientious objection laws. Med Law. 2006 Sep;25(3):513-522.

Does Mission Matter?

Lawrence E Singer

Extract
It is apparent that Catholic health care is suffused with a religious purpose. Its creation is based upon Church interpretation of a duty to Jesus, and its facilities are required to adhere to formal prescriptions of appropriate canonical, ethical and moral behavior. As recently as twenty years ago, questions regarding a facility’s Catholicity and the implications of this calling would rarely have been asked. In part this was because of the highly visible presence of Sisters or Brothers in the facility, making the religious nature of the institution readily apparent to even the casual observer. Too, few Catholic institutions were part of health care systems, and those systems that existed were of a local or regional nature, likely well- known by the communities served.

Today, many Catholic health care facilities have joined together into larger (often multi-state) health care systems with less visible Sister presence and the development of sophisticated corporate management teams distant from day-to-day operations and local community involvement. Many of these systems enjoy significant market power. As discussed below, the heightened visibility of these organizations has led to very public questioning of institutional adherence to religious teaching (especially in the area of sterilizations and, to a lesser extent, abortion), posing a significant challenge to the Catholic mission. Other significant challenges to the mission have also arisen, as the law, the competitive environment, and even changes within the Church present their own hurdles to Catholic facilities. Section III discusses these issues, setting the stage in Part IV for a discussion of whether a religious mission is sustainable in a pluralistic society.

Singer LE. Does Mission Matter? Houston J Health Law Pol. 2006 Sep;6(2):347-377.

Foreword: The Role of Religion in Health Law and Policy

William J Winslade, Ronald A Carson

Extract
This symposium issue explores several continuing controversies at the intersection of Law, Ethics, Healthcare, Politics, Health Policy and Religion: abortion, contraception, the status of embryos, stem cell research, IVF, personal and professional autonomy, end- of-life decisions, and religiously based health care systems. The multiple values associated with each of these topics strain and threaten to usurp the effectiveness of our legal system to regulate them.

Winslade WJ, Carson RA. Foreword: The Role of Religion in Health Law and Policy. Houston Journal of Health Law & Policy. 2006 Sep;6(2):245-248.

(Correspondence) Infertility Treatments for Gay Patients?

Anthony Charuvastra

Extract
We are entering an era where medicine is becoming more like engineering. The distinction between “treatment” and “enhancement” blurs as we are ever better at tinkering with the body. . .

Medical scientists will be able to modify and control an ever-expanding range of human bodily functions, from drugs that slow down aging to drugs that alter basic aspects of mood, anxiety, and cognition. Someday soon, the conflict between a physician’s idea of how people ought to live and how those people want to live will occur in fields far removed from reproductive technology. . .

Charuvastra A. (Correspondence) Infertility Treatments for Gay Patients?. Hastings Cent Rep. 2006 Sep;36(5):6-7.

“Conscience Clauses” or “Unconscionable Clauses”: Personal Beliefs Versus Professional Responsibilities

Martha S Swartz

Yale Journal of Health Policy, Law and Ethics

Abstract
Conclusion
Ultimately, this Article proposes a new model for such “conscientious objections,” one that presumes the general obligation ‘of health care professionals, who hold monopolistic state licenses, to participate in requested medical care that is not contraindicated or illegal, notwithstanding their personal moral objections. This model is based on “the· premise that it “is the patient’s best interest (as determined by -the patient, but mediated by the health care professional’s medical judgment), not the health care professional’s personal interests, that should govern the professional relationship. This should be the standard taught in professional schools and promoted by professional associations. “Conscientious objections” should be permissible based on prevailing medical ethics; however, to the extent that they are based on the personal morals of the· health care professional, they should be actively discouraged.

Swartz MS. “Conscience Clauses” or “Unconscionable Clauses”: Personal Beliefs Versus Professional Responsibilities. Yale J Health Pol Law Ethics. 2006;6(2):269-359.

What is the relevance of women’s sexual and reproductive rights to the practising obstetrician/gynaecologist?

Dorothy Shaw, Anibal Faúndes

Best Practice and Research Clinical Obstetrics & Gynaecology

Abstract
Women’s sexual and reproductive rights are an integral part of daily practice for obstetricians/gynaecologists and the key to the survival and health of women around the world. Women’s sexual and reproductive health is often compromised because of infringements of their basic human rights, not the lack of medical knowledge. Understanding the relevance of respecting and promoting sexual and reproductive rights is critical for providing current standards of care, and includes access to information and care, confidentiality, informed consent and evidence-based practice. The violation of women’s rights in their daily lives through common problems such as gender-based violence and discrimination results in serious consequences for their health. Obstetricians/gynaecologists are natural advocates for women’s health, yet may be lacking in their understanding of relevant laws or the limits of conscientious objection. This chapter outlines the framework for sexual and reproductive rights, and explores its relevance to the practising clinician.

Shaw D, Faúndes A. What is the relevance of women’s sexual and reproductive rights to the practising obstetrician/gynaecologist? Best Practice and Research Clinical Obstetrics and Gynaecology. 2006 Jun;20(3):299-309.