Pope Benedict XVI recently told the International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists that pharmacists have a right to be conscientious objectors if they are asked to dispense drugs that will be used in a way they regard as immoral. From an AP report:

Benedict told a gathering of Catholic pharmacists that conscientious objection was a right that must be recognized by the pharmaceutical profession.

“Pharmacists must seek to raise people’s awareness so that all human beings are protected from conception to natural death, and so that medicines truly play a therapeutic role,” Benedict said.

Benedict said conscientious objector status would “enable them not to collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products that have clearly immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia.

The AP reports that the Pope also told the gathering that pharmacists have a responsibility to educate patients so that drugs are used ethically and morally.

The US hasn’t been the only country dealing with this issue. It’s also come up in Chile, where whole pharmacy chains have refused to sell morning after contraceptives, and in Italy, where pharmacists are required by law to dispense prescriptions regardless of their ethical objections. In response to the Pope’s comments this week, the Italian health minister said, “I don’t think his warning to pharmacists to be conscientious objectors to the morning after pill should be taken into consideration.”

-Greg Dahlmann

Earlier on blog.bioethics.net:
+ The Illinois plan for Plan B and reluctant pharmacists