TheAgitator.com
CVS and the Cervix
Monday, November 14th, 2005The abortion rights left is calling for a boycott of Target because the company allows its pharmacists to refuse to dispense Plan B to customers.
We’ve been over this before. Both sides are wrong. The right wants to give every pharmacist the right to refuse to dispense Plan B regardless of his/her employer’s policies. The left wants to force every pharmacist to dispense the stuff regardless of his/her own values and the values of his/her employer.
The correct answer?
Let every pharmacy make its own rules with respect to Plan B. Let Target give its own pharamacists an option. Let Wal-Mart have a strict “no Plan B” policy. Let CVS adopt a “we fulfill all prescriptions, no matter what” policy. If you’re a pharmacist, work at the place that best reflects your values. But don’t be surprised if you get canned for refusing to fill a script. And don’t object if you take a job with a company that doesn’t dispense Plan B.
If you’re a customer looking for Plan B, don’t go to Wal-Mart. Go to Target only with the understanding that you might be turned down. If it’s a dire, must-have emergency, know that your safest option is CVS.
We’ll dub this “voluntary solution,” in that no one is forced subsidize values they don’t subscribe to. Of course, neither side wants that. They want everyone else to succumb to their values, with laws and such.
Despite my own anti-abortion proclivities, I’m okay with Plan B. Seems to me preventing a pregnancy from transpiring is preferable to an abortion a couple of months down the road.
That said, I think the left’s bullying of Target is regretable (usual libertarian caveat: they have every right to protest — consumer activism is part of a healthy, free-market system. I also have the right to disagree with them).
Don’t like the policy? Get your birth control somewhere else.
What’s The Best Plan For Plan B?
Radley Balko has the right answer. I don’t want to give away the ending, but it has to do with – now here’s a thought! – actually allowing private companies to make their own decisions….