Blog or Not?



A statistically improbable polymath's views on politics and culture.

Monday, March 06, 2006
Time to pull out the world's smallest violin
 
for John Menges, recently out of a job because he won't dispense the morning-after pill.

Except that unlike the women of Collinsville, IL, where Menges's counter at Walgreens was the only game in town for overnight Plan B, Menges has options:

"He could work in a hospital or a mail-order facility or a nearby state [Menges works in Illinois, near St. Louis--MC]," said Robert Buerkl, a pharmacy professor at Ohio State University and an expert in industry ethics. "Why would you want to work in a place where people get in your face?"

I'm not really sure why. Apparently Menges doesn't want to dispense the morning-after pill because he believes it can prevent a fertilized egg from adhering to the uterus, even though there's no scientific evidence for that occuring. (Personally, I prefer my pharmacist to base his or her medical opinions on science, and not on anti-contraception pamphlets, but that's just me.) There are plenty of Catholic hospitals in the St. Louis area which would be more than happy to have Menges as a pharmacist; why is he setting himself up as a victim?