Join "No Activist Pharmacists," aka "N. A. P."

Who ever would have thought I would side with "The Evil Demon, Wal-Mart," as my friend, Tam, calls it. (She shops there, mind you...she has no real morals...the sobriquet is for my benefit alone.) But I have to commend the evil, demon corporation for standing up for what is right on this one.

Through the Women's Bioethics Blog, I found the following article from the Chicago Tribune. Seems The Evil Demon, Wal-Mart, hired a temp pharmacist with a rather religious bent through a medical staffing agency. So far, so good. Accommodations are made so everyone can be happy. The pharmacist does not have to prepare or dispense contraceptives or provide counseling for patients seeking information on birth control. The customers (read: women) can get the information and medications they need, want, are prescribed and to which they are legally entitled.

But that's not enough for the Mr. Activist Pharmacist (male, by the way). Oh, no! He feels compelled to throw further roadblocks up before women, some of whom have already passed through the gauntlet at Planned Parenthood, to prevent the exercise of their health care choices. Women who have called the pharmacy for information on birth control are placed on hold indefinitely by the pharmacist. He refuses to counsel these patients or to refer them to a pharmacist who would offer counsel. Apparently, he thought he was in a better position to make those decisions for the women he encountered.

Well, thank you very much! I'm so relieved I won't have to be bothered with those pesky choices anymore! At heart, don't we all really just want a strong, intelligent man to make our decisions for us? I pant for that!

(If anyone is truly dense enough to think I might have been serious there, IT WAS SARCASM!)

I am in complete agreement with this part of the statement from the Wal-Mart spokesman , John Smiley:

"Under the circumstances, this is about the best possible solution you could ask for," he said. "These cases are rare but when they do happen we are careful to make accommodations. We also have a responsibility to customers to ensure that their prescriptions are filled."

Kudos to Wal-Mart for doing the right thing this time. Still doesn't make up for your anti-labor, anti-union organization practices (that's a wonderful page on Wal-Mart on the United Food and Commercial Workers Union website, the Super Centering of America, your overwhelmingly right-wing political contributions and filling the states' Medicaid rolls to the brim with your employment and "benefits" practices. May the corporation wind up in bankruptcy court someday anyway. Sorry.

Shame on Activist Pharmacists for trying to impose their morality on a woman's body and health care choices. You don't want to participate? Fine. Just don't actively work to prevent those who are willing to serve patients seeking birth control from following their consciences. Wal-Mart was right and offered an effective compromise. Shame on you for subverting any woman's rights to your personal ideology. You deserved to be fired. Now you can go into your second career as a religious-right martyr to the anti-contraception cause.

Hooray for "activist judges," who often get it right! May they live long and adjudicate well, especially if they're all liberal, at the current male resident of the White House suggests. Surely, only judges who rule in a manner with which Dubya disagrees must all be activist judges, right? Because those who agree with the "President."

Just the 'humble' opinion of the founding 'Mother' of N. A. P.

NAP on!

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