Bioethics, healthcare policy, and related issues.
The Global Bioethics Blog has two interesting posts recently, touching on the relations between first-world and third-world healthcare systems and patients. They raise some interesting questions about the obligations the medical haves bear towards the have-nots, and the extent to which the pursuit of our own interests in a globalized medical marketplace dooms others in far reaches of the world.
A lot of attention has been given to the recent court decision regarding the firing of a Wal-Mart pharmacist for refusing to fill birth-control prescriptions. When he refused to perform his job to even minimal standards – not only not providing medication, but refusing to refer patients to other pharmacists as he was contractually obligated to do – and was then released, he sued on grounds of “religious discrimination”. What has gotten little attention is the unbelievably unprofessional, and at times simply bizarre, behavior that this clown and his supporters contend was justified under the “conscience clause” that releases him from his obligations as a supposed professional.
