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.

From the Chicago Tribune story:

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. acted appropriately by firing a Catholic pharmacist who refused to interact with patients seeking birth control prescriptions, a federal judge ruled Thursday. . . .

Shabaz said Wal-Mart and Medical Staffing Network accommodated Noesen’s religious opposition to contraception by having other pharmacists fill prescriptions. But he said Noesen went too far by putting customers who called about birth control on hold indefinitely and refusing to get service for those who showed up in person without notifying other pharmacists. . . .

Adler said the staffing agency was aware of his religious beliefs when he was hired and signed an agreement allowing him to decline to fill birth control prescriptions or answer inquiries about them. But she said he became a disruption when he repeatedly failed to find other pharmacists to help the patients after just five days on the job.

Noesen, of St. Paul, Minn., argued the agreement he signed allowed him to simply walk away from them and that his boss was pressuring him to help customers seeking birth control.

When Wal-Mart asked him to leave the store, he refused and was eventually dragged out in a wheelchair by police . . . .

[emphases added]

So he’s not merely refusing to do his job, and not merely diverting healthcare services from patients in need, he’s actively seeking to block their access to service, and claims he has a legal right to do so and his employer is prohibited from taking steps to see to it that their customers – patients in need – actually get the healthcare they are promised on coming in. Plus he throws a fit in the store and engages in a physical altercation with police, apparently in an attempt to preserve his right to hang around in the pharmacy and interfere with patients.

Understand, of course, that it is, supposedly, his right to do all these things as an expression of his religious beliefs. It is religious discrimination to insist that he confine his beliefs to himself alone and not directly impose them on other people. And the right-wing blogosphere has been vocal in support.

Which explains, among other things, why there’s no compromising with the anti-woman forces of the religious right. They don’t recognize any compromise. This jerk went to work (at an extremely conservative company) under explicit guidelines that required him to find a real professional whenever he decided he was not going to serve patients. He unilaterally undertook to undermine even that minimal demand by refusing to conform and attempting to force patients into his view of their healthcare rights by constructively blocking their access to any alternatives. And he claims he has a right to do these things, and that no one has a right to interfere with his interference with his patients’ liberty - not his employer, not the police or courts, and certainly not the patients themselves. What compromise is possible?

Hat tip: Women’s Bioethics Project