There's a legal fight on here in Washington State, with both sides claiming their rights are being infringed. Women want to protect their individual rights to control their reproduction, while some pharmacists have religious grounds to refuse to dispense the "Plan B" drug sold by Barr Labs.
At first glance it appears to fall under settled law and precedent. In the early 1960s we decided as a country to disallow commercial discrimination. The Greensboro Woolworth's lunch counter policy of not serving seated African Americans was protested by massive sit-ins. Those protests led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act, barring such discrimination.
But there's a key difference. The seated African American students weren't asking Woolworth's for some special food not offered on the menu. The problem was with discriminating which customers would be served, not which food would be served.
Civil Rights law does not dictate what food a given restaurant must serve. As a restaurant owner I can choose not to serve anything, or to limit my menu in any way I want. It's perfectly legal for me to open a vegetarian restaurant and refuse to serve meat, even if my reasons against serving meat are based on my religion--or if I'm running the only restaurant in town.
The same is true of the Washington pharmacists. They are quite willing to serve any customer, but they are not willing to dispense a particular medication.
Once someone has decided to do something, it's reasonable for government to regulate how that something will be done. Any real-world action could have consequences beyond the first actor, and so it's reasonable for government to intervene to protect the individual rights of others. Once a restaurateur decides to offer a given food she must comply with laws and regulations protecting her customers. Likewise, Civil Rights law requires her to serve that food to anyone who comes in the door with money.
The fundamental individual right of Liberty includes a strong presumption against government compulsion or coercion. With some very few exceptions (e.g. military draft, jury duty) the government should not have the power to force someone to do something they don't want to do.
The Washington women want to use the coercive power of government to force pharmacists to do something they don't want to do. The pharmacists' right not to do something at all necessarily overrides a woman's intent and desire to avoid the consequences of her choice to have sexual intercourse. The pharmacists should and must prevail in this legal matter.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
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2 comments:
How is the lunch counter operator's right to choose his customers any different from his right to choose what he serves?
I think discriminating based on race is morally repugnant, but government coercion to stop it is far far worse.
Let's start with Martin Luther King's example. His daughters saw advertisements on television for an amusement park, and wanted to go. Dr. King had to explain that the amusement park wouldn't allow them in because of their skin color.
The advertisement itself perpetrated a fraud. It offered something to the public. But if someone with a high concentration of skin melanin took the time and trouble to show up, they would be turned away. Even if they didn't have to pay money they still lost their time and travel costs.
The lunch counter example is less clear-cut, but the idea of race-blind accommodation isn't prima facie unreasonable. The government's job is to mediate the rights of individuals. Health codes ensure the customers aren't harmed because of risky restaurant practices. Similarly, race-blind accommodation laws are intended to ensure potential customers don't unfairly suffer opportunity losses of time and interest.
You and I might agree that government coercion is an improper tool to prevent race-based discrimination, but that's not the point of this posting. Instead, I'm trying to convince people to support the pharmacists' decision to control what they dispense, even if those people think the government has a legitimate interest in preventing race-based discrimination.
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