Apropos this recent post regarding whether the law should require pharmacists to fill prescriptions for medications to which they morally object to filling, David Boaz writes:
We seem to be talking past each other. I'm not challenging any of your arguments about the value of family planning and contraception. I'm just asking what we should do about people who disagree with you. I think people who have different moral or religious or medical views should not be forced by law to act against their consciences.
...If you think that pharmacists should be required to dispense EC against their consciences, would you also say that every physician should be required to perform abortion if requested? Or every plastic surgeon required to perform breast implants if a woman shows up at the clinic requesting them? Or maybe you would say that women shouldn't be able to make the choice to get breast implants, and doctors shouldn't perform them. Either way, the question is: Who decides? Each individual, or the government?
That's libertarianism. You have your right to an abortion, and I have my right to refuse to enable that right. It's something people seem to forget. All they think about are their own rights.
"But I
have a right to an abortion!" Yes, you do. Comes then the non-sequitur: "You
must help me exercise that right!" Wrong. We both should have the right to choose.
Anyhow, read the full debate and you'll see why Mr. Boaz is one today's leading libertarian thinkers.
