Letter: Respect ethical dilemma
Thursday, March 1, 2012
The Feb. 26 editorial, “A private partnership: Doctors, patients must not be subjected to interference from pharmacists,” presents an interesting problem.
I am a terminal cancer patient who is walking down the “Death With Dignity” path. I have heard that only a very few pharmacies will fill prescriptions for the lethal “cocktail” prescribed by a doctor. Although I fully respect my regular doctors’ reluctance to participate in any assisted suicide process and have had to search for one who will, shouldn’t we equally respect the reluctance of a pharmacist to fill an obviously lethal prescription? And if so, how does this differ from a pharmacist’s refusal to fill a prescription for Plan B? Should we force pharmacists to fill prescriptions for both Plan B and Death With Dignity? Anything less is begging the courts to intervene.
Larry McCagg
Battle Ground
