Good Argument

There has been much hypothesizing as of late between the difference of a physician refusing to take part in death penalty procedures, and a pharmacist refusing to fill a perscription for birth control or the morning after pill. I had not heard a good argument as to why one was different from the other. Today, I ran across the following quote in a Washington Post article "Wal-Mart and the Death Penalty" which is the best reasoning I have seen as to why they are in fact different situations. Emphasis added.

Physicians and pharmacists who refuse to participate in what they deem to be killing have more in common than many of us might like to admit. But the most important distinction between them has to do with their differing relationship with patients. The law recognizes that doctors' special relationship with their patients warrants a legal privilege: Their discussions are kept secret. You may like and trust your pharmacist. You may even trust him with intimate details about your yeast infection. But your pharmacist has neither the tools nor the right to probe details about rape and abuse, incest and health risks. Which is why pharmacists who interpose between decisions made by a doctor and her patient are overstepping not just moral but legal boundaries -- and undermining another professional relationship that is fundamentally different from their own.