The San Jose Mercury-News has advised its slightly more than 230,000 daily subscribers to ignore the Holy Father.What got the newspaper’s editorial board into a snit was Benedict XVI’s recent exhortation that pharmacists be allowed to follow their consciences when it comes to dispensing drugs that induce abortion or are used for euthanasia.
“Medical decisions should be made by patients and their physicians in doctor's offices, not by the pope or other religious leaders in churches or at the drug counter,” said the Oct. 31 editorial, which was entitled, “Pharmacist's duty to patient, not pope.”
The editorial conceded that Benedict was within his rights to advise Catholic pharmacists, but later urged all pharmacists to disregard the pontiff’s counsel.
“Pope Benedict XVI is entitled to call on pharmacists in his flock to refuse to dispense certain prescription drugs -- involving birth control or euthanasia -- if they have a conscientious objection to them,” said the Mercury-News.
“But pharmacists throughout the world have a moral obligation to their patients and should ignore the pontiff's plea.”
The editorial described as “objectionable on many levels” the Holy Father’s advice to a group of pharmacists that they “have the right to refuse to dispense emergency contraception or euthanasia drugs to people who have been given prescriptions by their doctors” and his suggestion they “should inform patients of the ethical implications of using certain drugs.”
The newspaper did not specify its objections.
The editorial then takes on an ominous tone: “But what next? Will the pope demand that pharmacists be required to ask women seeking fertility drugs if they are married?
Should those pharmacists feel an obligation to ask men to prove they are straight and married before dispensing drugs that enhance sexual performance or stem AIDS?
And should pharmacists of the future be allowed to prevent patients from receiving drugs developed through stem cell research?”
The Mercury-News did not explain how the pope’s advice could, in the future, become a “demand.”
But the newspaper did have some advice for pharmacists who have qualms about dispensing drugs that kill babies in the womb or are used to commit suicide: “Pharmacists who cannot bring themselves to fill a prescription for moral or religious reasons should find a new profession.”
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