Freedom of Conscience, Employee Prerogatives, and Consumer Choice: Veal, Birth Control, and Tanning Beds

Does a pharmacist have a right to refuse to fill certain prescriptions? In this paper, I examine cases in which an employee might refuse to do something that is part of his or her job description. I will argue that in some of these cases, an employee does have a right of refusal and in other cases a...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Dieterle, J. M. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Journals Online & Print:
Drawer...
Fernleihe:Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste
Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2008
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2008, Volume: 77, Issue: 2, Pages: 191-203
Further subjects:B pharmacist refusals
B birth control prescriptions
B Consumer rights
B employee rights
B freedom of conscience
Online Access: Volltext (JSTOR)
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Does a pharmacist have a right to refuse to fill certain prescriptions? In this paper, I examine cases in which an employee might refuse to do something that is part of his or her job description. I will argue that in some of these cases, an employee does have a right of refusal and in other cases an employee does not. In those cases where the employee does not have a right of refusal, I argue that the refusals (if repeated) are just cause for termination of employment. I argue that there are moral principles that support the different outcomes in the cases under consideration. I turn to pharmacy cases at the end of the paper and argue that they are analogous to cases where an employee does not have a right of refusal and thus fall under the principle that refusing to fill birth control prescriptions constitutes just cause for termination.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-006-9308-x