Get ready to be enraged...

This is completely stolen from one of my favorite CF bloggers, Angrygrrl.

Private college to start churning out anti-choice pharmacists

Thanks to my friend sneezy for the pointer to the news that Cedarville University in Ohio plans to start a pharmacy school to create a little fundie army of pharmacists who can refuse to dispense birth control, morning-after pills, and RU-486.

You think I'm being hyperbolic? Alarmist?

Given that their publicly-stated mission statement is this: "In keeping with its unique Christ-centered mission, the Cedarville University School of Pharmacy will equip competent, caring professionals for lifelong leadership and service through an education marked by excellence and grounded in biblical truth." And that they have, as their listed "Christ-Centered Mission," these top two items:

* Unwavering commitment to the inerrancy and authority of Scripture
* Creationist approach to scientific research and study

I seriously doubt this college's intent is to graduate pharmacists of the liberal Christian variety, a la Dean Smith.


Rather, I suspect they intend to graduate pharmacists like these:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-11-08-druggists-pill_x.htm

http://feministing.com/archives/007113.html

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/birth-control-access-prevention/pharmacists-refuse-6501.htm

Pharmacy is biology. It's chemistry. It's neurology. It's science. Not ancient Near Eastern mythology. I'm sorry, but mysterious sky god taking rib from man, adding dirt, and making woman is MYTH, not SCIENCE, and any pharmacy school that takes that myth at face value, as inerrant and authoritative, is nothing but a laughingstock in my book. Creationism and biblical inerrancy are completely incompatible with a robust scientific school of study.

But!

They're a private university, so they can do what they want. Cedarville was originally Presbyterian, founded in 1887; a Baptist organization bought it in 1953. I *think* they're mainstream Baptist, not Southern Baptist, but that doesn't seem to have tempered their crackpottery much. Remember that the only original difference between mainstream Baptists and Southern Baptists wasn't theological, it was the issue of slavery. SBs split from the main group in 1845 because they wanted to keep owning their slaves and found justifications in the Bible for it. This same Bible that Cedarville is saying is inerrant and will be using as the foundation for its school of pharmacy. *eyeroll*

All for the purpose of churning out pharmacists who, when faced with a woman who wants to exercise her right to contraceptives, wants to turn her down. I don't THINK so. Homey don't play that. The rest of us don't get to pick and choose which parts of our jobs we're going to refuse to do on any given day; health care providers shouldn't be any different. As my ever-asute UK friend Helen said, "it's like a vegan getting a job in a steak restaurant then expecting not to have to serve or carry trays of meat."

We have ONE chance to stop this train before it leaves the station. The school hasn't been approved yet.

IMPORTANT: To lodge a complaint with the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education, email them at csinfo@acpe-accredit.org.

Complaints should be related to the ACPE's standards. Well, I've just spent some quality time poring over them, and this is what I've found so far:

Standard No. 12: Professional Competencies and Outcome Expectations
Professional pharmacist competencies that must be achieved by graduates through the professional degree program curriculum are the ability to:

1. Provide patient care in cooperation with patients, prescribers, and other members of an interprofessional health care team based upon sound therapeutic principles and evidence-based data, taking into account relevant legal, ethical, social, cultural, economic, and professional issues, emerging technologies, and evolving biomedical, pharmaceutical, social/behavioral/administrative, and clinical sciences that may impact therapeutic outcomes.

...

Guideline 12.1
Graduates must possess the basic knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values to practice pharmacy independently at the time of graduation. In this regard, the college or school must ensure that graduates are competent to:

Provide patient-centered care, through the ability to:

*design, implement, monitor, evaluate, and adjust pharmacy care plans that are patient-specific; address health literacy, cultural diversity, and behavioral psychosocial issues; and are evidence-based

-----------------

I sincerely doubt that a curriculum based on Biblical inerrancy and "creation" science can give these students the necessary ability to provide patient care that's based on sound therapeutic and evidence-based data -- you know, facts, as opposed to MYTHS. It also seems to me that the whole point of this proposed school is to crank out pharmacists who are *opposed* to cultural diversity, who want the ability to say "No" to anyone whose beliefs don't mesh with theirs.

So write those cards and letters, folks!

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

I highly doubt they will be accredited with a pitch like that. Evidence-based practice is the foundation for any medical profession. Sounds like they're all about a faith-based approach. I can't imagine what their curriculum looks like. What a joke!

Baptists as a denomination are the biggest bunch of judgemental haters among Christian fundies, themselves a hatefilled lot. You have this issue with birth control and abortion, the Southern variant justifying slavery with the Bible, and the anti-gay and anti-Darwin stupidity.

Not to mention anti-woman. A Baptist church in Oklahoma ended its weekday day care service because the preacher there decreed that women should be staying at home with their sprogs instead of working outside the home. Providing daycare was enabling women to work regular jobs, so it had to end. This was a sudden decision that left many families in the lurch.

I recall when one Baptist preacher in Ohio said several years ago that Billy Graham, himself a Baptist, was "doing the work of the devil" by attempting to get Christians of different denominations to cooperate and worship together. Jerry Falwell, another Baptist fundie, made anti-Semitic and antiminority remarks many times over his career: "God does not hear the prayer of a Jew"; blacks "are preordained" to be minorities in society.

And let's not forget our friends at Westboro Baptist Church, the nuts who protested at soldiers' funerals and nearly did the same at the funerals of the Amish girls killed at the Pennsylvania schoolhouse. Thank heaven that nutty group got hit with a multimillion-dollar civil judgement.

Because of their power, visibility, and numbers in the US, we tend to forget that fundies in general and Baptists in particular are just not that common in the rest of the Western Christian world. British TV news programs used to air some of the more blatant stupidity that American fundies were up to, and the Germans consider Baptists and the like as essentially a cult, akin to Scientology. Hate speech laws in Europe and Canada, as abhorrent as they are to us Americans, have succeeded in muzzling some of the more hateful comments that those fundies who do exist in those countries would otherwise have spouted. None of us here would want such laws, but after seeing how the fundies operate, I can see their impetus.

I sure hope this pharmacy school gets nipped in the bud. But don't be surprised if it is approved and accredited.

Boys and girls, the trouble starts when we mix politics, religion and science in any combination = bad news. Always. Communists used to mix science and politics - great mistake. Just take a look where they are now. Mexico mixes religion and politics - not a pretty picture.

I think it's freaking insane that a PharmD is able to decide what to dispense and what not to, all based on PERSONAL beliefs. What kind of oligarchy is that? This stuff is out of control. I cannot believe that current laws allow it. What would make it different if 19 highjackers on 9/11 all wanted to kill people because of their PERSONAL beliefs? Should we have allowed them to? After all, it was their RELIGION. Osama Bin Laden has religious views too. Should we honor them as well? Well, hell NO!

This religious crap has got to stop. I say go find RU-486 ahead of time and stock up on it. Just in case. The way we have been going, we will get it pulled off the shelves someday.

This pro-breed groups make no sense. The scary thing is that they are all around us. They keep beating their drums and I'm getting a headache. They are not stopping. I feel like I'm going crazy. I know what they are doing. If you repeat something to someone so many times, they may actually believe it. That is the power of a chant.

Back in 1980's if a high school girl was pregnant, it was not cool. Today, it's perfectly normal. In fact, people congratulate her. My eyes see it, my ears hear it, but I cannot believe it. See what this breeder preaching did? And now, we are educating young PharmD's to enforce religious laws. Sometimes I wonder, is this the era of the very anti-Christ that so many have been talking about? If so, I am glad I am CF, because I do not want anyone else to suffer.

K-Man, I remember when the Baptist church you mentioned closed their daycare. I believe other Baptist churches followed suit. If these people were to follow Paul's teachings from the Holy Babble, these church leaders would also end Sunday school and other religious classes. After all, mostly females teach these classes at their churches. Also, the jobs such as church secretary would be ended due to a woman being "out of the house and in the church". The scary thing is how the religious right keeps cropping up and gaining more power. The Pope also calls for pharmacists to refuse to fill any "immoral" prescription, meaning birth control pills or other devices. This does hurt women. That is why I am not a Christian. In my own opinion, no self-respecting female can be a follower of any X-tian belief...even the liberal churches because they use the same Bible but try to define the verses differently so they do not feel badly.

I'd like to say to these people, "Just do your job and fill the fucking prescription."

KidFreeLuvnLife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'd like to say to these people, "Just do your job
> and fill the fucking prescription."


Oh yeah...that is what I would say to these assholes if I was not snipped and still relying on prescribed contraception. None of those forced birth/woman hating pharmacists would want to deal with me once they tried to deny my legal 'script or refusal to give the form back to me to go to another pharmacy. The police would indeed be out there and the corporation or owner of the store would really regret any of this had happened. I don't play too well with others when they try to force their ignorant Christian shit onto me. I do not have to be tolerant of these fuckers.

One of my favorite bumperstickers...
"If you think you can tell me what to believe, I believe I can tell you where to go."

I say, if you think you can deny me any prescribed medications, I believe I get to kick your ass. It's just such bullshit, medications are prescribed by DOCTORS for MEDICAL REASONS. Pharmacists ARE NOT doctors, and should have NO SAY in what they dole out. Who are these entitle-minded asshats who pursue a career they obviously don't believe in? Do cops get to say "Eh, I don't think I want to investigate this murder, because I don't like black people"? Do teachers get to say "I am not teaching any fat kids"? Do doctors get to say "No, I'm not treating you because you are a pagan"? Do any one of us get to dictate who we deal with in our jobs? Do any one of us even expect to?

"It truly is the one commonality that every designation of humans you can think of has, there's at least one asshole."
--Me

The baptist are anti women and a joke. That explains it right there. I wouldn't attend Baptist church or services for the life of me. That religion has sexist views toward women.

---

lab mom

Just a thought: Does anyone here think that fundy-pharmacists ever refuse to dispense Viagra, Cialis, or other "enhancement" pills?

CJ Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just a thought: Does anyone here think that
> fundy-pharmacists ever refuse to dispense Viagra,
> Cialis, or other "enhancement" pills?

Those pills are dispensed as a Catholic deacon once said Viagra helps men do what God-duh intended while women are to do nothing but lie there and get pregnant. What else can be expected from a woman-hating religion???