Feministe's Jill, in her post on anti-choice pharmacies sees it this way:
Yes, people absolutely do have a right to object to doing things they find immoral or wrong. And in places where people are legally compelled to be — school, for exampleWhich I don't disagree with - that said, one could argue that the individual's right to be a pharmacist WHILE practicing his or her religion trumps the pharmacist's professional code of conduct. Being the agnostic child of American Catholicism and French laicite, I still side with Jill, though.
— the law should not force them to do things that violate their conscience. But when you voluntarily accept a job in a particular field, you need to be able to do your job. If you’re a pharmacist, that means you need to fill prescriptions — even if you don’t like the drugs people are taking. If you’re a Scientologist who believes, for example, that it’s wrong to use anti-depressants, and you feel so strongly about that belief that you cannot justify being a part of other peoples’ use of anti-depressants, don’t be a pharmacist. If you’re a member of Fred Phelps’ church and you think AIDS is God’s punishment for homosexuality, and in carrying out that punishment you don’t believe that any HIV-positive people should get medication, don’t be a pharmacist. If you’re a fundamentalist Christian who believes it’s wrong to use birth control, and your belief is that it’s also wrong to allow other people to use birth control, then don’t be a pharmacist.
What about Ethiopian factory workers who want to wear their traditional long skirts and flowing scarves near conveyor belts? That does sound kind of dangerous - but mostly it seems to me that everyone involved (including the authors of the article and comments) is confusing Islam with Ethiopian tradition. Muslims of both sexes are enjoined to dress modestly, but there aren't any more descriptions of skirts, scarves, hijabs and burkas in the Koran than there are pictures of blue jeans and pantsuits in the Bible.
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