Boise pharmacist who denied customer COVID vaccine should find another line of work | Opinion

The pharmacist at a Boise Rite Aid who refused to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to a customer clearly can’t do her job and should look for another line of work.

As Idaho Statesman reporter Angela Palermo reported, Boise resident Dan Berger had scheduled an appointment to get a COVID-19 vaccine booster before heading out of the country on a trip.

Berger, who is immunocompromised, had made an appointment, which the pharmacist, Amy, canceled. He scheduled another appointment, went into the Rite Aid on Vista, and Amy informed him that she wouldn’t administer the shot because of her conscience.

If Amy doesn’t want to get the vaccine, that’s her business. But Berger made the choice with his doctor to get vaccinated, and for Amy to unilaterally deny him voluntary medical treatment is a breach of ethics — not to mention a breach of her ability to do her job.

Allowing such arbitrary “conscientious objections” is dangerous territory when it comes to pharmacists and medical care.

If a pharmacist could deny someone a COVID-19 vaccine booster based on their personal beliefs, what other treatments could be subject to her judgment? Birth control pills, prescription for HIV medications? Can a pharmacist now deny serving a gay customer because she doesn’t condone homosexuality? It’s a slippery slope indeed.

Similarly, pharmacists shouldn’t have the latitude to dispense medications at their whim.

Some might say that it’s not a pharmacist’s job to administer a vaccine. Except, of course, when it is. Remember, Berger scheduled an appointment with Rite Aid to get the vaccine at one of its pharmacies. Rite Aid agreed to give him the booster. It was Amy who unilaterally denied that service that her employer had agreed to.

To those who say Amy was “brave” for standing up against the COVID-19 vaccine, just think about how you would feel if a pharmacist denied some other vaccine or medication to you based on her personal beliefs.

Meanwhile, Idaho state Sen. Tammy Nichols, R-Middleton, and Rep. Judy Boyle, R-Midvale, introduced a bill Thursday that would make it a misdemeanor to administer an mRNA vaccine. If they had been around in the 1950s, Nichols and Boyle probably would have sought to criminalize the polio vaccine.

A Rite Aid official told Berger that they were having trouble finding pharmacists, and that Amy wasn’t typically in a customer-facing position because of such incidents in the past.

Rite Aid has a bad employee who can’t do her job. When workers can’t do their job, they shouldn’t keep that job.

In the meantime, those who don’t want health care interfered with by a rogue pharmacist who imposes anti-science personal objections on customers should take their business elsewhere.