One Astronomer's Noise

Here is a story about Muslim medical students in the UK who would rather fail their exams than learn about alcohol, sexually transmitted diseases, or examine a patient of the opposite sex:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article2603966.ece

Thankfully, it seems as though these students are not receiving support from the medical community. A person that refusing to treat patients or even learn about diseases based on strict moral grounds may not be the best choice for a compassionate doctor.

Interestingly enough, the article also mentions Muslim pharmacists who refuse to give female patients the morning after pill. We have seen the same sort of behavior with some Christians in the US. There is no reason why a pharmacy should provide a product that it does not want to. However, if an individual employee wants to refuse service to the customer, that is the company’s choice to deal with it as they see fit. Personally, I think such pharmacies should tell their employees to deal with it or get a new job, but unfortunately, the opposite is occurring. And maybe the morning-after pill is not a big market, so losing those customers is not of importance. Now, if pharmacists started to refuse to sell birth control, that’s a huge market, and I’d be happy to see the companies standing up to their employees then.

To what extent will people turn their eyes and cover their ears when they encounter something that they find immoral? You cannot successfully do that if you are a physician. Go be a witch doctor.