Benedict XVI on Conscientious Objection to Catholic Pharmacists
The Sovereign Pontiff mentioned “the current development of an arsenal of medicines and the resulting possibilities for treatment [which] oblige pharmacists to reflect on the ever broader functions they are called to fulfill, particularly as intermediaries between doctor and patient,” and also their “educational role with patients to teach them the proper dosage of their medication and especially to acquaint them with the ethical implications of the use of certain drugs.”
“In this context,” Benedict XVI specified, “it is not possible to anesthetize consciences, for example, concerning the effects of particles whose purpose is to prevent an embryo’s implantation or to shorten a person’s life. The pharmacist must invite each person to advance humanity, so that every being may be protected from the moment of conception until natural death, and that medicines may fulfill properly their therapeutic role. No person, moreover, may be used […] as an object for the purpose of therapeutic experimentation; therapeutic experimentation must take place in accordance with protocols that respect fundamental ethical norms.
“Every treatment or process of experimentation must be with a view to possible improvement of the person’s physical condition and not merely seeking scientific advances. The pursuit of good for humanity cannot be to the detriment of people undergoing treatment. In the moral domain, your Federation is invited to address the issue of conscientious objection, which is a right your profession must recognize, permitting you not to collaborate either directly or indirectly by supplying products for the purpose of decisions that are clearly immoral such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia.”
“It would also be advisable that the different pharmaceutical structures... be concerned with showing solidarity in the therapeutic context, to make access to treatment and urgently needed medicines available at all levels of society and in all countries, particularly to the poorest people.”
“The biomedical sciences are at the service of the human being; if this were not the case, they would have a cold and inhuman character. All scientific knowledge in the health sector and every therapeutic procedure is at the service of the sick person, viewed in his integral being, who must be an active partner in his treatment and whose autonomy must be respected.” (Source: VIS)
