EVERYONE is entitled to hold religious beliefs in our open democratic society. Equally, anyone in this society is free to reject religious dogma.

However, although these might appear to be absolute freedoms, there are occasions when a religious perspective can present problems – as in the cases of the Muslim teacher who insisted on wearing the veil in the classroom and the devout Christian who was told not to wear a crucifix while on duty as an airline employee.

Those UK cases certainly posed major problems for those on both sides of the dispute, but an even knottier issue has arisen here in Jersey. As reported yesterday, a pharmacist working at Roseville Pharmacy refused to dispense the morning-after contraceptive pill because it conflicted with her faith.

This amounted to nothing less than a direct clash between a religious attitude and the potential welfare of a person to whom the pharmacist clearly owed a duty of care based on the nature of her profession.

But this particular case of a collision between belief and the secular world is complicated by rules set by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. These make it clear that a pharmacist is entitled to refuse to provide a service which runs counter to his or her religious convictions.

It is, therefore, clear that the pharmacist was entirely within her rights to act as she did. Whether such action should be acceptable is another question entirely and powerful arguments can be advanced to suggest that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s ethical strictures fall short of what is to be expected in this modern multi-faith world.

It is, for instance, interesting to compare the standard of care presumed by the
society’s stance and the standard imposed by the physician’s Hippocratic Oath, which requires that practitioners ‘never do harm’.

There is, meanwhile, a further dimension to this particular case. Roseville Pharmacy is an ‘open-all-hours’ establishment which people use when other pharmacies are closed. It is all very well saying that women can go elsewhere for the morning-after pill when the pharmacist with religious scruples is on duty, but there may be occasions when this is simply not possible.

This is not a matter to be addressed by the pharmacist at the centre of the present controversy because she has acted within the bounds of what her professional body allows. It is, on the other hand, an issue that the pharmacy’s owners must consider for the benefit of the clients they serve.