Hi Beth
Thank you for a well considered article. Yes, it is a reality that when facing issues to do with sex and responsibility in relationships, most of us run into a defensive huddle and look out for who we can hold responsible for our predicament.
I applaud Dal Broi and John Wilks for the stand they have both taken. When we study the facts and let them stand, we do gain a better picture of what is actually happening in our world. The statistics quoted by John Wilks are very interesting. Do you have a link to this information?
Vic

While I agree with the article's stance on an individual's right to his own conscience, I thought it was worthwhile to point out that the Church's teaching is against using the Pill (or condoms for that matter) when the intent is solely or principally to prevent conception. So far as I know there is no requirement for a Catholic woman who is, for example, prescribed the Pill for reasons to do with health (such as regulating painful or irregular periods)to feel she must abstain on religious grounds.
And while I also agree that the condom is not the great saviour that it was held up to be, I also assume that if there was some health issue that required the use of condoms (some women, for example, are allergic to their husband's semen) there would also be no moral grounds forbidding their use for that reason.
When the Pope spoke out against the use of condoms recently, he was not actually condemning their use per se, just making the point that they are not the answer to the problem of AIDS.

Seems my post vanished into thin air.

Pharmacists (people who are given a special privilege of selling, and granting permission to receive medications), deserve NO such right to let their personal beliefs cut access to medicines. It is no less than an abuse of authority and sets quite a dangerous standard.

The 'go elsewhere' argument is lame. This only works for customers who happen to live in an area with plenty more chemists that DO sell their full products- and not everyone that relies on a chemist has the mobility.
And even if they did, they shouldn't have to.

The "right" of the chemist holds everyone else's right to access what they want hostage.

You can buy condoms and lube at Woolworths and Coles, at convenience stores and from vending machines at some pubs.

I actually wonder why pharmacies even bother to stock condoms, except as a sidelight to their main business and for the convenience of some customers.

Condoms are not a medical device, they do not require aprescription. If it is argued that pharamacies must sell condoms then it could be argued that they should also sell a wide range of 'marital aids'. Of course, that would be ridiculous.

But it would be also as ridiculous as, given that some convenience shops sell condoms, to demand that all convenience shops sell condoms.

I am also aware that some pharmacies do not take part in methadone administration programs, nor do they have needle exchanges, but I do not see anyone being critical of that.
Not all pharmacies carry ever single medicine that is available under prescription in Australia, sometimes out of choice, sometimes out of conscience. Some pharmacies still carry sinus medications with pseudoephedrine, and will sell it only to people who are regular customers. Others don't carry it at all.

But it seems that there is a concept that if people have an urge for sex then that every pharmamcist should have to carry something to satisfy that urge.

We live in a liberal democacy, which means we have a choise as to whether we have sex or not. Pharmacies have a choice under the same grounds to sell or not to sell.

Trevor Dal Broi of East Griffith - you are a champion of someone who is more interested in ethics and decency than secular dogma that leads to disease and death. I take heart and strongly hope someone will nominate you as Australian of the Year. May many more Australians act on conscience rather than secular dogma and we will reduce aids, baby killing and many other diseases. The permissive high priests have been fooling our youth for to long and now we see the appalling fruit of their inward corruption and teachings.

I guess Catholic pharmacists who want to push their views onto
their customers, could always hang up a sign in the window,
pointing to that fact. A little picture of the pope perhaps?

That would give customers like me the knowledge that I
need, so that I can avoid their business completely and
take my custom to more tolerant and sensible business
operators.

The Catholic Church has done enough damage with this policy
in the third world.