Conscience and Professional Elitism

A loyal MoJ reader (and former student of Michael Perry) wonders whether future FDA approval to sell Plan B over the counter will bring into relief the extent to which professional elitism drives much of this debate by making cashiers the only relevant moral actors in the store:

Do "professionals" have more of a right to scruples than cashiers because wisdom, or at least discretionary judgment, is their stock in trade?  Are "professionals" members of a state-sanctioned cartel with artificial barriers to entry to potential competitors, who should thus have special common-carrier like obligations to the public that the ordinary cashier does not?

One of the distinctive things about pharmacists is that, compared to most members of regulated or "learned" professions, they are these days especially likely to be salaried/hourly employees of large corporations which are not owned or managed by members of their own profession and which derive very substantial revenue from products/services other than those uniquely provided by the pharmacists.  I.e. they often work in the back of what are essentially glorified convenience stores selling condoms, cigarettes, etc. up front.  (Put another way, they have a less effective cartel than we lawyers do!)  I would expect these aspects of their situation may make some of them extra-prickly about "professionalism" and how being a member of a profession is absolutely positively qualitatively different from being a cashier.

Rob