U.S.A. Today - pharmacists refusing Birth Control scripts

[judih]

Druggists Refuse to Give Out Birth Control Pill

Tues., Nov 9, 6:54 AM ET

By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY

For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then one day last March, a pharmacist who did not believe in birth control refused to fill Lacey's prescription.


"I was shocked," says Lacey, 33, who was not able to get her prescription until the next day and missed taking one of her pills. "Their job is not to regulate what people take or do. It's just to fill the prescription that was ordered by my physician."

Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And now states from Rhode Island to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions.

Mississippi enacted a sweeping statute that went into effect in July that allows health care providers, including pharmacists, to not participate in procedures that go against their conscience. South Dakota and Arkansas already had laws that protect a pharmacist's right to refuse to dispense medicines. Ten other states considered similar bills this year.

The American Pharmacists Association, with 50,000 members, has a policy that says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions if they object on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements so a patient can still get the pills. Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill.

In Madison, Wis., a pharmacist faces possible disciplinary action by the state pharmacy board for refusing to transfer a woman's prescription for birth-control pills to another druggist or to give the slip back to her. He stated that he would not refill it because of his religious views.

Some advocates for women's reproductive rights are worried that such actions by pharmacists and legislatures are gaining momentum.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision in September that would block federal funds from local, state and federal authorities if they make health care workers perform, pay for or make referrals for abortions.

"We have always understood that these battles about abortion are just the tip of a larger ideological iceberg, and that it's really birth control that they're after," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

"The explosion in the number of legislative initiatives and the number of individuals who are just saying, 'We're not going to fill that prescription for you because we don't believe in it' is astonishing," she said.

Pharmacists have moved to the front of the debate because of such drugs as the "morning-after" pill, which is emergency contraception that can prevent fertilization if taken within 120 hours of unprotected intercourse.

While some pharmacists cite religious reasons for opposing birth control, others believe that life begins with fertilization and anything that is done to prevent that is a sin, so they see hormonal contraceptives, and the morning-after pill in particular, as "causing an abortion."

"I refuse to dispense a drug with a significant mechanism to stop human life," says Karen Brauer, president of the 1,500-member Pharmacists for Life International. Brauer was fired in 1996 after she refused to refill a prescription for birth-control pills at a Kmart in the Cincinnati suburb of Delhi Township.

Lacey, of North Richland Hills, Texas, filed a complaint with the Texas Board of Pharmacy after her prescription was refused in March. In February, another Texas pharmacist at an Eckerd drug store in Denton wouldn't give a doctor's prescription for the morning after pill to a woman who was said to be a rape victim!

In the Madison case, pharmacist Neil Noesen, 30, after refusing to refill a birth-control prescription, did not transfer it to another pharmacist or return it to the woman. She was able to get her prescription refilled two days later at the same pharmacy, but she missed a pill because of the delay.

She filed a complaint after the incident occurred in the summer of 2002 in Menomonie, Wis. Christopher Klein, spokesman for Wisconsin's Department of Regulation and Licensing, says the issue is that Noesen didn't transfer or return the prescription. A hearing was held in October. The most severe punishment would be revoking Noesen's pharmacist license, but Klein says that is unlikely.

Susan Winckler, spokeswoman and staff counsel for the American Pharmacists Association, says it is rare that pharmacists refuse to fill a prescription for moral reasons. She says it is even less common for a pharmacist to refuse to provide a referral.

"The reality is that every one of those instances is one too many," Winckler says. "Our policy supports stepping away but not obstructing."

In the 1970s, because of abortion and sterilization, some states adopted refusal clauses to allow certain health care professionals to opt out of providing those services. The issue re-emerged in the 1990s, says Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which researches reproductive issues.

Sonfield says medical workers, insurers and employers increasingly want the right to refuse certain services because of medical developments, such as the "morning-after" pill, embryonic stem-cell research and assisted suicide.

"The more health care items you have that people feel are controversial, some people are going to object and want to opt out of being a part of that," he says.

In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide.

"It just recognizes that pharmacists should not be forced to choose between their consciences and their livelihoods," says Matt Sande of Pro-Life Wisconsin. "They should not be compelled to become parties to abortion or birth control."


.........

just got this from a friend.
People get ready......

judih

[panta rhei]

this is a joke... right?

[judih]

no joke
it's right-wing America having it's say.

a little more, a lot more and eventually there'll be a pendulum swing.

hopefully there'll be a middle ground one day.

no joke, meanwhile. it's gonna get worse.

[panta rhei]

sounds all so much like
old fiction come true

what was thought
to be dark and far
is not anymore,
is now shining in a glaring light,
neon tubes of thoughts
installed in heads
getting (b)righter each day?

struck with light,
eyes rest in blinders.

[judih]

plugged into over-voltage
lights are on, but nobody's home

meanwhile, the underground freedom fighters exchange recipes for birth control - disguised as shopping lists,
torn corners of phone books
worn out coupons

they used to put pebbles up the wombs of camels
perhaps the pebble trade will recommence

j

[hester_prynne]

THIS PISSES ME OFF TO NO END!

First of all it's not about choice, it's a decision. There is a huge difference here.

Second of all, let's keep that viagra comin!

goddess help us all....

h

[abcrystcats]

THIS was in USA Today ??? Are you serious ??? If this is a joke, it is a pretty cruel one.

I experienced something similar once-upon-a-time. I called in a refill of birth control pills over the phone along with several other drugs I took monthly. I could tell from the tone of voice of the woman taking my information that she didn't approve ... of something. I came in to pick up my prescriptions three days later, and all the drugs except the birth control pills were there!

The same lady I had spoken to on the phone handed me the drugs over the counter and promised to fix the error. I came in next day and it still hadn't been fixed, but there was another woman behind the counter so I talked to her instead. The birth control pills got filled that day.

Then the original lady came over to me for some reason. I was very nice to her, but I threw in something about knowing she didn't approve of the birth control pills. Her eyes lit up immediately, so I knew I'd hit the answer to the problem.

She wasn't there the next time I came in. I think she must have quit or been fired.

Are you saying this one-time fluke I experienced is a national reality -- and people are getting refused birth control pills because of someone's twisted religious convictions ??? This is totally out of control !!


Canada, here I come.

[abcrystcats]

Afterthought: Judih, you should post this on OD at Arcanum.

[hester_prynne]

I just posted it to CNN with a note asking why they've avoided that one. I asked them if maybe it was because their Saudi Arabian investors didn't approve?
Damn, are we gonna have to wear those things on our heads too?
Fuck! I'm getting really scared.......
really fucking scared......
H

[Lightning Rod]

ladies, I have to say that I support the pharmacists in this case.

they should not be required to violate their morals

most times, if they don't want to fill the prescription, they must refer you to a pharmacist who will.

I think that on the part of the pharmacist, it's a bad business decision, but even if he wants to be a moralistic pig his rights should be respected.

Well, I've been ousted for Life at AC. haha

I think it was because my sense of humor was too wide.

I thought it might be fun to do a comedy routine/satire over there---

FREE LIGHTNING ROD

you know, a movement.

what do you think? To make it work I need insurgents. Will you help?

You could smuggle letters from me out from death row, etc.

I guess I'm just a congenital lawbreaker. But I would only want to do this in the spirit of fun.

[Lucy!]

The line drawn to create a separation of church and state seems to have faded with the weathering of our government

This is why I marched in Washington on April 25th

Welcome to the devolution of the woman aka Bush's re-election

[hester_prynne]

I have to disagree with you lrod.
If they can't do business without judging their customers then they shouldn't be in business at all. They should stick to church bazaars. Just like if a president can't do his job without seeing both sides of an issue, then he shouldn't be president.
When did business ever have anything to do with morals?
Pretty soon we'll be buying christian bread.
I bet she fills prescriptions for viagra.
This is what we get when we get a bunch of emasculated men playing around with an antiquated idea of paternal supremacy, driving big ridiculous trucks, running the show. Paternal supremacy is a joke! Most women I know raise their kids alone. Men run off to find something new and exciting to impregnate and then dump. It's bullying by the weak. It's insanity. Pretty soon ol bushy boy will be giving pharmacies perks for not filling birth control scripts....oooo then he could feel like a big man!
I will never support this kind of thing.
It's blatent human injustice.
I'm amazed that you can.
I can't. Maybe it hits too close to home for me.
maybe i'm not very evolved.....
Sorry to hear about you being booted from AC. I can't believe it really, why on earth would they ban you?
Peace brother,
H

[Lucy!]

When did morals ever entagle themselves with business? Strikes me as odd considering Viagra is still on the market and it was created for the sole purpose for sexual pleasure- to this date I have yet to hear a dispute about it being sold. With the birth control pill, you can regulate hormones and prevent overpopulating the world with more kids. Where is the moral in barring women from exercising a fundamental right when 75 year-old men are allowed to run around flexing their born-again erection?

[Doreen Peri]

This is appalling!

A legal prescription is precribed to a patient by a doctor who legally practices medicine.

The pharmacy should be legally required to fill the prescription!

What if the pharmacist decided he or she didn't believe in treating a terminal illness because the patient was going to die anyway and to interfere would be to morally take away God's will for the patient?

Thanks for posting this, judih!

It should be illegal for a pharmacist to make such a decision!

What next?

geezzzzzz

scary!

[judih]

about AC:
They don't post such articles (copyright laws). They only allow links to be posted. Since i got this from an e-mail, i don't have the original URL.

Whenever i've tried to post others' poems or articles (with full credit of course), i've been warned by the mods.

That's why i post here. This is, along with MOOLs, the most welcoming place around.

(thanks, Doreen)

judih