Posted on 04/02/2005 7:26:51 AM PST by Sthitch
ST. LOUIS Responding to complaints about a Chicago pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Friday issued an executive order requiring drugstores to fill prescriptions for contraceptives.
The policy, the first of its kind in the U.S., requires pharmacies that carry contraceptives to fill prescriptions without delay.
"No hassles, no lecture, just fill the prescription," Blagojevich said.
If an individual pharmacist will not provide birth control pills because of moral or religious beliefs, the drugstore must have a plan to ensure that the patient receives the pills promptly.
In most cases, that means having another pharmacist on hand to dispense the drug.
The policy does not require that all drugstores carry contraceptives; many don't, especially in Catholic hospitals.
But if the pharmacy has them, it must dispense them to anyone with a valid prescription or risk suspension of its license, said Susan Hofer of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, which oversees pharmacies.
Because Blagojevich issued the policy as an emergency rule, it would remain in place for 150 days. During that time, Hofer said, the state will hold public hearings on a proposal to make the policy permanent.
"When you or I walk into a pharmacy with a prescription," she said, "we have to have a strong level of confidence that we're going to walk out carrying the drugs we need. If the drug is in stock, it must be dispensed. End of discussion."
But that's not the end of the discussion for a growing number of pharmacists who consider it immoral to dispense birth control pills and morning-after emergency contraceptives.
Some consider the morning-after pill a form of abortion because the hormones can block a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Because they view that as tantamount to murder, they may not only refuse to provide the hormones, but also to transfer the prescription to another pharmacist.
"To transfer the prescription would make me part of a bucket brigade a party to selling something that demeans or endangers life," pharmacist Neil Noesen told the National Catholic Register this year.
Noesen was recently reprimanded by an administrative law judge in Wisconsin for refusing to fill a college student's birth control prescription in 2002. That state's Pharmacy Examining Board will meet this month to decide whether his license should be restricted.
Similar cases have cropped up in Georgia, New York, Ohio, Texas, Missouri and other states in recent years.
"We're hearing about it happening more and more frequently," said Karen Pearl, interim president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
In response, abortion rights groups are promoting legislation that would require pharmacists to fill prescriptions or promptly transfer them to someone who will. A California Assembly committee is scheduled to consider such a bill next week.
On the other side of the debate, abortion opponents have proposed bills to protect pharmacists from lawsuits and disciplinary action if they refuse to provide contraceptives.
In the mid-1970s, after abortion was legalized, most states passed laws that let doctors and nurses refuse to participate in procedures that violated their religious beliefs. But only Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi and South Dakota explicitly extend that right to pharmacists.
Legislation to give pharmacists the right to act based on their beliefs is pending in several states, including Wisconsin.
"People should not feel excluded from entering the pharmacy field because they hold a certain view on when life begins," said Francis Manion, a lawyer with the American Center for Law and Justice, a group that presses religious rights cases.
Manion acknowledged that letting pharmacists turn away prescriptions could be "horribly inconvenient" for some patients, especially those in rural areas who might not have ready access to another drugstore.
"I know if I went into a drugstore and was told the pharmacist wouldn't give me my medicine, I'd be really mad," Manion said.
"But that's the price we pay for being a society that values religious freedom."
"But shouldn't that be determined by the pharmacy not the governor? If Wal-Mart wants to carry them, but they allow their pharmacists to defer on prescribing them, shouldn't that be Wal-Mart's choice, not someone in Springfield?"
If Walmart allowed certain employees to refuse to dispense birth control, what other accomodations would they then have to make for all the other employees who want to be able to force their religious beliefs on customers? Where does it stop?
The order was created to protect employers from employees who think they should be allowed to dictate the terms of their own employment.
Oral contraceptives are immoral? Even when used to treat painful, chronic conditions such as endometriosis?
"What the evil governor of Illinois has ordered is for anyone who sells condoms to sell BC available only under a prescription."
That is not what has happened. Only if the pharmacy carries BC PILLS, must a pharmacist fill the prescription.
Get your facts straight.
Perhaps it has been mentioned below, but there are many women who use b/c pills because of having hormonal problems and not just as birth control.
"Why should the government be the arbiter here?"
Read the article again.
"The policy does not require that all drugstores carry contraceptives; many don't, especially in Catholic hospitals.
But if the pharmacy has them, it must dispense them to anyone with a valid prescription or risk suspension of its license"
There's nothing there that says a particular PHARMACIST must dispense birth control. It says PHARMACY, meaning the pharmacy, if it wants to accomodate the deranged religious beliefs of a particular pharmacist, is free to do so. They just have to have another pharmacist on hand to actually do the job for which he's being paid. The pharmacy remains the arbiter.
"Prescription medications are really not comparable to fast food and you know it.
Freedom of religion and freedom of conscience must necessarily trump both however."
People don't get to dictate the terms of their employment. If I think cocaine is evil, I don't take a job with drug dealers. If I'm against abortion, I don't take a job with NARAL. If I'm against pornography, I don't take a job with Penthouse. And if I'm working for Good Housekeeping and they come to my desk one day and say,"Guess what? We're now doing a monthly centerfold featuring full frontal housewifes," I have two ways to display my freedom of conscience and religion: I can quit or I can refuse to do my job, in which case they have every right to fire me.
PS- I agree that fast food and birth control pills aren't the same. Not getting a cheeseburger never sent someone to the hospital while, for some women, birth control pills are all that stand btwn. them and hemorrhage.
Yeah, I like that one better too. Let's forget my analogy and go with this one.
Isn't this government getting involved in a private matter? That's bad, right?
The licensed professions receive that ticket to practice as a matter of grace from the state only upon a showing having completed the academic and apptitude to serve the public. These types of licenses are difficult to obtain and subjects to holder to all reasonable regulatory impositions of the state.
It is not the same as a plumber or carpenter or any other honorable vocation or occupation paying a revenue raising tax in order to pursue their occupations. Any one of these latter persons engaged in these honorable occupations may choose to serve or not serve any would-be customer for any reason sufficient unto themselves--or for no reason at all.
For example, a physician cannot refuse to treat a person because of race, religion or politics. The same applies by analogy to this pharmacist, he cannot subjectively choose to refuse filling a lawful prescription presented to him solely because he disagrees with the diagnostic or theraputic use for which the physician prescribed the drug. If he is holding himself out to the public with the state's blessing that he is a qualified person to dispense controlled medication upon the presentation of a lawful order of a licensed physician, he can choose either one of the following options: he can not carry the objectionable Rx as part of his inventory, or in the alternative, he can surrender his license and find another vocation. But, he cannot carry the objectionable drug and refuse to perform his obligation to serve the public.
Are you telling me I can't just walk into any store selling vidoes and pick up "Girls Gone Wilds". Why that's outrageous~ I demand my rights!
BTW, Walmart (and others) are putting in self-serve cash register operations. PRetty soon there won't be a clerk involved in any of this.
I thought we were having a discussion here among people who had a modicum of understanding of how drugs are regulated in trade in the United States, but I guess I was wrong.
So, look up FDA (that's Federal Drug Administration), and take it from there. Lots and lots of stuff about the why and wherefores of prescriptions, FDA regulations, etc.
As I said prescription medicines are regulated by jackbooted thugs from the federal government, and if you don't believe it just try peddling penicillin~!
The mail order operations also use pharmacists.
Around here Walmart allows folks to wear religious headgear on the job. They also allow Moslems to pray on the job, and Christians can do that too. I'm not sure that your challenge is relevant to Walmart. You might call them up and find out.
I think that's what you are getting at, the "false religion" thing? Right?
You'll have to demonstrate the falsity of the religion or the belief in order for us to know if it is being "foisted".
Private business owners should be able to make their own decisions on how they and their employees operate.
Could those opposed to birth control just not carry the stuff? Of course, this might mean losing at least a little money.
Concerning the GoodHouseKeeping question, you have another alternative ~ sue the BA$TARD$ for breach of contract. When you hired on it had a certain character. Now they've changed it. Time to collect!
BTW, he's still an evil person.
we were discussing whether a person who works at a pharmacy reserves the right to choose whether he has to sell a product (BC pills) which he does not believe in.
I have seen a lot of your posts on several different subjects and every time it's a fight. Even some people who agree with you end up arguing with you. Lighten up, you take yourself way too seriously.
Why do you always have to come out and try to make yourself the TOP authority on every subject? I do not have to know every court ruling and have deep, thorough knowledge on the regulations of US drug regulations to have an opinion.
modicum of understanding
Who talks like that?
Odds are also good it's going to be served on rye bread!
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