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."
The Governor of Illinois has demonstrated repeatedly that he does not wish to disturb the medical liability lawsuit situation.
It's not likely that he's going to be able to get around it with the issuance of Executive Orders.
You post a bunch of replies, thing get hot, arguments occcur.
you leave for a few hours.
Everyone leaves and moves on.
you then come back and answer all the previous posts in one sitting to people who are no longer there to argue your points.
Good plan.
Look at post #107
It wasn't just my opinion that prescription drugs in the US are regulated and I was discussing the issue from that perspective.
So, welcome.
Actually other people come back. That's one of the joys of this particular board ~ arguments can continue for days and days.
In fact, years ago you'd go to FR and folks would be dukeing it out like it was an IM feature. Improvements have been made so that we can get away from that.
So, yes, something gets going, I make a few comments ~ maybe a hot one, and then a whole big bunch of folks come back and make comments ~ sometimes agreeing with me and sometimes agreeing with you. I try to deal with each one of them
There are, of course, snobs who refuse to deal with any comment contrary to their own. Every now and then I'll target one of those guys until he comes and tells us what he really wants to say.
Somehow this does little to show your understanding of how "prescription drugs in the US are regulated".
See what I mean? You change the subject around to something not being discussed. Someone pointed this out to you earlier in the thread, as well.
I think the Jewish prohibition is on eating ham sandwiches, not selling them!
Agree with you on this one.
see, we can reach a mutual agreement on a subject! =)
That simply is not a state question ~ it's a federal question. In fact, the regulation of prescription drugs is so far outside of Illinois' job description, I can't believe the Governor managed to find a lawyer to draft his executive order.
It's not like this is the first time a state has attempted to regulate federally regulated drugs, and it probably won't be the last, but until that issue is addressed the Governor is just huffing.
This was not my quote. I just said that the analogy was good and the point was that if they had objections to selling them, they should find a new job. Come on, man, don't interject words and read more into posts then what is said.
heading out, talk to you later. Enjoy you day!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
Hope you had a good time. Remember, in a hot discussion people read quickly, and with this new feature that lets us track backwards through a discussion, it's going to be easy to misconstrue who hit who over the head with what and when!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
If there is a demand for a drugstore that will fill these prescriptions without any question, then the market will assure that one exists. I assume you took economics in high school.
That is a lie.
Oh, my bad!
There, that having been satisfied, the evil governor of Illinois continues to reject facing up to the medical professional malpractice liability disaster now rolling through every profession in the state with a medical connection. Shortly he's going to find that Executive Orders issued by a Governor respecting the vending of drugs closely regulated by the FDA (a federal government agency) doesn't protect him and he's going to have to go back to his pro-abortion campaign support groups with the bad news.
Now, what were you saying?
Did you want me to comment on your debating technique as well? For what it's worth, it's pitiful.
no, liability is a non-issue,,,
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