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November 17, 2004
More on Pharmacists Refusing To Fill Birth Control Prescriptions
Julie Lacey stopped at her local pharmacy to get a refill for birth control pills that she had been getting for years, and the pharmacist refused to fill out her prescription. He didn't believe in birth control.
Of special interest:
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 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.
Posted on November 17, 2004 at 01:57 PM | Permalink
Comments
"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..."
Can you believe the gall of these people...
I don't eat meat by the way and I have many friends who are strict veggans that don't believe in the use of animals products of ANY kind including the ones that go into makeup, lipstick, nailpolish and such...If we work in a drugstore at the cash register do we ALSO have the right to vote our conscious and refuse to check out items for customers if they contain animals by-products...
This can become very stupid very quick if people start deciding to not perform their job based on their conscious...
Does it also mean a Judge now who doesn't believe in divorce can refuse to hear a case...
The bottom line is that the conscious rule was set up for doctors and doctors ONLY...and it made sense for doctors ONLY...NOW everybody and his grandmother is trying to hop on board the band wagon and it's just getting ridiculous...
Typing a label for a package of birth control pills and then logging the info into a computer does NOT constitute a violation of your conscious and as I worked in a pharmacy I happen to know that's the extent of what the pharmacist does as these pills are pre-packaged already from the company....
The pharmacists who start pulling these stunts should be fired and then have their licenses removed...
But it's a perfect example of why we cannot allow abortion to be made illegal; as it is just the tip of the iceberg or the slow leak in the dam here for people whose ultimate goal is to rid our society of ALL METHODS OF BIRTH CONTROL, ALL OF THEM...and to once again control WOMEN by controlling our reproductive lives...and it won't happen all at once...it will be a slow incremental eating away at those rights...which we won't even notice for a while until we look back a decade from now and say, Oh I didn't know you couldn't do that anymore...you mean you can't get birth control bills anymore...Well when did that happen...
It will be the same crap these sneaky social engineers pulled on women in family court with gender neutral custody...THEY decided they were okay with it since they had the money and the savvy for these complicated court battles so they signed off on the dotted line for every other woman as well... Most women walking into a courtroom today don't even realize what hit them until it's already over...it will be the same thing for birth control and the same educated elite (as pharmacists are very highly educated, lots of women in the profession as well) who signed away EVERY OTHER WOMEN'S RIGHT TO IT...because THEY DON'T LIKE IT AND WOULDN'T USE IT...
That's how our reproductive freedoms will be lost, the same way women lost their presumptive right to custody of our children unless we were found to be unfit...it will just creep right up on us in the same fashion...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 17, 2004 6:18:09 PM
"Yet some pharmacists have refused to hand the prescription to another druggist to fill."
So they just send the customer/patient away? I'm not sure the pharmacy would like that, since the customers would probably pull all their business away to another pharmacy entirely - because it's more convenient and safer to deal with one pharmacy for all prescriptions.
"I don't eat meat by the way and I have many friends who are strict veggans that don't believe in the use of animals products of ANY kind including the ones that go into makeup, lipstick, nailpolish and such...If we work in a drugstore at the cash register do we ALSO have the right to vote our conscious and refuse to check out items for customers if they contain animals by-products..."
No, because Christians (supposedly) believe that animals were put on the earth merely for use by humans.
And don't talk about religious freedom... As everyone is constantly told anymore, the U.S. is a Christian nation, founded on Christian values.
Posted by: Chloe at Nov 23, 2004 2:20:42 AM
No...I wasn't talking about religious values specifically...but acting upon your conscious on ethnical issues, not necesarily religious ones...
Posted by: NYMOM at Nov 23, 2004 1:41:51 PM
As a pharmacist myself I am sickened by the actions of my fellow pharmacists in this matter. There is a multitude of situations where I have had to fill presciptions that I did not believe was appropriate. The decision, however, was not mine to make. My job is to determine if a particular medical will cause any harm to the patient and will it treat the intended condition. It is not to regulate a patient's morality.
Posted by: Andrew at Dec 4, 2004 2:04:02 AM
Hi Andrew...
I also worked at a pharmacy, on a p/t basis for a while, so I got to SEE what they actually DO and there is NOTHING that would violate their conscious in filling any prescription, NOTHING...
I could understand NOT sanctioning DOCTORS who refuse to perform abortions, that's different... Obviously you would not want to force anybody into actually performing an abortion who didn't wish to...
But pharmacists placing themselves into the position of doctors and using that as an excuse to NOT fill a prescription for birth control pills, NOW that's getting ridiculous...
Are there any sanctions that could be taken against pharmists who do that? Like maybe people boycotting the stores they are located within?
Posted by: NYMOM at Dec 4, 2004 2:47:27 PM
"And don't talk about religious freedom... As everyone is constantly told anymore, the U.S. is a Christian nation, founded on Christian values." - Chloe
Just because you hear that everywhere you go, it does not make it true.
"As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen; and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries." - Treaty of Tripoli (1796). Article 11
Posted by: Chris at Jun 26, 2005 3:23:20 AM
