Pharmacist Refusal
Another religious right weapon against reproductive health
 April 2007: Washington State law requires pharamcies to stock and dispense Plan B.
State-by-state sections follow the reports of general interest. Click here
2007 Reports
Planned Parenthood Applauds House and Senate Introduction of ABC Act
Bill Would Guarantee Access to Birth Control and Stop Pharmacy Refusals
News Release, Planned Parenthood via Common Dreams, June 6, 2007
Washington - June 6 - Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) today applauded Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Chris Shays (R-CT) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) for introducing the "Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act."
The act addresses the growing and troubling trend of pharmacy refusals, protecting women's access to birth control at pharmacies and guaranteeing they will receive prescriptions and over-the-counter products in-store, without discrimination or delay. PPFA, the nation's largest provider of emergency contraception (EC), applauded the ruling: "Emergency contraception and other forms of birth control are basic health care for women.
It is 2007 - any woman should be able to walk into any pharmacy, anywhere in the country, and get birth control, including emergency contraception, without discrimination or delay," said PPFA President Cecile Richards. Continue.
 Pharmacists Could Pay 500K for Not Dispensing Plan B Under National Bill
By Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com, June 7, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) Abortion advocates in Congress have introduced new legislation that would force pharmacists across the country to dispense birth control and the morning after pill, which can cause an abortion in some instances. Under the bill, pharmacists who decline to dispense such drugs could be required to pay as much as $500,000 in fines. Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, both pro-abortion Democrats, are the key sponsors of the House and Senate versions of the bill, called the Access to Birth Control (ABC) Act. Pharmacists have "an obligation to serve women, provide them with access to medication," Maloney said at a news conference in Washington. It is about health care. It's about the basic right to birth control." Under the bill, pharmacies would be required to make sure there are no delays in getting birth control drugs or the morning after pill to customers "without delay." If the pills are out of stock, pharmacies would be forced to order them or refer customers to drug stores that have them on hand. Pro-life groups say the legislation deliberately attacks pharmacists who exercise professional moral judgment and tramples on any professional or ethical concerns. "Pharmacists are professionals, not vending machines," Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America told LifeNews.com. Continue.
 Pill Patrol: Planned Parenthood campaign to combat pharmacist refusal
March 2007: Identify pharmacies in your neighborhood that won't provide emergency contraception and take action with Planned Parenthood. Download the Activist Toolkit here (a PDF document) or click here to sign up.
2006 reports
Dr. No? The Debate on Conscience in Health Care
Event Transcript, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life with speakers Kevin J. "Seamus" Hasson, Founder and Chairman, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty and Jill C. Morrison, Senior Counsel, the National Women's Law Center, September 8, 2006
Does requiring pharmacists to dispense medication they find morally objectionable violate their rights to the free exercise of religion? Or, are religious objections secondary to a woman's right to receive an approved prescription in a timely manner?
These questions are sparking legislative debates across the country as pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for contraception or emergency contraception (a general term for several different types of birth control pills used within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse to prevent a pregnancy).
Four states (Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and South Dakota) have already passed laws, often called "conscience clauses," that specifically allow for pharmacists' refusals. Meanwhile, Illinois has passed an emergency law requiring pharmacists to dispense FDA-approved contraception, and California now requires that a pharmacist must obtain an employer's approval for a refusal and ensure the woman can still access the drug quickly. Read the transcript.
Focus Says Plan B Decision a 'Disaster' and 'Dangerous'
Also, FDA's Move Puts Pro-Life Pharmacists on the Spot
Church Report, August 28, 2006
Focus on the Family, a prominent pro-life, pro-family ministry, is condemning this week's decision by the U.S. government to make the "morning-after" pill available without a prescription to anyone over the age of 18. Easy availability of the "emergency contraception," known as Plan B, will endanger the lives of young women, says a ministry spokesperson.
"This decision is a disaster and a danger for girls and their parents." That's the blunt and straightforward assessment from Carrie Gordon Earll, senior analyst for bioethics with the Colorado-based ministry. "There are no safeguards, legal or otherwise, to prevent this powerful drug from falling into the hands of teen girls -- or, worse, into the hands of men bent on sexually exploiting teen girls by flashing a magic pill as a promise that they won't have to worry about getting pregnant." Continue
Stop Pharmacy Refusals!
NARAL Pro-Choice in support of the Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act, June 7, 2006
It should be simple: a woman walks into a pharmacy with her prescription and walks out with her medicine. Right? If only it were that easy.
Rogue anti-choice pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill safe, legal prescriptions for birth control. Some pharmacists lecture women, humiliate them in public, and refuse to hand back the prescription even after they refuse to fill it. This is outrageous – and it must be stopped. Click here to ask your federal legislators to support the Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act!
Commentary: Pharmacists Need a Conscience Clause on RU-486
Chuck Colson, BreakPoint, March 24, 2006
A diatribe on the "right" of pharmacists to deny patients drugs at their whim. Click here for the report.
Wal-Mart Bows to Public Pressure, Pledges to Stock the 'Morning-After' Pill
NARAL Pro-Choice America supporters sent 31,176 petitions urging retail giant to end discriminatory policy; organization criticizes decision to allow pharmacist refusals
NARAL Pro-Choice America News Release, March 3, 2006
"Washington, DC – Today Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, called Wal-Mart's decision to end its policy against stocking the "morning-after" pill a step forward for American women's health and reproductive freedom. However, the retailer also said it would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill these prescriptions if they personally oppose birth control." Continue reading..
Target at Center of Battle Over Plan B
By Allison Stevens, Women's eNews, January 15, 2005
Planned Parenthood and Target are scuffling over a woman's charge that a pharmacist refused to fill her emergency-contraception prescription.
Click here for the report.
Planned Parenthood protests Target's Plan B policy
Star Tribune, November 11, 2005
"MINNEAPOLIS - Target Corp. is defending its policy on filling prescriptions for emergency contraception after the Planned Parenthood Federation of America accused the retailer of disrespecting customers' reproductive rights.
"Target allows pharmacists to choose not to fill requests for emergency contraception, also known as Plan B, if it is against their religious beliefs." Click here to read the report.
When Death Is on the Docket, the Moral Compass Wavers
By Benedict Carey, New York Times, February 7, 2006
"Common wisdom holds that people have a set standard of morality that never wavers. Yet studies of people who do unpalatable things, whether by choice, or for reasons of duty or economic necessity, find that people's moral codes are more flexible than generally understood. To buffer themselves from their own consciences, people often adjust their moral judgments in a process some psychologists call moral disengagement, or moral distancing.
"In recent years, researchers have determined the psychological techniques most often used to disengage, and for the first time they have tested them in people working in perhaps the most morally challenging job short of soldiering, staffing a prison execution team. Click here to read the report.
Note: We have included this report because we think it makes an interesting juxtaposition to the pharamacists' protests of conscience.
Illinois
Morrison pharmacy owner back in court over Plan B
By Grace Whitten, Sauk Valley Newspapers, (Dixon, Illinois), November 10, 2006
Morrison pharmacist Luke Vander Bleek's battle against Plan B, the so-called morning-after pill, resumed Thursday, as lawyers argued his appeal of a decision made by a Springfield judge more than a year ago denying his request for a temporary restraining order to stop enforcement of a law requiring Illinois pharmacies to dispense the drug.
A decision from the Fourth District Court of Appeals in Springfield, which heard the arguments Thursday, is not expected for three to six months, Vander Bleek said.
Whatever the outcome, Vander Bleek, a Catholic, said he will continue to fight the law he says goes against his basic rights. "We will push until we absolutely do not have a case left," he said. Continue.
ACLJ sues Walgreens over 'morning-after' pill firings
Baptist Press, January 27, 2006
A legal organization linked to Pat Robertson, the American Center for Law and Justice, is suing Walgreens for firing four pharmacists because they refused to fill prescriptions for Plan B, the emergency contraceptive. Click here for the article.
COLLECTION: Illinois Pharmacists Defy Order to Fill Plan B Prescriptions
Belleville News Democrat, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Pantagraph and Life News, December 2005
After Governor Rod Blagojevich issued a rule requiring pharmacists to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, some phramacists were suspended for refusing to dispense the required drugs. Click here to read the articles.
Missouri
Bill would change immunization rules
by Kit Wagar, St. Louis Jewish Light, April 5, 2007
Treating and preventing many common illnesses used to be simple.
A doctor gave you a prescription, you took it to the drug store and a pharmacist filled the order. Childhood illnesses that devastated earlier generations had been zapped by vaccines for polio, mumps and chicken pox.
Not any more. With the rise of the religious right, many of the miracles of modern medicine — from children's vaccinations to birth control to emerging treatments derived through stem cell research — have become battlegrounds in the morality wars.
Bills have been filed this year that would cut off access to emergency contraception and allow pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription if they had a moral objection to the medication. Continue.
Partisan bills tackle emergency birth control
At issue is whether pharmacists in Missouri should be required to fill Plan B prescriptions.
By Leslie Parker, The Columbia Missourian, January 31, 2006
"Bills filed by Democrats in the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate would require pharmacists to either fill prescriptions for emergency contraception in a timely manner or help patients find pharmacies that will. Competing bills filed by Republicans, however, would do the opposite, allowing pharmacists to refuse prescriptions they think will be used for abortions and prohibiting them from discriminating against employees who oppose such prescriptions." Click here to read the report.
Pennsylvania
Hospitals can refuse Plan B
But several area lawmakers are trying to change that
By Jennifer Nejman, York Daily Record, December 3, 2005
"Two Pennsylvania senators and one state representative have introduced bills that would mandate that hospitals provide information about the [Plan B "morning after"] pills and give them to rape and sexual assault victims who want them. The legislation as it is written has no opt-out for individual doctors or religious-affiliated facilities." Click here to read the report.
Virginia
Area pharmacists speak out on Plan B
By Cynthia T. Pegram, The News and Advance (Lynchburg, Virginia), August 27, 2006
By the end of the year, Plan B will be available for over-the-counter sales in many pharmacies across the nation.
In the Lynchburg area, local pharmacists will be making their own decisions about stocking the drug, which provides women with a second chance at preventing pregnancy if they missed the first chance. Continue.
Washington
 Judge again rules druggists can deny morning-after pill
State sought lifting of injunction
Curt Woodward, Associated Press, The Seattle Post Intelligencer, February 15, 2008
Tacoma -- Pharmacists and drug store owners in Washington can still refuse to sell the "morning-after pill" if they have religious objections to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton's decision, a defeat for Gov. Chris Gregoire, is the latest twist in long-running legal and political battles over the morning-after pill, which is sold as Plan B.
The pill is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills, and can dramatically lower the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.Continue.
Board requires pharmacies to fill all orders
Objections by druggists centered on Plan B drug
Seattle Post-intelligencer, April 12, 2007
TUMWATER -- After years of debate, the state has made it official: Patients must get prescriptions filled even if pharmacists are opposed to the drugs for religious or moral reasons.
The Washington State Board of Pharmacy voted unanimously Thursday to adopt a policy that applies to all kinds of medications, although it clearly was aimed at Plan B, a birth control measure that critics say is tantamount to abortion. Most health experts refute that claim.
Druggists with personal objections to a drug still could have a limited escape by getting a co-worker to fill an order. But that would apply only if the patient is able to get the prescription in the same pharmacy visit. Continue.
WA State: 'Morning After' Pill Can't Be Denied
By Curt Woodward, Associated Press, Christian Broadcasting Network, April 13, 2007
CBNNews.com -- SEATTLE -- Druggists who believe "morning-after" birth control pills are tantamount to abortion can't stand in the way of a patient's right to the drugs, state regulators have decided.
In a unanimous vote Thursday, the state Board of Pharmacy ruled that drug stores have a duty to fill lawful prescriptions despite an individual pharmacist's personal objections to any particular medication. Continue.
Washington Pharmacy Board Approves New Rules With No Conscience Clause
by Steven Ertelt, LifeNews.com, April 12, 2007
Olympia, WA (LifeNews.com) -- The Washington state pharmacy board has approved new rules require pharmacists to fill all legal prescriptions for drugs. The rule would apply even if the pharmacist objects to the drug on the grounds that it could cause an abortion or for other moral or religious reasons. Continue.
Dispensing a rule for Plan B
Board accepts Gregoire proposal amid criticism
By Claudia Rowe, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, September 1, 2006
KENT -- After weathering months of controversy over rules governing pharmacists who refuse to dispense certain medications based on moral objection, the state's oversight board accepted a proposal Thursday that will satisfy Gov. Chris Gregoire -- who drafted it -- but very few others.
The need for a so-called "conscience clause" arose after some druggists questioned their obligation to sell Plan B, an emergency contraceptive opposed by anti-abortion groups. But in theory, it could apply to any medication, from performance enhancers such as Viagra to habit-forming painkillers such as Oxycontin. Continue
Need Plan B? He's not selling
New FDA rule not changing morals of pharmacists
By Claudia Rowe, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, August 30, 2006
In the mind of pharmacist Jim Ramseth, there is a moral hierarchy when it comes to preventing pregnancy: Selling condoms and birth control pills is OK. But the emergency contraception known as Plan B is not, and Ramseth refuses to provide it. Continue
Wyoming
Wyoming Pharmacy Board Will Not Reconsider Proposal Allowing Pharmacists To Deny Prescriptions, Executive Director Says
KaiserNetwork.org, January 12, 2006
"Wyoming State Board of Pharmacy Executive Director Jim Carder on Monday said the board will not reconsider an amended version of a proposal that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on their personal beliefs," according to the Jackson Hole Daily as reported by KaiserNetwork. "Currently, Wyoming has no specific rules that require pharmacists to fill prescriptions, nor are there any specifications that allow them to reject prescriptions. The pharmacy board in October 2005 voted to reject the proposal after more than 100 letters voicing opposition to it were sent to the pharmacy board's Casper office." Click here to learn more.
Wyoming Pharmacy Board Drops Plan To Let Druggists Refuse AIDS Meds To Gays
365gay.com, January 12, 2006
"(Jackson, Wyoming) The Wyoming Pharmacy Board has tabled a controversial proposal that would have given pharmacists the authority not to fill prescriptions based on their personal beliefs."
Click here to read more.
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