Feministing has an alarming post up about the rising number of pro-life pharmacies and what their refusal to stock birth control means for women. According to the Washington Post: The pharmacies are emerging at a time when a variety of health-care workers are refusing to perform medical procedures they find objectionable. Fertility doctors have refused to inseminate gay women. Ambulance drivers have refused to transport patients for abortions. Anesthesiologists have refused to assist in sterilizations.
The most common, widely publicized conflicts have involved pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, morning-after pills and other forms of contraception. They say they believe that such methods can cause what amounts to an abortion and that the contraceptives promote promiscuity, divorce, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and other societal woes. The result has been confrontations that have left women traumatized and resulted in pharmacists being fired, fined or reprimanded.
And now they've started forming their own businesses, which don't have condoms or birth control pills, but do have Viagra.Feministing's Jessica adds that these groups are going way beyond opposing abortion:
The Pharmacists for Life International site, for example, (in addition to having an incredibly sophisticated web design, ahem) links to anti-choice nuts like Jill Stanek, who argues that abortion providers and Chinese people eat fetuses (!), and The Pill Kills campaign. These pharmacies are beyond pro-life - they're pro-lying and anti-woman. And we shouldn't allow them in our communities.
She's right.
These renegade pharmacists should certainly be free to vote their beliefs and lobby their congresspeople and use all legal, responsible means to bring about changes to the laws surrounding women's rights and drug availability, but if they're going to call themselves pharmacists they're going to have to do their job. And that means filling prescriptions for birth control pills and not presuming that they know better than patients and their doctors. If they're not willing to do their job, they should go into a different line of work.
Reader Comments ( Page 2 of 5)
16. I guess the real question is, why become a pharmacist if you don't want to honor a prescription? I guess if you don't want to fill a prescription for high blood pressure medication or Ritalin for a hyperactive child, you don't have to either.
We are on a slippery slope here.
If you own the pharmacy, I guess you can do as you please. But I would make sure to spread the word to family and friends and the media that you refuse to honor a doctor's prescription. Big chain pharmacies are not going to give anyone a hassle. I would take my business there.
David S. at 7:47PM on Jun 17th 2008
17. They're feminists because they want their pharmacy to sell birth control? Puh-Leeze!
Christian bigotry is the problem, not feminism. They want to be the bosses of us all. They feel ENTITLED to be...
Godless Heathen Brian at 7:49PM on Jun 17th 2008
18. Pharmacies have the right to sell what they want to sell. Being a pharmacist don't ipso facto mean dispensing medicine that is considered morally wrong.
Matthew Rand at 8:25PM on Jun 17th 2008
19. I completely agree with #9 (K). When I was 13 I was prescribed birth controll pills not as contraception, but as to control my out of whack periods. Without them I would be in the hospital once a month. And believe it or not, they did not promote promiscuity. The bottom line is that medications, whether you agree with them or not, have multiple uses and work for different people in different ways. If these "pharmacists" have a problem with doing their job and providing the type of care they are licensed to, then they should never have gone into the field and need to have their licenses pulled. They are not doctors, and they are not patients. Providing birth control pills is not immoral. However, I do believe lacking to provide a woman with medication that can keep her out of pain, and control certain genetic diseases such as endometriosis is immoral.
CaseyKaye at 8:15PM on Jun 17th 2008
20. This "controversy" depends upon people being ignorant enough to fail to make critical distinctions. The thinking skills revealed in the article and some comments suggests the writers are product of government-sponsored education. The first distinction to bear in mind is the difference between a governmental service and free-market business. Even the radical ACLU generally targets governmental displays or activities which, to them, imply a governmental endorsement of a particular religion (presuming the display or activity will result in harm to those who do not share the implied faith position). It does not lash out against businessmen who put Christmas displays on their private property. Some of you seem to think that all space in America belongs to the government and not to the people. That is the sentiment of an ignoramus indeed, one you can be certain logs lots of TV time to soft-boil the brain.
The other problem is failure to discern, or even consider, exactly why these pharmacists follow the brave course they've taken. This may be hard for some of you to imagine, living, as you do, with the burden of freedom and responsibility inherent in the American system. If you think Angelina Jolie should be the US Ambassador to the UN, you probably won't appreciate the civilizational obligation to think before opening your yap. Instead of knee-jerking into, "What! Somebody won't give somebody what they want! Death to them!" consider WHY they take the position they do. Believe it or not, you do not need to share their opinion to respect theirs. That should come as good news, assuming your devotion to tolerance is something more than complete sham.
Four generations ago, American policy, confirmed by a Supreme Court decision, had it that it was perfectly fine to enslave Black people because, the "reasoning" went, Black people were not FULLY human persons, entitled to the same protections given to all others. One generation ago, Hitler, with the support of the people of the nation of Germany, "reasoned" that killing Jews was a service, not a sin, again because of their being, by definition, excluded from claim to the protections which guarded all other "persons."
The pharmacists refusing to dispense sincerely believe the same thing is happening again, with unborn persons having been grievously denied the rights we recognize as appropriately accorded to ALL other human beings: the right not to be slaughtered, murdered, torn apart, or burned to death. The "reasoning" which suggests that, because unborn babies are small, or because they are dependent, does not, in the pharmacists' eyes, justify removing them from the "human being" category. You may disagree with their logic, but you'd do well to at least pretend to acknowledge it before displaying your ignorance so perfectly by treating these people as enemies of the republic.
The truth is, they are aligning themselves with those who insisted, "Slavery may be legal, but it isn't right." They are the rare German voice, like Bonheoffer’s, decrying the wholesale slaughter of an entire population. They are among the many Americans who do not believe that legality is the same thing legitimacy. It may have been lawful according to the Third Reich to mercilessly destroy Jewish life. It was NOT legitimate.
Now imagine for a moment that the pharmacists are wrong. Unborn human beings, let us say, are not really HUMAN. Perhaps they are chickens. We can ignore the photographic evidence which so strongly suggests that unborn human babies are, hmm, unborn human babies--just small. We can also ignore the pure science which holds that the entity before abortificents were administered, that these entities displayed the qualities we look for when searching for LIFE. We can ignore the science which testifies that the introduction of certain devices or products changed the status of the previously living entities to dead entities. Yes, we can insist that these pharmacists for life are just freakish brutes who don't understand the greatness of all leftist slogans, preferring to come to their decisions by careful thought and consideration of fact. We may hate them for insisting that their jobs are places where their high regard for all human life MUST be lived out, perhaps there more than anyplace else. We may be so offended by their notion that ethics belong in pharmaceutical work, and their belief that any ethic which allows human life to be treated the same way as lab-rat death is sub-human and manifestly unethical--these convictions may so deeply offend us that we'd wish for them all to be fired or compelled to lose their businesses tomorrow. But are they such that we truly find them completely intolerable, period? No discussion, no room for understanding? Just, "Death to Pharmacists for Life"? If that is the case, consistency requires you to utter maledictions on all those everywhere who have believed that injustice and evil require us to pray for more courage, not for more slogans.
If I, however, had ever been opposed to contraception or abortion, I'm forced to wonder if might not be better for our human race if the intolerantistas who equate bravery and compassion with evil--who regard pharmacists who are concerned for ALL their patients, including very tiny ones who may be hiding for a time inside other customers, as the enemies of freedom... Yes, I do believe I ought to change my mind and begin to encourage these intolerantistas to use every available means of birth control. How much more do I need to read to convince me that self-elected abortions might indeed be the hand of their own deity, whom they call Natural Selection, busy at work in our own generation insuring future life for the earth by eliminating these "entities" who love death?
Steve Schlissel at 2:04AM on Jun 18th 2008
21. Will the real John McCain please stand up. For people that want to meet the real john McCain, please read these two articles:
http://www.realchange.org/mccain.htm
http://www.nationalreview.com/contributors/levin040501.shtml
Now that's the McCain, the reformer we know.
Data just released show America is behind most industrialized nations when it comes to life expectancy. That is why we need universal healthcare like Obama is advocating. Just food for thought:
- For average white American male, life expectancy is 72 years and John McCain is already 72 years old, so he might kick the bucket any time now
- For average black American male, the life expectancy is 70 years and Barack Obama is only 46 years old.
iynaroc02 at 9:39PM on Jun 17th 2008
22. Will these pharmacies ban suppositories, or will they only sell suppositories in the form of a smiling crucifix?
JefFlyingV at 9:46PM on Jun 17th 2008
23. I agree with # 9 and #17. When I was 18, I finally broke down and asked my GYN for a prescription for birth control pills after enduring eight years of out-of-whack periods from hell. They were irregular when they DID show up, and the mood swings, heavy bleeding, and cramps that wouldn't even respond to prescription-dose painkillers unless I was horizontal for a whole day made my life absolutely miserable! And yes, I was still a virgin when I went on them! For me, the contraception aspect was a minor bonus compared to the relief from a miserable cycle. I stayed on the pill until my husband and I were ready to have kids, after which my cycle normalized. After my second child was born, I got my tubes tied (something these people also see as immoral for some unfathomable reason when you think about how expensive it is to raise kids and the fact that there's already over six billion people on this planet, thereby making the "necessity" of multiplying a lot less critical to the survival of the species!). Let us also think about the possibility of one of these so-called pharmacies popping up in a small town in the middle of nowhere where it is the ONLY pharmacy for miles! If a woman needs contraception for any reason and she's stuck with one of these places, then she's totally screwed. If you're going to be a pharmacist, then you are obligated to dispense any and all medications. If you have a problem with that, then you need to look into a different line of work. America is a democracy, not a theocracy, and the last thing we need is the Religious Reich forcing their religion and morals on the rest of society!
Amanda at 9:53PM on Jun 17th 2008
24. The question is who gets the choice to tell us how to live our lives? If the perscription was false, then yes, deny it. On the grounds that it is against your beliefs...is not ethical. If I can respect their belief, they should respect mine. Birth control is not the reason for divorce and abortions. Not having any is a big reason for especially abortions. Not to mention all the cases everyday that comes out were someone kills their child, abandon their child, or beat their child. I am I would perfer that child to have never been concieved then to come to this world and have to go through hell. I think that all the health professionals, who chose to nit pick what they hear when they are studying to become one, are being childish. Good luck finding and keeping a job!
Jessie at 10:12PM on Jun 17th 2008
25. also, I am another one like 22, 9, and 17. Started birth control at 18. To this day, I am still a virgin..only 20... I took it because Midol, advil,...etc wasn't helping and I was heavy and would go on and on. My mom is a devout christian, but even she had enough sense (also a nurse) to take me to get some form of help.
Jessie at 10:19PM on Jun 17th 2008
26. "If you don't want to provide health care don't become a health care professional".To whom are you referring? Are you saying a doctor can be compelled to perform an abortion despite his personal beliefs? Is this a new litmus test to go to medical or nursing school? Who decides what health care is,you or me? This is why we have conscience clauses. And you are not correct that a doctor has to treat a patient,read a little more.
IRONBLUEEYES at 10:26PM on Jun 17th 2008
27. There are two problems here that I can see: first, as to websites that say abortion providers and Chinese people eat fetuses, well, there are alot of weird things said on the internet, all of them, except child pornography, protected by the first amendment. And,
second, if these folks want to open their own pharmacies and not sell contraceptives, I figure they have the right to do so. If I decide to open a convenience store but refuse to sell cigarettes and soda pop for health reasons, I will not stay in business very long, but it is my right to do so.
The way to deal with these anti-abortion entrepreneurs, if you disagree with them, is to refuse to patronize their businesses and hope that they go under.
Logician at 10:37PM on Jun 17th 2008
28. A person has a right to a service just as much as the next guy has a right to refuse to do it if it is against their values. Example: There is no way in hell if I was a nurse that I would EVER assist in a partial birth abortion no matter how much the piece of crap woman though she had a right to it. And I Am a woman and mostly pro-choice. Some things you just have to draw the line. Solution: Go to another Pharmacy
E at 10:58PM on Jun 17th 2008
29. Let these folks support (in every way) the children they force others to bear. There is a HUGE difference between sterilization/birth control and aborting. That aside, you can't have it both ways sugar. If you oppose prevention, you must support life (even after it's born).
Suzanne at 11:06PM on Jun 17th 2008
30. I wish Americans would pull their heads out of their asses and realize that Christians do not run this country, and they have no more relevance to public policy than any other religion.
I'm not sure how this nation lost its way, but it's getting to be absolutely embarrassing.
Dan at 12:33AM on Jun 18th 2008