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 4 of 5)
46. A person can work in the sciences or, a person can practice theology. Historically, the combining of the two has NEVER worked. Radio and television station are REQUIRED to broadcast news and special alerts as a service to the public. Pharmacies should be required to do the same thing.
Keith J. Mohrhoff at 1:26PM on Jun 18th 2008
47. The problem with "just go to the other pharmacy down the street" is that many small towns only have one pharmacy. The bible belt is full of these small towns where I bet this will be happening. If the choice is driving an hour to a pharmacy to buy BC pills or doing without, what do you think will happen? This is where mail-in pharmacies need to do heavy marketing. Put these "holier than thou" pharmacies out of business!
SharonRN at 1:35PM on Jun 18th 2008
48. You so-called pro-choice people are really getting worked up over nothing. Most pharmacists fill these prescriptions. They have every right to refuse to fill a prescription, especially if it is a privately owned pharmacy. So get over it! Personally, I would love to see Planned Parenthood go out of business, which by the way, gives contraceptives for free.
LisaS at 1:55PM on Jun 18th 2008
49. janesophie writes...
" It is the cause of promiscuity and the huge abortion rate."
---------------------------------------------
Contraception causes a huge abortion rate?!?!?
Just a wild guess, but I'm betting that particular "logic" is indicative of a republican voter.
Captain Negative at 2:05PM on Jun 18th 2008
50. To put it bluntly, contraception is like a Jekyll & Hyde pill for a girl. They are nice one minute and complete bitches the next. This is why men seeking a wife does not want somebody on contraception.
Contraception has done nothing but turn our women into such bitches that we cannot stand the site. Eventually, they will end up lonely.
Davey at 2:05PM on Jun 18th 2008
51. The root of the issue is not abortion but contraception. RU-486 requires 2 pills One, mifepristone, essentially deprives the growing unborn child of food and water and the second, misoprostol, causes contractions allowing women to give birth to the dead baby.
This drug, the so-called "Messiah" of women's reproductive health
An interesting article on several deaths
related to this.
http://lifenews.com/nat3987.html
Pro-Life at 2:13PM on Jun 18th 2008
52. To be honest, this country was founded on freedom of choice for everyone. We have the freedom to make our decisions and run whatever type of business we want. That includes pro-life pharamacies. In my opinion, pro-life individuals who want to open pharmacies that do not sell contraception or birth-control have every right in the world. By telling those people that they can't open such businesses, we are limiting the freedoms won for us costing thousands of lives in the fight for America's freedoms. Those of you who want to ban these pharmacies and drive them out of business are allowed to voice and have your opinions but so are pro-life pharmacies and individuals. Pro-life pharmacies are doing their job, they are provided people with what they need. If these meiciations are necessary, just go to another pharmacy, they are plenty around towns all across America. Response to Reply #4, pro-life indivduals do not criticize single mothers! Being pro-life, I do critiize a single mother - I appluad her for having tehe courage to take on the care of a child by herself. It is the more courageous choice than having an abortion. And if we all stop and think about the actual issue, the fate of an innocent human life, maybe that might change your opinion.
Bridget at 3:29PM on Jun 18th 2008
53. Here's what is really at stake, so follow me please without any knee-jerk reactions: For people who are pro-life, they believe that God is the author of all life. Therefore, helping to prevent a birth is preventing God from exercising his will. As humans with the gift of free will, we can do that, but we do so against the will of God -- and that's an abuse of free will.
Taking a life against God's will is morally wrong no matter what stage in life one is. Imagine if you were forced by the state to kill someone and weren't given the freedom of conscious to remove yourself from the act. This is the position those objecting to participating are in. (Liberals against the death penalty use the same arguments since the state is killing people in our name.)
In this country we have something called freedom of religion and freedom of conscience. To fire someone for exercising their conscience sets a dangerous precedent.
For insightful arguments on this, I recommend www.rutherford.org
Dutch Hedrick at 2:50PM on Jun 18th 2008
54. (Sorry I misspelled "conscience" once in my comment above. I was in a hurry.)
Dutch Hedrick at 2:52PM on Jun 18th 2008
55. I strongly believe abortion should be illegal, but what in the world is wrong with birth control? That said, if you believe it's wrong for people to use it, you have the right to refuse to be a party to it. The person who wants it can go to someone else. It's not "forcing your beliefs" on others; it's personal integrity.
Cecilia at 2:57PM on Jun 18th 2008
56. Davey, it is men like you that inspired the invention of birth control. Some of us want to have a life (plan when or if to have children). But I guess I am one of those bitches, eh? Much better if I was barefoot and pregnant, running a beer to you after every touchdown, eh?
Madgem at 3:17PM on Jun 18th 2008
57. Why are the fanatics against birth control, Cecelia? Because they ARE fanatics, that is why. The vast majority of people in this country do not equate taking a birth control with an abortion. If you think it is the same, I seriously question your ability to be reasonable about anything.
Keep in mind those that want to ban all birth control are working with a fringe element of the Republican party to do so. In the state of Georgia, a few zealot GOP lawmakers sponsored a bill not so long ago to ban birth control in the state. It went nowhere, but they will not give up. And goofy Republican congressmen are willing to entertain these idiots because they threaten them with hauling out the preachers and televangelists to turn the churches against them.
David S. at 3:34PM on Jun 18th 2008
58. Ken Green:
I agree with you for the most part, 99% of the time just let a pharmacy be a Pro-Life Pharmacy and people who want birth control can go to a different one down the street and everyone's happy.
The only problem I have is in a situation where there are few 24 hour pharmacies, if the pharmacist on shift refuses to give out a morning after pill, the customer can't just go down the street, they have to wait 6 hours, and the effectiveness of the Plan B 72 hour pill goes down each hour you wait.
Cameron at 7:32PM on Jun 18th 2008
59. The pharmacies are breaking the law by not prescribing what doctors give the patient. Therefore if they don't do it, three complaints and your license is pulled. We need to separate religion from politics as our Founding Fathers wanted. I don't agree with abortion, but it's not my place to tell a pharmacist he can't give a woman pills who wants one. If it's bad in God's eyes, guess what people? God will take care of it and the woman will suffer for a lot longer than the 70 or 80 years she was in this life. So get a life international pharmacists for life, and start worrying about YOUR OWN....
Grace at 3:50PM on Jun 18th 2008
60. As a physician, I can tell you that a self-employed professional can opt not to provide certain medical services on personal grounds, such as religious or ethical concerns. Physicians CANNOT choose to withold emergency or urgent healthcare services on such grounds, however. (ie, a Catholic Hospital can refuse to undertake an elective procedure that might risk the fetus in a pregnant woman, but cannot refuse an urgent procedure which, if witheld, also risks the survival of the mother) Individuals who choose to seek privileges in such a Catholic Hospital are required to ackowledge these limitations. In the case of pharmacists, they cannot refuse to fill a legitimate prescription, if witholding it might risk the patient's life or well-being, UNLESS THEY CAN PROVIDE PROMPT REFERRAL TO A REASONABLY AVAILABLE OTHER FACILITY.
Since birth control medications do not immediately threaten the life or health of the prescription holder, there can be little legal or ethical condemnation of these "refuseniks".
On the other hand, the characterization of the "morning after" pill as "depriving the unborn child (it is by no means yet a even a fetus) of food and water is utter foolishness. It simply prevents successful implantation of a fertilized ovum (if one actually exists), so that it passes out of the uterus exactly as ova do with every period, or as many fertilized ova do by "natural" means.
In the end, it seems to me, there is a conflict here in "freedoms"; on the one hand, under teh alws of the US, patients with a legitimate prescription should have the "freedom" to expect a licensed pharmacist to fill those prescriptions. The pharmacist should have the right to refuse to do so on ethical or religious grounds, providing he or she meets tghe legal criteria outlined above. It seems to me much more appropriate for those pharmacists who see themselves as "pro-life" to associate themselves ONLY with pharmacies that make clear to the public that they will not honor such prescriptions
Harvey at 4:05PM on Jun 18th 2008