Rense: Druggists Refuse To Give Out The Pill

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Druggists refuse to give out pill

By Charisse Jones, USA TODAY

 

For a year, Julee Lacey stopped in a CVS pharmacy near her home in a

Fort Worth suburb to get refills of her birth-control pills. Then

one day last March, the pharmacist refused to fill Lacey's

prescription because she did not believe in birth control.

 

" I was shocked, " says Lacey, 33, who was not able to get her

prescription until the next day and missed taking one of her

pills. " Their job is not to regulate what people take or do. It's

just to fill the prescription that was ordered by my physician. "

 

 

Some pharmacists, however, disagree and refuse on moral grounds to

fill prescriptions for contraceptives. And states from Rhode Island

to Washington have proposed laws that would protect such decisions.

 

 

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 refuse 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.

 

 

In Madison, Wis., a pharmacist faces possible disciplinary action by

the state pharmacy board for refusing to transfer a woman's

prescription for birth-control pills to another druggist or to give

the slip back to her. He would not refill it because of his

religious views.

 

 

Some advocates for women's reproductive rights are worried that such

actions by pharmacists and legislatures are gaining momentum.

 

 

The U.S. House of Representatives passed a provision in September

that would block federal funds from local, state and federal

authorities if they make health care workers perform, pay for or

make referrals for abortions.

 

 

" We have always understood that the battles about abortion were just

the tip of a larger ideological iceberg, and that it's really birth

control that they're after also, " says Gloria Feldt, president of

Planned Parenthood (news - web sites) Federation of America.

 

 

" The explosion in the number of legislative initiatives and the

number of individuals who are just saying, 'We're not going to fill

that prescription for you because we don't believe in it' is

astonishing, " she said.

 

 

Pharmacists have moved to the front of the debate because of such

drugs as the " morning-after " pill, which is emergency contraception

that can prevent fertilization if taken within 120 hours of

unprotected intercourse.

 

 

While some pharmacists cite religious reasons for opposing birth

control, others believe life begins with fertilization and see

hormonal contraceptives, and the morning-after pill in particular,

as capable of causing an abortion.

 

 

" I refuse to dispense a drug with a significant mechanism to stop

human life, " says Karen Brauer, president of the 1,500-member

Pharmacists for Life International. Brauer was fired in 1996 after

she refused to refill a prescription for birth-control pills at a

Kmart in the Cincinnati suburb of Delhi Township.

 

 

Lacey, of North Richland Hills, Texas, filed a complaint with the

Texas Board of Pharmacy after her prescription was refused in March.

In February, another Texas pharmacist at an Eckerd drug store in

Denton wouldn't give contraceptives to a woman who was said to be a

rape victim.

 

 

In the Madison case, pharmacist Neil Noesen, 30, after refusing to

refill a birth-control prescription, did not transfer it to another

pharmacist or return it to the woman. She was able to get her

prescription refilled two days later at the same pharmacy, but she

missed a pill because of the delay.

 

 

She filed a complaint after the incident occurred in the summer of

2002 in Menomonie, Wis. Christopher Klein, spokesman for Wisconsin's

Department of Regulation and Licensing, says the issue is that

Noesen didn't transfer or return the prescription. A hearing was

held in October. The most severe punishment would be revoking

Noesen's pharmacist license, but Klein says that is unlikely.

 

 

Susan Winckler, spokeswoman and staff counsel for the American

Pharmacists Association, says it is rare that pharmacists refuse to

fill a prescription for moral reasons. She says it is even less

common for a pharmacist to refuse to provide a referral.

 

 

" The reality is every one of those instances is one too many, "

Winckler says. " Our policy supports stepping away but not

obstructing. "

 

In the 1970s, because of abortion and sterilization, some states

adopted refusal clauses to allow certain health care professionals

to opt out of providing those services. The issue re-emerged in the

1990s, says Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute, which

researches reproductive issues.

 

Sonfield says medical workers, insurers and employers increasingly

want the right to refuse certain services because of medical

developments, such as the " morning-after " pill, embryonic stem-cell

research and assisted suicide.

 

" The more health care items you have that people feel are

controversial, some people are going to object and want to opt out

of being a part of that, " he says.

 

In Wisconsin, a petition drive is underway to revive a proposed law

that would protect pharmacists who refuse to prescribe drugs they

believe could cause an abortion or be used for assisted suicide.

 

" It just recognizes that pharmacists should not be forced to choose

between their consciences and their livelihoods, " says Matt Sande of

Pro-Life Wisconsin. " They should not be compelled to become parties

to abortion. "