Tell me why in a society alleged to be the most enlightened the dark and dreary universe has ever had the sublime fortune of witnessing that our collective future is dictated and decided upon by mundane, authouritarian ideologues who insist upon framing the most complicated and personal of issues in all or nothing terms:
Pharmacists’ Rights at Front Of New Debate
“There are pharmacists who will only give birth control pills to a woman if she’s married. There are pharmacists who mistakenly believe contraception is a form of abortion and refuse to prescribe it to anyone,” said Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, which tracks reproductive issues. “There are even cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they won’t even transfer it to another pharmacy when time is of the essence.”
That is what happened to Kathleen Pulz and her husband, who panicked when the condom they were using broke. Their fear really spiked when the Walgreens pharmacy down the street from their home in Milwaukee refused to fill an emergency prescription for the morning-after pill.
“I couldn’t believe it,” said Pulz, 44, who with her husband had long ago decided they could not afford a fifth child. “How can they make that decision for us? I was outraged. At the same time, I was sad that we had to do this. But I was scared. I didn’t know what we were going to do.”
Holding prescriptions hostage is outrageous. Return it to the customer you will undoubtedly never see again.
Mandating a right to convenience that infringes upon the moral convictions of some pharmacists is wrong, if only it were that simple. One reason I would not support a bill like this is a failure to address the physical or economical barriers to reasonably fair access that might limit a consumer’s options. While those cases may in fact be rare one is too many. Body and Soul points to another via Suburban Guerilla. The Conscientious Objector Policy Act “prohibits racial discrimination by health care providers,” but “doesn’t ban discrimination based on a person’s sexual orientation.” While it “does prohibit emergency treatment to be refused,” there’s an enormous difference between refusing to provide the means to end a life and refusing to treat the living.
This would also protect providers who refuse to treat fundamentalist Christians, right? And how deeply should a pharmacist be allowed to probe into someone’s personal life in order to decide whether they’re willing to fill a legal prescription? If I say I want birth control for a medical problem will I have to provide proof or will swearing on a bible suffice?