WTF?
A minority of pharmacists are denying to fill womens’ prescriptions to the so-called “morning after pill” and even the birth control pill, on the grounds the drugs violate their personal moral beliefs.
Now, I’m a free speech proponent, but when your free speech prevents me from my fundamental right to decide when and if I’m going to become a mother by filling a doctor-prescribed Rx for the birth control pill — you need to find a different line of work. NOW!
As for the so-called “morning after pill”:
As long as abortion is legal in America, that pill should be legal as well and dispensed if prescribed by a physician. It’s not a pharmacist’s job or right to know about the reasons WHY a particular patient is prescribed a certain drug — that’s why physicians exist! A woman who’s been raped, for example, should not have to justify anything to her pharmacist if the “morning after pill” has been prescribed to her by her physician. Similarly, a pharmacist should not be able to refrain from filling a birth control prescription just because the pharmacist’s religion deems the sole purpose of marriage is to have children, or that a girl of some age is too young to be on the pill (nevermind the many things the birth control pill can help alleviate or manage, such as endometriosis or painful periods).
This is not some knee-jerk reaction to an unsubstantiated post on someone else’s blog. I checked Snopes.com because I thought this was so ludicrous it must certainly be a new viral hoax email. Nope. Here’s a direct quote from a USA Today article on this very topic:
“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.”
What’s next, a pharmacist who doesn’t believe in “interfering with God’s plan” deciding that a cancer patient should be denied the cancer-fighting and anti-nausea drugs necessary for them to fight off the disease? A surgeon with a dying patient on the operating table walking out of surgery upon discovering the patient is a member of a different church (or no church at all), a homosexual, a single parent, someone who’s had a divorce, etc.?
What about a police officer refusing to shoot a rampaging suspect on the grounds that killing another human being is against his/her religion? Where does this insanity end?
Is this 2004 or 1004?
