Pharmacists Can't Refuse To Hand Out Plan B

[filkertom]

Frickin' well about time. Here's the money quote:

The right to freely exercise one's religion "does not relieve an individual of the obligation to comply with a valid and neutral law of general applicability," the 9th Circuit panel wrote.

"Any refusal to dispense -- regardless of whether it is motivated by religion, morals, conscience, ethics, discriminatory prejudices, or personal distaste for a patient -- violates the rules," the panel said.

Thanks to filkerdave for the heads-up.

Comments

[vulpine137.livejournal.com]

Yay !

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Boy did that ever creep me out. Are they going to refuse to sell condoms too? Well anyway, pharmacists who tried that stunt would never get my business again.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

And sometimes the Pill as well. Funny, though, how no one mentions refusing to sell Viagra....

[hsifyppah.livejournal.com]

This does not, unfortunately, stop stores from deciding not to keep it in stock "for business reasons."

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, it might. What was at issue was a regulation from 2007 that "required all Washington pharmacies to stock and dispense the pills".

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

*blink*

Wow. Did common sense actually get a bit of a victory here?

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

So do we have a pool on which Big Name Right-Winger is the first to scream about "activist judges"? Or maybe one to claim that liberals "have no conscience" (given that what was struck down is commonly called the "conscience clause")?

I'm just sitting here, applauding, and hoping that SCOTUS either refuses to hear the case, or upholds it.

[hiddenriver.livejournal.com]

> So do we have a pool on which Big Name Right-Winger is the
> first to scream about "activist judges"?

Damn-skippy! Especially since two out of those three judges were named by that liberal whacko, George W. Bush.

Um, wait...what?

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Yeah, free exercise of religion doesn't extend to forcing your beliefs on someone else. When you take a job as a pharmacist, you're serving the public. You should no more refuse to fill someone's prescription on religious grounds than a christian firefighter should refuse to put out a fire at a family planning clinic.

You can take or not take whatever pills you like. Don't tell other people what they can and can't take, particularly when it comes to legally prescribed drugs (and maybe others too, but that's a different show).

My favorite analogy

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

Someone on the firehose of blogs from which I drink once described a devout vegetarian taking a job at McDonalds so that she could stand there at the register, blocking customers from getting service from the other employees, and refuse to fill any customer order that included meat. And a legal "conscience clause" would prevent such a person from being fired.

Amazing how Republicans generally believe in the sanctity of letting the employer-class do whatever they want to employees and customers alike. If it's wrong, it'll be bad business the market will provide all the deterrence they need. Except when sensitive Christians are at stake.

[qnofhrt.livejournal.com]

I'm actually of two minds about these sorts of regulations. It has nothing to do with a religious belief against the drug. I think it should be freely available, along with other birth control options (which are far fewer for American women because of the religious right's stranglehold on the govt for many years). But I would not have a problem with a pharmacy that, because of the religious beliefs of the owners/employees, did not want to carry these drugs IF it was advertised as such. What is happening in too many places is that pharmacists are doing just that but not are not being honest in their advertising. There were reports (in TX if memory serves) where the pharmacists would take the script, tell the patient they wouldn't fill it because of their religious beliefs and then not give the script back to the patient.

There are people who will say that if you give anti-choice folks any leeway, they will go too far. Perhaps. But if I'm free to live my life without religion, I think others should be able to live theirs with whatever religious beliefs they choose, as long as they are honest about them.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

The real-world consequences of pharmacies not carrying, or refusing to dispense, drugs shows more in sparsely populated areas than in urban, densely populated ones. When there's one pharmacy in a twenty-five or fifty-mile radius, it becomes extremely difficult to obtain the drug if one refuses; if two or three contiguous ones refuse to dispense, you'd have people having to travel one hundred miles or more (to quote the song).

That's just not acceptable, for a drug that's supposed to be fully available over the counter to adults.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

on the one hand - YAY!

on the other hand, I smell an appeal to the Supreme court coming on...

[scifantasy.livejournal.com]

If you're right, I'd expect a denial of cert. Even the conservative justices won't want to confront this without a circuit split, I think.

[reyl.livejournal.com]

Seriously, if you don't want to dispense drugs, DON'T BECOME A PHARMACIST. Seems pretty simple to me.

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

These people are training to be pharmacists specifically to be gatekeepers. The WANT to deny women birth control and Plan B. They see themselves as saving lives and being "missionaries to the pre-born."

The Dominionist movement has been doing this stuff for 20 years and more. "If we can't make abortion illegal, we'll make it impossible to get. If we can't ban the Pill, we'll get in the way of people getting it."

[smoooom.livejournal.com]

Are people still being this . this . stupid? 27 or so years ago I saw nurses refuse to nurse women who had had an abortion. (The hospital that I trained at, until I quit, was designated as an abortion hospital in Ontario at the time) I won't try and explain the process a woman had to go through to get an abortion back then. It was a turing point for me in that Those nurses made me think, for the first time in my life about abortion. Along with a 14 year old who died after an ileagle abortion. As care givers, on ANY level we don't have the right to refuse, to give care, dispense a pill or anything else. We are there to help and heal. SOmetimes people drive me bananas!

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

Yes. They are absolutely being this stupid. There's a town north of me where the single pharmacy decided, for religious/moral reasons, to stop stocking birth control entirely. Even here in the city, when you have an abortion the clinic tells you to go to the Catholic hospital if you have an emergency, and not the Community hospital, because of the way the Community hospital treats women who they know have had an abortion.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

Beyond the specific subject, I'm amazed to see a sentence that gives religion *no* special priority over beliefs that come from other sources. I love it, but am having a seriously hard time accepting that it's right in front of my eyes.

[delazan.livejournal.com]

Our Governor in Wisconsin also signed legislation to that effect.
-L.

[jovan-scorn.livejournal.com]

I remember a similar story years back about a pharmacist refusing to fill an order not for a contraceptive but for a painkiller for someone he highly suspected was abusing it or selling it. The article ended after the pharmacist in question tried to share his suspicions with other pharmacists in the area who were apathetic for lack of a better word and had no desire to deny any transaction not matter how suspicious.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

To put the ruling in terms the plaintiffs should underestand: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's."

[skemono.livejournal.com]

Interesting... however, the way I see this ruling, if somebody passes a law specifically exempting pharmacists from having to dispense Plan B (or anything else) because it would violate their religious sensibilities, that wasn't covered here. That would be okay -- at least until we get another court to slap that kind of law down (if that ever happens).

[kengr]

We currently have a federal regulation that says you can't go after anybody in the medical field for not doing their job because of "conscience".

On of the things that got approved late in the last administration. Obama is getting flack over getting it removed (which hasn't happened yet as far as I know)

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that if someone wants to avoid having to make an ethical decision of this nature they should choose a career where those decisions won't be an issue.

[kengr]

Alas, a big chunk of the problem is that a lot of folks got into the field specifically so they *could* block things they disagreed with.

I begin to think that medical training (and a lot of other things) may need to start requiring folks to sign a sworn statement to the effect that they are *not* planning to let their beliefs interfere with performing their jobs.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

Goodnss, I hope sanity takes over now!
Wait... What am I saying?

[morpheus0013.livejournal.com]

Awesome. I wonder how this will affect the policy of our local Safeway pharmacy, which refused to sell my (male) partner Plan B, claiming that their policy is "we have to see the ID of the person who will be taking the Plan B." Luckily we live in a decent sized city and he was able to go to Walgreens to obtain it, but I've boycotted Safeway since. Not only does that smack of gender discrimination, since there are no actual laws saying men cannot buy Plan B, but it's not an across the board policy: they sell all sorts of medications, not to mention alcohol, without requiring to see the person who will be ingesting it.

Incidentally, when I had a prescription for Dilaudid, it was not able to be phoned in; you have to pick up a written scrip to take to the pharmacist. However, both of the boys were able to pick up the scrip, take it to the pharmacy, and pick up the pills with the pharmacist or the doctor's office ever having to even see my face. Dilaudid is a morphine derivative.

But clearly, Plan B is the issue. /eyeroll

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

WOO HOO!!!

Now, if I could only find a drug store that can keep the Today Sponge on the shelves long enough for me to buy it, I'm set! :-)

(Seriously. It's back on the market, but it's always SOLD OUT everywhere.)

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

Now, can we change some legislation regarding other drugs? How about needing some anti-allergy stuff, or cold medicine, and being told you need to show an ID and sign paperwork and you're only allowed to purchase so much of it. Refusal to show an ID, or sign paperwork means you're not getting any over the counter drugs. I'm still thinking if people REALLY want to make crystal meth, they'll find a way around the ridiculous laws. They're only making it harder for the rest of us to get what we REALLY need!

[msminlr.livejournal.com]

Agreed.

There are plenty of medical practices out there that advertise their "Christian" [=anti-birth-control] policies and if there really is a market demand for them, they will prosper. If there is NOT a market demand for them, they need to change careers.

[rivkaesque.livejournal.com]

OK, this is what freaks out my intelligent, thoughtful, kind, conservative dad. I speak now as someone who needs a way to win this argument with him.

If he says "If a pharmacist can be required to violate his religion - participate in what his religion says is a forbidden act (eg abortions, as defined by his religion) what's to prevent the law requiring priests/rabbis to do so (eg perform gay marriages)?"

What do I say?

I've tried the following: "Plan B isn't abortion." This gets a response of "According to his religion it is."

I've tried "This is a human rights issue." This gets a response of "And aren't the activists trying to get gay marriage defined the same way?"

The only thing that comes close to working is "A pharmacy is not a shul*." But even that gets a response of "What's the legal distinction? Will it hold up in court? And how long before we lose that legal distinction?" and I don't know how to answer that.

HELP!


*synagogue

[holzman.livejournal.com]

What do I say?

A Pharmacist is not a Rabbi, and (as you noted) a pharmacy is not a shul. The line is the line between a secular vs. a religious institution; and the practice of medicine vs. the practice of religious instruction and celebration.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

About damn time.

And of course the KKKhristians will howl that they're Being Oppressed -- because anything that prevents them from imposing their Taliban rules on everyone else is interfering with their programming - oh, sorry, their deeply held beliefs.

I would personally love to give every "conscience"-driven pharmacist (esp. every male who's pulled this shit) three weeks' worth of PCOS bleeding and cramps. He'd be crying his fucking ass off in 10 minutes -- and that's when I'd smile at him and say that the pain is All In His Head and he should just pray it away instead of taking those nasty non-Viagra pills.

[starfallz.livejournal.com]

WHOO HOO!!

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

This is only the first step in what I suspect will be a prolonged, drawn-out legal fight, though, right?