Tell pharmacy chains to stop discriminating against women!

Don't let far-right extremists send women's rights back to the 1800s...

In as many as 20 states, pharmacies can refuse to fill women's prescriptions for contraception, including the morning-after pill.

When a woman and her doctor decide that a prescription for contraception is in the woman's best interest, a third party has no right to override that decision. Pharmacies must ensure that patients get their doctor-prescribed medication without delay or inconvenience.

Join NARAL Pro-Choice America in telling our nation's biggest pharmacies (Wal-Mart, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreen's, and Eckerd's) not to stand between a woman and her physician. Please personalize your letter with a story or experience.

UPDATE: As a result of your letters, CVS Pharmacy just released a new policy to fill all birth control prescriptions without delay. Good work.! Let's keep up the pressure...

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/792375278?z00m=28751&z00m=28751&ltl=1122521369

 

How is it that I am just hearing about this?! Of course it doesn't affect me (yet) but I think this is truely terrible. I've just spoken to my mother about it and she agrees. I cannot write a letter, as this does not affect me quite yet and of course I have had no horrible experiences of this nature, but, as a female, I encourage anyone who has to speak.

 

Can't believe such stupidity can take place in a so called civilised democractic society.

 

In Illinois, the Govenor made a law that says that pharmacists who refuse to fill contraceptive prescriptions can have their pharmacy licenses taken away.

There was a thread here a while ago.

 

I'm on the pill because I have awful periods, and many other women are on the pill for the same reason, or for another medical reason, and are not using the pill for contraceptive reasons. Would a pharmacist still refuse to give someone like me my medication?

Luckily, I don't live in America so this will never be a problem for me. But it just makes me so angry. They are paid to give people they're medication, not to force their personal beliefs on others. Anyway, if a woman can't take the morning after pill, she is probably going to have an abortion instead. And if a woman can't be on the pill, she'll end up using a less reliable method of contraception and will be more likely to get pregnant, and may have an abortion. What if someone who had been raped came to get the morning after pill?

 

A pharmacist has moral objections to a particular medicine.

A patient comes in with a perscription for that medicine.

Option A (avaliable in 20 states): The parm. refuses to fill that perscription, but continues filling other perscriptions for different medicines.

Option B (Illinois): The pharm. quits the buisness.

Option C: The state does not allow the pharm. to quit and forces them to fill the perscription.


I note that in both options A and B, the patient does not get medicine.

Option C sounds a lot like slavery.

My point is that (assuming the pharmacist acts on their morals) the patient does not get the medicine regardless of which way the law inclines.

 

I hate to break this to you, but just as it is your right to use a contraceptive it is their right to morally oppose it. The only example I can think of right now is, suppose you were a vegan chef. If a customer asked you to prepare meat even though you are morally opposed to eating it would you take it?

I do not oppose birth control, I am just trying to feel out both sides of the issue.

 

Excuse me, if you were a vegan chef, and you were morally opposed to work with meat, you sure as hell wouldn't work in a restaurant that served meat!

If a person is morally opposed to filling certain medicines, said person should not be working in a field which they would have to distribute that medicine.

I'm all for people to have their own opinions and morals about cetain contraversial issues, but why put yourself in a position to do something that goes against your beliefs? Because they want to impose their beliefs on others.

So, would a pro-life doctor work at an abortion clinic, then procede to refuse treatment on women seeking abortions? I think not.

 

hardly a fair comparison. BC is just one tiny part of what a pharm distributes.

In a free and democratic society, a pharmacy should be able to sell what they want to and not be forced to sell something. That is free, that is democratic. It is totalitarian otherwise.

Stupid, perhaps. But, democracy and freedom doesnt always go your way.

pharmacists arent just people who fill bottles. They go to pharmacy school and learn how the drugs will affect the people. They're another safety mechanism to protect the consumer.

 

We all have opinions about whether or not it is okay to deny prescriptions based on moral principles,
But we should recognize the fundamental goal behind it:
A world where women once again are unable to decide when they have children.
The agency in their mind should come entirely from the penis.

 

How is it an unfair comparison? Would you choose to go into a line of work that could compromise your own morality?

It really upsets me. They don't want women to have abortions for unwanted pregnancies, and they don't want women to prevent these unwanted pregnancies by denying them their contraceptives? But, lets give men all the viagra they want! Come on.

If a person can't fullfill their duty as a pharmacist and dispense the medicine that the customer's doctor prescribed-they need to find another field!

Or perhaps they should open a "We Decide What Kind of Medicine We Want To Give You No Matter What Your Doctor Thinks" pharmacy.

 

That is twisted logic. When you go to pharmacy school, you are told what your duties will be. If you have any "moral objections" to certain meds, than you shouldn't be a pharmacist.

It is HEALTH CARE. In the 80s there were doctors who refused to treat AIDS patients, they claimed that not only did they not want to get AIDs, but they had a "moral objection" to the "lifestyles" of the people who had the disease. These doctors were faced with losing their medical licences. Doctors treat people who do things they morallly oppose ALL THE TIME, yet they still treat them. "Sorry, I don't beleieve in premarital sex, so I won't treat your Syphilys." Bullshit. The doctor HAS to treat it, as does the Pharmacist HAVE to fill the prescription.

 

I wonder what the response for some of these people would be if one of the medications THEY were on was refused by a pharmacist who had a "moral objection" to the drug or the condition it treated.

Like, say a pharmacist who didn't beleive in the Germ Theory and refused to fill antibiotics, or the pharmacist who didn't beleive in people having sex artificially and had a "moral objection" to filling Viagra and Cialis.

 

mindy, in some areas, there is only one pharmacy and one pharmacist in the entire area. Not everyone lives in nice, neat suburbs or large cities. If you live in many rural areas, and your pharmacist refuses to fill a script, you are out of luck. ALSO, many of these anti BC pharmacists TAKE the prescriptions and refuse to give them back to the womyn. Many doctors will NOT write second prescriptions unless they know you well, so then you are also out of luck.

BLackie. Deaths due to pregnancy:

(from the CDC.) Yes, the Morning after Pill has ALL the complications of ANY estrogen containing pill. But pregnancy can kill, too. How does the pharmacist know, when he refuses a BC script, that it isn't for a womyn who may die or become very ill if she gets pregnant?

 

Um, I think we actually agree, Blackie. I DO agree that the pharmacists should have to fill it. Yeah, sudafed is going to be prescription only soon. Sad, huh? I used to live on that stuff.

 

Uh, an abortion clinic has the sole purpose of performing/couseling on abortion. A pharmacist distributes a billion types of drugs..a few of which happen to be BC.

Is it that hard to go to another pharmacy? I live in a tiny vermont town and i can think of atleast 7 in MY small tiny ass town.

Not all pharmacists stock all drugs. It is up to the pharmarcy to decide what they stock and what they will distribute. Why such a big deal over this when its JUST about BC? Are you biased because you're a woman?

Or perhaps you go to another pharmacy. Big Deal.

Id rather women get birthcontrol pills than have abortions, myself. This is about totalitarianism and freedom. No business should be forced to sell anything it doesnt want to.

 

As I recall, the issue (not this post, but the recent issue) started when an employee pharmacist refused to fill a perscription for a drug that his employer stocked. I don't recall if he was fired, but the original issue was whether he could be fired for expressing his religious beleifs in this fashion.

 

The sole purpose of a pharmacy is to dispense medication prescribed by physicians. Not preach what they think is morally right or wrong. THAT is the point. Some of these "pharmacists for morality" or whatever they are called, are REFUSING to return the prescription to the patient so they CAN go to another pharm. They are telling their customers that they are WRONG for getting a BC prescription. Some women have real medical needs for the pill. After I had my second child, I menstruated for two weeks, every two weeks. My doctor prescribed me bc to control it because my hormones were whacked out. How dare a pharmacist tell me I can't get my medicine because he/she doesn't agree with it?!?


I'm not biased because I'm a woman. I would be equally pissed off if it were narcotic pain relievers, too. Or blood thinners, or acne medicine, or viagra, or whatever. They don't have the right to pick and choose who can get their medicine and who can't. If a customer has a legal prescription for a bonafide medical need-it is the pharmacists duty to fill it.

 

If the company is refusing to sell birth control pills then thats not wrong, it is their right not to sell them, however if the pharmacist is refusing to give the pills, although he has them, then that is completely wrong.