Washington State Regulators endorse "refuse and refer" for morning-after pill. Druggists who personally oppose morning-after birth-control pills could refuse to sell them under a rule endorsed today by state pharmacy regulators.
The Board of Pharmacy's move mirrored the preference of the state pharmacy association but angered abortion- and women's-rights groups, and defied the wishes of Gov. Christine Gregoire.
Lisa Stone JD, Board member of the WBP and Executive Director of the Northwestern Women's Law Center had this to say about the rule: “If a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, that's illegal sex discrimination. And it's wrong. But that's not all -- the Pharmacy Board's own records show that patients have been denied antibiotics and anti-depressants, among other drugs. I respect and admire pharmacists, and appreciate the skill and training they bring to the profession. But they have no place deciding what medications any patient may or may not take because they object to the medication, to the prescriber or to the patient standing before them. Under this proposed rule, a pharmacist could refuse to fill prescriptions based on ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, disability -- you name it, the choice of whether a patient received lawfully prescribed medicine would be in the hands of the pharmacist, not the doctor, and definitely not the patient.”
2 comments:
Viagra doesn't prevent an embryo from implanting. We don't force doctors to perform abortions, we shouldn't force pharmacists to dispense chemical abortifacients if they are morally opposed.
I thinking that an argument could be made that the morning after pill could be likened to the rhythm method, in that it doesn't 'kill' the embryo -- it lets it die. That is, the lining of the uterus is shed, so the embryo has no where to implant.
Your point is well taken about the Viagra -- but it can be argued that Viagra promotes sex for purposes other than procreation -- this would be more applicable to pharmacists who refused to sell any form of birth control to women, though.
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