Wisconsin Pharmacies Required To Sell Prescribed Contraceptives
As it should be. Thanks to Wisconsin Democrats for placing this in the state budget, and getting this job completed. The whole idea of some pharmacists thinking they could only sell those items they deem ‘appropriate’ was one of the lamest ideas I had heard of in some time. If pharmacists do not want to fulfill their role, then let them find a new job. Now there is a state law that requires them to dispense the prescribed medications that customers need and want. Period.
All pharmacies in Wisconsin will now be required to dispense prescribed contraceptives “without delay.” Violators would face up to $2,500 in fines. In the past, some pharmacists in the state have refused to fill birth control prescriptions, claiming that their moral or religious beliefs do not permit them to do so. In 2008, a state appeals court upheld the state’s Pharmacy Examining Board’s rebuke of a pharmacist who refused to provide birth control pills to a customer. The Board ruled that while the pharmacist had the right to refuse to provide the pills himself, he was wrong to refuse to transfer her prescription to another pharmacy. Last year, after years of effort, Democratic lawmakers successfully pushed through a mandate requiring hospitals to provide emergency contraceptives to rape victims. The pharmacy mandate will increase birth control access for many more women.
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There would have been no need to pass this legislation if the extreme anti-contraception folks had not been pushing pharmacist “conscience” legislation in order to allow their fellow-travellers to answer their divine calling to block access to birth control. There are anti-contraception organizations that encourage their members to go to pharmacy school for just that purpose. That jackass in northern Wisconsin was not the only pharamcist of his kind. There are more with every graduating class at UW-Madison’s School of Pharmacy.
There are plenty of pharmacists who have moral objections to other drugs, like those expensive name-brand drugs that are re-packaged for a new purpose for which cheaper generics are better suited. However, pharmacists are not allowed to passive-aggressively thwart doctors and big PHARMA by refusing to fill those prescriptions. Why should contraceptives be any different than deadly drugs like Vioxx?
“In 2008, a state appeals court upheld the state’s Pharmacy Examining Board’s rebuke of a pharmacist who refused to provide birth control pills to a customer.” So we had one customer who was denied. Notice how the article goes on to say:”The pharmacy mandate will increase birth control access for many more women.” One has to wonder what “many” means in this context.
eric,
If you equate a person using his/her job to IMPOSE their “morals” on OTHER people by denying a legally prescribed drug or device, then yes, I don’t think they should be in that profession. And no doubt there was a heavy government direct or indirect subsidy for that person to get an education in that field. (even if they paid all of their own tuition, it only pays a portion of a college education)
That kind of thinking is wildly out of the mainstream:
“These are some of the results of an online survey of 2,402 U.S. adults, ages 18 and older, conducted by Harris Interactive(r) between March 20 and 22, 2007 for The Wall Street Journal Online’s Health Industry Edition (www.wsj.com/health).
Approval for Medical Use
Strong majorities support the approval of medical treatments such as birth-control pills and other birth-control procedures (88%) ”
As a man of peace, I would never advocate that these narrow minded refuseniks should be shot, snipped? yes, so that can’t breed and raise a new generation of people with a “moral certainty” that only they are right and their beliefs must be imposed on the general public. They should be in another profession or working in a medical facility that doesn’t get government support or general public business, or a facility where this isn’t an issue (nursing home for retired priests and nuns perhaps).
Solly:
No moral certainty like your own, right?
so if a person has different moral standards then you they should lose their jobs and be fined. is that right? maybe we should have them shot! after all we can’t have anyone running around that have morals………..
Dude, we are talking about allowing folks to buy contraceptives!
Are you from another planet, or might you be celibate?
It needs to be filled ‘there and then’
Why should a poor person, for instance, need to pay for transportation to another location to get a presciption filled when a pharmacy is right next door? Why should you or I be troubled about another location? They get a license…..if they can not fulfill the obligations of the license they need to have a different job.
If they have a serious moral issue they have three options. They can either fill it, be fined, and then find a new job.
What a sad day it is when the morals of one are imposed upon another. If one’s conscience does not allow a person to sell the “morning after” pill because that individual has a moral objection (I assume related to conception and the view of life beginning at the point), does it make him or her unfit to dispense other medications? A state license issue, eh?
So since Pastors are licensed by the state to register marriages/officiate weddings…If a state decides homosexual marriages are legal and a pastor’s conscience does not allow him/her to marry homosexuals, is that pastor to be forced into compromising morals or quitting as well?
This is a land of freedoms. There are freedoms “of” and freedoms “from”. I think the inconvenience of traveling to a different location for a service to allow another person to keep in line with his/her conscience is not too much to ask. Ultimately, regardless of one’s freedoms, one’s conscience holds one captive.
The civil document for a wedding is given by the state, and this is a civil contract that the state allows the churches to participate. In Europe, in large measure there are no religious weddings. In addition pastors are not licensed by the state in America.
To the matter of contraceptives…
The fact remains that contraceptives are legal, and since that is so, can be bought and sold at pharmacies. Those who work in such places know that.
If I were to work at the UW lab where tests are done on animals for medical research I might be required to do things that make me unconfortable. Should I stop all the research based on my morals, or find a new job?
I might be an actor in a film with a topless lady, and that goes against my morals. Should I remove myself from the film project, or shut down the whole project?
OK, “licensed” was the incorrect verb. “Recognized by the state to have the authority to perform marriage ceremony” would be the more accurate description. Honestly, I don’t care what the state wants to call a “marriage” in secular land. But in my belief system, it is between me, my hubby and God. Guess what? That means I (and many other Christians) see marriage as not just something between two people [regardless of professes sexual orientation(s)!]. Does that mean my pastor should be forced into marrying non-Christians too or he/she should be excluded from performing “legal” ceremonies?
To the matter of contraceptives…
There are parts of the UW lab which do not work with animals. I would assume if your lab began working with animals and the experiments were against your moral beliefs, the UW would attempt to place you within another area of research not dealing with lab animals prior to kicking you to the curb.
You would not have to stop being a scientist.
If you were a big shot actor, you would probably be vigilant in reading your script and turning down productions which you did not agree with morally.
You would not have to leave the acting profession.
So being a pharmacist…what is so wrong with having morals and keeping one’s profession? Sending a prescription to another local pharmacy should not be a huge issue. I would think the local doctor(s) would know to steer their patients away from pharmacist X’s moral dilemma. Also, how many pharmacists are out there refusing to fill? Is this hissy-fit with “rights vs morals” because 10 pharmacists in WI might want to reroute a person elsewhere? It’s not like the person would not get quality service from another pharmacist.
I have had to visit more than one pharmacy when my kid’s prescription got sent to the wrong place or a pharmacy did not carry/have in stock a particular drug. Maybe my right should have been “then and there” too but there’s another moral idea I value (even though I sometimes fail at it) called “Grace”.
Fine, but suppose the state mandated that all labs were to do animal research. What would you do then?
Or if the state mandated that all films contain topless women…
Why not allow some pharmacies, since they are privately owned businesses to choose? Oh, wait, your values would never permit that. Right?
Or if we took this train of thinking a bit further we might argue that some pharmacists might not want to have certain minorities (for moral reasons) as customers. Does the state still grant a license for that standard of ‘morality’? If after all we are to let privately owned businesses choose, why set any standards?
The bottom line is that the state gives licenses and there are conditions. That is the way society operates.
Apart from that by the talk here among some one would think Griswold v. Connecticut was not yet law, and no one thought contraceptives a good idea. But then when someone wants an abortion when contraceptives were not used………..
“Why not allow some pharmacies, since they are privately owned businesses to choose? Oh, wait, your values would never permit that. Right?” – Patrick
This comment makes sense to me. Let the privately owned businesses choose. My values do permit that. Thanks for trying to give me the box. I guess I don’t fit in it though.
Under this Mandate does the Pharmacist still have the option to send the contraceptive prescription to another pharmacy or he is now forced to fill a prescription he or she may have serious moral issues with right then and there?
If it is the latter, then again the state of WI is imposing their own morality.