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News :: Civil & Human Rights : Gender and Sexuality : Health |
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Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control |
Current rating: 0 |
by Monica Davey
(No verified email address) |
01 Apr 2005
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Under the emergency rule put in place in Illinois, pharmacies that do not have a particular prescribed contraceptive would be required to order some or to send the prescription to another pharmacy. |
CHICAGO, April 1 - With a growing number of reports of pharmacists around the country refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception, Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich on Friday filed a rule requiring Illinois pharmacies to accept and dispense all such prescriptions promptly.
"Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to or who he doesn't sell it to," Mr. Blagojevich, a Democrat, said. "No delays. No hassles. No lectures."
Two Chicago women, he said, reported in February that they had been turned away from a downtown drugstore when they tried to fill prescriptions for morning-after birth control pills. On Friday, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation filed a formal complaint against that pharmacy, one in the Osco chain, and said it could face discipline ranging from a fine to the revocation of its license. No one from Osco's corporate offices could be reached for comment on Friday.
Nationally, the leaders of Planned Parenthood and Naral Pro-Choice America said they had seen more and more cases like that over the past year. They emphasized that women in smaller communities or in rural areas, with perhaps only one pharmacy to use, might be left unable to receive their prescribed birth control if the pattern was allowed to continue.
"Pharmacies have an ethical and legal obligation," said Nancy Keenan, the president of Naral.
Governor Blagojevich, saying that his emergency rule clarified an existing state requirement, said he suspected that the pattern of complaints over the past year was no coincidence, but rather "part of a concerted effort" to prevent women from getting the birth control they wanted.
Under the emergency rule put in place in Illinois, pharmacies that do not have a particular prescribed contraceptive would be required to order some or to send the prescription to another pharmacy.
But Susan C. Winckler of the American Pharmacists Association, which represents 52,000 pharmacists, said she had concerns about the emergency rule in Illinois. The association, she said, believes that pharmacists should be allowed to "step away" in cases where they feel uncomfortable dispensing a particular drug - so long as their customers can still get their drugs from alternative sources.
Ms. Winckler said she also worried that Governor Blagojevich's new rule might reach beyond the question of a pharmacist's own moral sensibilities, and require pharmacists to dispense all prescriptions, even those that were "clinically inappropriate" for patients. Such cases might include ones in which a pharmacist discovered a customer's allergy or a potential drug interaction that a prescribing doctor had missed.
"Depending on the wording of the rule, there is a real risk that the governor could be creating," Ms. Winckler said. "The pharmacist is not a gas station attendant where if there is gas you have to sell it. Pharmacists are supposed to assess the appropriateness of a drug."
Abby Ottenhoff, a spokeswoman for Mr. Blagojevich, said the new rule did not take away a pharmacist's right to counsel a patient about a prescription within the confines of existing state law.
"That doesn't change," she said. "What cannot happen is the pharmacist cannot allow personal factors and feelings to interfere."
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com |
Copyright by the author. All rights reserved. |
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Re: Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control |
by steve
sfarels (nospam) aol.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
03 Apr 2005
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This is a horrible rule! If a pharmacist truly feels that contraception, especially post-coital contraception, is not moral, the pharmacist should not be forced to fill the order. Since many, if not most, people believe that life begins at conception, post-coital contraception (in most cases) is basically killing a human; this is not different from the pro-life stance on abortion. Since abortion destoys a life (assuming life begins at conception), forcing a prolife doctor to perform an abortion is unthinkable. Similarly, asking a pharmacist to give post-coital contraception if he feels that this is immoral (kills a human being) is also wrong. There are, no doubt, many other pharmacists that would have no trouble filling the order, given the prevalence of the "culture of death" in our country. |
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Re: Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control |
by 5
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
03 Apr 2005
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Your religious beliefs have no place in my uterus, body, or in the doctor-patient relationship I have. My doctor has assessed my medical situation and has given me a prescription. If the pharmacist is against birth control, so what? It's his job to fill the *order* given by my doctor. Failure to do so is to interfere in my life and my medical care.
I can't for the life of me understand why I have to follow your or anyone else's religious beliefs. I know people who think eating meat or wearing leather is murder. Should you be required to follow their beliefs? If I believe that home-schooling is harmful to your children, can I force you to follow my beliefs?
I suggest that if a pharmacist has a problem with doing his/her job in dispensing medication that a doctor has prescribed, that he/she find another job.
How dare you or anyone else try and tell me whether or not I can take birth control pills! Who the hell do you think you are, Steve? |
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Re: Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control |
by John Hilty
jhilty (nospam) shout.net (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
04 Apr 2005
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Steve doesn't understand this article. Preventive contraception and morning-after (or emergency) contraception can't be compared to abortion -- they both prevent conception from occurring, they are not aborticides. The pharmacies are denying a new kind of birth control to women -- one that can reduce the likelihood of conception after sex has occurred. Fertilization of an ovary can take place several days after sex -- its a slower process than many people assume.
These drugs don't affect the fetus after conception has already occurred. |
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Re: Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control |
by Julie
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
14 Apr 2005
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I'd like to add that there are also medical reasons, why birth control may be perscribed, such as the treatment of acne vulgaris, fibroids, and/or endometriosis.
I also agree with John that it prevents pregnancy from even occuring, so how can it be considered abortion.
I wonder if Steve also finds condoms or Viagra immoral? |
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Re: Illinois Pharmacies Ordered to Provide Birth Control |
by Kerwin Brown
kerwin_brown (nospam) yahoo.com (unverified) |
Current rating: 0
06 May 2005
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I have heard this case and am convinced Governor Rod Blagojevich used a nuclear bomb to resolve a customer service situation. The pharmacist said no and unless you believe rape is moral you should support his right to say no. When you live in a rural community you learn to stock up on things you might need especially when the local store does not carry them or in this case refuses to sell them. Not only did the Governor overreact he violated the law and misused the Illinois Administrative Procedure Act which prohibits the Governor and others from invoking the emergency rule. The act is online so you can see what I mean. |
