The Religious Consultation
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St. Louis Post-Dispatch (US), April 22, 2005 Birth control is a woman's decision, not her pharmacist's Some
refuse to honor legal prescriptions on moral grounds. We must remind
them that's not their job. How disturbing it is that in 2005 pharmacists are denying women access to birth control pills. This is taking place despite the history of oral contraception as a safe and reliable method of fertility control over the 45 years since the federal Food and Drug Administration approved the first pill in 1960. A Post-Dispatch editorial last week failed to contribute in a meaningful way to the debate about proposed pharmacist-refusal clauses. The editorial suggests that both women and pharmacists have rights that need to be protected. But what happens when these rights are in direct conflict? Unfortunately, pharmacists in this country increasingly are refusing, based on personal moral objections, to fill women's lawful prescriptions for birth control. And some politicians in Missouri and Washington, D.C., are trying to protect the pharmacists at the expense of women's health. My fellow state senator, Dr. Charles Wheeler of Kansas City, and I have co-sponsored the "Patient Protection Act" (Senate Bill 458), which received a hearing before the Senate Committee on Aging, Families, Mental and Public Health on March 30. This legislation seeks to expand women's access to birth control by requiring pharmacists to fill all lawful prescriptions, enabling women safely and responsibly to avoid unintended pregnancies and abortions. Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois recently filed an emergency rule to protect women's access to birth control in his state. His action came after a pharmacy in Chicago refused to fill the prescriptions of two women. Groups challenging Blagojevich's rule ultimately want to outlaw abortion, yet the policies they oppose would reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and abortions. This defies common sense. Unlike Gov. Blagojevich and the majority of people in Missouri and Illinois, Missouri's Gov. Matt Blunt does not seem to understand that personal responsibility and timely access to birth control prevent unintended pregnancies. In Blunt's State of the State address earlier this year, he vowed to "support improved conscience clauses for health professionals." 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. We must insist that personal medical decisions be made between doctors and patients, not legislators, bureaucrats or insurance agents. Pharmacists' professional and moral responsibility is to ensure that patients get their doctor-prescribed medicine without needless delay. Consider the following, which is a logical extension of the argument made by the Post-Dispatch's editorial: * If pharmacists feel a moral objection to dispensing birth-control prescriptions, they also may object to filling a prescription for AIDS drugs because they assume the patient is a homosexual and they oppose what they call the "homosexual lifestyle." * What about infertility drugs? Couldn't a pharmacist argue that it is God's plan that a couple remain barren like the biblical pair Sarah and Abraham? * What about prescription pain relievers and narcotics? Is a pharmacist permitted to act on a conviction of conscience that people are supposed to suffer in this life to realize the glories of the next life in heaven? * What about antibiotics to treat sexually transmitted diseases? A pharmacist could argue that the patient isn't entitled to them because he or she may have acted immorally by engaging in premarital sex or committing adultery. Pharmacists enter their profession knowing their role in the delivery of health care: to use their education, training and expertise to fill legally issued prescriptions. Should they be given legal license to judge the merits or purpose of a person's prescription? Some argue that if a pharmacist objects to dispensing birth control, women simply can go elsewhere to have their prescriptions filled. But many rural communities in Missouri have only one pharmacy and, in some instances, just one pharmacist. In these cases, going elsewhere would not be merely an inconvenience; it would be an impossibility. All women in Missouri have a right to safe, unrestricted legal access to birth control. A woman who decides, along with her doctor, to take birth control is acting responsibly. These women should not be subjected to lectures and condemnation by pharmacists. If we are serious about preventing unintended pregnancies and abortions, we need to support legislation that would ensure that women have access to their legal medicine without intimidation, without interference and without delay. --- Joan Bray of University City, a Democrat, represents the 24th District in the Missouri Senate. << St.
Louis Post-Dispatch -- 4/21/05 >> |