Illinois Court Permits Religious Pharmacists To Refuse To Dispense Emergency Contraception

or, providing complete medical care, NEED TO GET OTHER JOBS. my health and well-being should not be dependent on finding a non=whack job doc or pharmacist.

stating that they pick and choose which drugs they dispense based on their religious judgment of customers' behavior. Then people can decided to take all their business elsewhere.

Certified Religious Pharmacy

the cover of the GOP platform

There should be a warning sign posted in public view that the pharmacy reserves to right to pass moral judgement on your health care prescriptions.

First, are pharmacists normally considered to be "health care personnel?" I would not have thought that they would fall into that category. Secondly, why is this Illinois stature not being contested on the grounds that it enables pharmacists to violate their patients' own right to religious liberty, as well as infringing upon physician's rights to provide the medical care that they deem necessary for their patients, including any prescribed medications? I would appreciate it if somebody with more knowledge than I possess of the Illinois law and its history would enlighten me concerning this issue. Thank you in advance.

be enlightened about this....

That would also mean that if any of their ''patients'' suffers a healthcare problem as a result of their refusal to provide them with legal pharmaceuticals ordered by their doctors, then they're legally and financially liable just like any doctor and/or hospital would be when they fuck up.

- How nice.....

They are a retail goods provider. They get to choose what they carry. No pharmacy carries everything out there all the time. I have had to wait a day or two for large chain stores to have what I need. The government does not tell merchants what they have to carry in terms of products or merchandise.

The patients' rights are not being violated since they are free to go where they choose. Pharmacies, while regulated, do not have exclusive territories or other kinds of state protection that would open them to mandates. This cuts both ways, as I will get to later. Some have argued that with the state license comes responsibilities, including a minimum list of drugs that must be carried. No state is currently taking that approach directly.

The physician gets no say in this and has no rights to be violated. They give prescriptions to the patient and where they get them filled is not under the control of the doctor.


Despite all of the above there is much that can be done...


Medical insurance plans can require that to be a preferred provider/plan participant that conditions are met. I want to recall at least on state in the NE is doing that.

People can choose to go to pharmacies that do not use religious beliefs to govern the goods they sell. There are no restrictions stating what pharmacy you must go to. Its really competitive out there with all the major chains, Wal-Mart etc. If a mom and pop shop gets stupid like that, they can easily be driven out of business over this, the more publicly the better.

Chains can make it clear that they expect their employees to sell everything they carry or at least get someone else on duty to handle it. While one can argue that the Federal law requiring religious accommodation where practical may apply, it is not overriding. Condition of employment kicks in here as well.

In then end its all about the Benjamins. Use that power and the stupidity will go away.

has only one pharmacy, also run by the zealots? it isn't as easy as you try to make it sound.

or, how about the areas that only have one hospital, a catholic one?

these days. And if you think Catholic hospitals are bad, you should try a 7th Day Adventist one.

Seriously, there is no viable legal structures out there to address a scenario where there is no Wal-Mart/Costco/Sams Club/CVS/Wallgreens/Rite Aid/etc within the range of a tank of gas and the local pharmacy is run by religious nuts who won't stock birth control and/or Plan B. Blago tried with a clearly illegal executive order in Illinois. However, do such scenarios really exist today? While I do not like religious people controlling my health, is it really happening is a valid question.

Today the only legally viable way right now to get rid of such knuckleheads is to identify them and run them out of business. It has the added benefit of showing the religious nuts that the people have power and they need to serve the clientele or lose their shirts. Its a pretty powerful incentive for them to do the right thing.,

http://crooksandliars.com/jon-perr/expanding-catholic-hospitals-put-womens-health-at-risk

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/21/health/policy/growth-of-catholic-hospitals-may-limit-access-to-reproductive-care.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1348719302-WKHX3zhOYCA1j2fHRRfWiA

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/08/1072479/-Expanding-Catholic-Hospitals-Put-Reproductive-Care-Women-s-Health-at-Risk

I noted that you really had 1 article used twice and the third was rehash of the first. There were a few anecdotes and no single case of where the unavailability of Plan B lead to an unwanted full term pregnancy.

What does it say about us as a nation when it appears no single group or entity is willing to step up and provide healthcare like Catholics?

solution to the problem. Simple really, go to pharmacy school, get your pharm D and get a reputation for selling anything to anyone no questions asked. It's a great job and pays well. I know as my daughter is currently working on her pharm D. Her university has a 98% sucessful placement rate for graduates. Those 2% who are unemployed are those who refuse to relocate for whatever reason (silly or not silly).

Could she counter-sue, claiming her religious freedoms were violated?

Don't answer that. We all know what it is.

There is no requirement that a retail goods provider accommodate every one who comes in the door. Pharmacies are not in state allocated protected territories. A patient can go to any one she chooses.

By the same token, if there is a business that is refusing to meet customer needs due to religion, that should be broadcast from the rooftops and the local bookies will start taking bets on how long before it goes out of business

Thanks

The state has every right to impose requirements on them. Pharmacists may not dispense drugs without proper license. How is this not gender discrimination? Refusing to dispense a medicine that only a woman would use...

There are specific rules for the operation of the pharmacy, but the law does not require the stocking of all available drugs nor any particular subset. Doing so would be more than sticky, very hard to administer, and the state would incur a broad variety of liabilities. To the best of my knowledge, no state requires it directly.

Obviously true, but how does that impact this discussion?

What to carry is a business decision. A store does not have to stock products equally for both sexes if its not appropriate to their business model. That does not mean it is discrimination. I can't buy mens briefs at Lane Bryant...is that gender discrimination? Without a must carry mandate at a minimum, if a pharmacy does not carry a particular product, its not discrimination.

I don't like zealots controlling my health issues, including Bloomberg. Given the large number of pharmacies and the minimal chance of this happening, I am still looking for a practical problem here. When those zealots turn up, it will be easy to gleefully drive them out of business.

...I wonder if they'll stop selling condoms too.

- Especially to married men......

country...

There's no good reason to pay "professionals" to dispense something they can refuse to dispense on non-professional grounds.

Maybe the local gas stations will pick OTC emergency birth control as a "convenience" item, right alongside the aspirin.

That could be a state by state thing too.

should be that convenient.

The counter argument is condition of employment.

And nothing more is failing at their job of being a pharmacist. What reasonable accomodation could possibly be made here?

However, according to some the larger issue is even having it available.

they are relatively common hormone therapies that regulate periods and prevent pregnancy. My fiancee takes an intravenous BC shot every 3 months, and she picks up the prescription at a local grocery store and then goes to the doctor's office to get it administered. I would imagine that it is much more rarely used than oral contraceptives, yet a local chain of grocery stores carry it on a regular basis. Granted, we are near a medium sized city, so that could be it, but what pharmacies stock should be based on supply and demand, NOT on religious objections or arbitrary judgments.

That way they and their patients can be sure to get the care they need. Too bad if it cuts into drugstores' profits.

In the bad old days docs would only write scripts to the captive pharmacy which sold them at inflated prices. We do not want that again.

This way people get the care they want...

Bear in mind that Plan B is sold without a script these days.

asking for a script for condoms?

Not so much with pills, injections, insertions

if you use that pill... But it has been used frequently by many...

have been notoriously extortionate. This already happens all the time and its a racket. I can't even begin to dissect your post. You must know about this as an MD. Its common practice!





"When a pharmacy sells the heartburn drug Zantac, each pill costs about 35 cents. But doctors dispensing it to patients in their offices have charged nearly 10 times that price, or $3.25 a pill.

The same goes for a popular muscle relaxant known as Soma, insurers say. From a pharmacy, the per-pill price is 60 cents. Sold by a doctor, it can cost more than five times that, or $3.33.

At a time of soaring health care bills, experts say that doctors, middlemen and drug distributors are adding hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the costs borne by taxpayers, insurance companies and employers through the practice of physician dispensing.

Most common among physicians who treat injured workers, it is a twist on a typical doctor’s visit. Instead of sending patients to drugstores to get prescriptions filled, doctors dispense the drugs in their offices to patients, with the bills going to insurers. Doctors can make tens of thousands of dollars a year operating their own in-office pharmacies. The practice has become so profitable that private equity firms are buying stakes in the businesses, and political lobbying over the issue is fierce. "

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/12/business/some-physicians-making-millions-selling-drugs.html?pagewanted=all

my old (now retired) doctor, seeing I had no insurance, gave me a physicians sample of antibiotics for my strep throat instead of writing me a $60.00 prescription for the same number of pills.

Captive pharmacies on the other hand are clearly a bad thing.

They get free samples all the time.

When I had no insurance and went to a clinic, the doctor gave me free antibiotics from his sample closet. The problem with this for the Morning After Pill the woman would have to go to a clinic or doctor.

OTC at a supermarket would be the best place. Even rural areas have supermarkets. You can now get many meds that used to be sold only with a script on a supermarket shelf.

repubs run to the courts to hold a Jehovah's Witness liable for refusing to give blood or blood products. Or a Hindu at a grocery store refusing to sell beef. Or a Muslim or Jew refusing to sell pork. That whole "If my religion forbids it, then no one can have it" thing can cut many ways.

There were also lawsuits about jobs that required uniforms that did not accommodate mulsim hijabs or scarfs. Have not seen anything about it in a while. There is a Federal law that requires reasonable accommodation, but that is not overriding.

For employment. For example, headwear is allowed if it doesn't create a hazard, health or safety wise. Likewise with handling pork, if you work at a sausage factory and you are Jewish or Muslim, well you will have to get your hands dirty, aren't you?

Muslim cab drivers in large cities have refused to pick up passengers with guide dogs and other working dogs. Big no-no there.

...keep YOUR religion out of MY prescriptions tyvm...

announcing that they do not accommodate women who need birth control, Plan B, or anything that gets up their noses. That way honest, hard-working women who need these medicines and products can freely go elsewhere.

Make no mistake, these fake pharmacists can walk the plank as far as I'm concerned.

But, there is such a thing as truth in advertising. If you advertise yourself as a FULL SERVICE(TM) pharmacy, and no one knows you are not until we go to the counter and ask for Plan B, then you are lying to the public about what you are.

These low-lifes live to lecture women about their sexuality, and now they have the law on their side. Make them state publicly what they are.

edit: I know all about this shit because it happened to me. At Target. At 39! I still get enraged at that hick prick who thought his "exemptions" were more important than MY birth control. Fuck him. Fuck him with a hot chainsaw!

For fuck's sake, it's TWO-THOUSAND-FUCKING-TWELVE, not 2012 BC!!

If they won't do the job they can do something else.

just pray it away?