Why doctors/pharmacists are denying clients birth control pills

[ailsagirl]

I read this article (Prevention magazine) late last year and I was stunned. It's definitely worth reading.

Access Denied
by Caroline Bollinger

In April, Julee Lacey, 33, a Fort Worth, TX, mother of two, went to her local CVS drugstore for a last-minute Pill refill. She had been getting her prescription filled there for a year, so she was astonished when the pharmacist told her, "I personally don't believe in birth control and therefore I'm not going to fill your prescription." Lacey, an elementary school teacher, was shocked. "The pharmacist had no idea why I was even taking the Pill. I might have needed it for a medical condition."

Melissa Kelley, 35, was just as stunned when her gynecologist told her she would not renew her prescription for birth control pills last fall. "She told me she couldn't in good faith prescribe the Pill anymore," says Kelley, who lives with her husband and son in Allentown, PA. Then the gynecologist told Kelley she wouldn't be able to get a new prescription from her family doctor, either. "She said my primary care physician was the one who helped her make the decision." Lacey's pharmacist and Kelley's doctors are among hundreds, perhaps thousands, of physicians and pharmacists who now adhere to a controversial belief that birth control pills and other forms of hormonal contraception--including the skin patch, the vaginal ring, and progesterone injections--cause tens of thousands of "silent" abortions every year. Consequently, they are refusing to prescribe or dispense them.

Scenarios like these--virtually unheard of 10 years ago--are happening with increasing frequency. However, until this spring, the issue received little attention outside the antiabortion community. It wasn't high on the agendas of reproductive rights advocates, who have been preoccupied with defending abortion rights and emergency contraception. But when Lacey's story was picked up by a Texas TV station and later made the national news, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and others took notice.

Limiting access to the Pill, these groups now say, threatens a basic aspect of women's health care. An estimated 12 million American women use hormonal contraceptives, the most popular form of birth control in the United States after sterilization. The Pill is also widely prescribed by gynecologists and family doctors for other uses, such as clearing up acne, shrinking fibroids, reducing ovarian cancer risk, and controlling endometriosis.


http://www.prevention.com/article/0,5778,s1-1-93-35-4130-1-P,00.html

[Extend a Hand]

1. It is really scary...this march towards fascism...

here is a site of doctors to avoid for people who believe in a woman's right to control her own body.

http://www.omsoul.com/nfponly.php

[Hekate]

5. Controlling the means of production...

In the extremes of government (i.e. any totalitarian regime, and some feminist French philosophers would add extreme capitalism) controlling women's fertility-choices becomes another way of controlling the means of production. Forced sterilizations (as in eugenics programs), forced pregnancies (as in Rumania under the Ceauscescus), and forced abortions (as in China's one-child policy) are all on a continuum that removes freedom of choice...

The theocrats are just buying into that and calling it morality -- and the irony is that in religious terms, free will is part of the ensoulment and spark of the divine that makes us human.

It's all about control and distrust of people's ability to make decisions for themselves.

The pharmacists and doctors involved need to get out of the business. Contraception prevents abortions -- their ignorance and narrow-mindedness are nothing short of disgusting.

Hekate

[applegrove]

2. In Quebec today they announced that nurses can now prescribe

birth control pills (you just have to see a doctor in 3 months). The reason? The rate of teen pregnancies went up.

And yes the nurses have to lecture them on safe sex too.

[Avalon Sparks]

3. And what if a women keeps miscarrying....

Some women miscarry everytime they get pregnant. It's called multiple miscarriages. Mostly it happens to women trying to get pregnant in the first place. Some women know they are going to miscarry (due to hormone testing) and just have to wait until it happens - sometimes a week to 3 weeks. Other times they have to have a D&C to either force the miscarriage or clean out what's left so infection doesn't settle in.

But the wear and tear on the body and mind over and over again? I've read some stories recently that would break your heart.

At some point, maybe these women say enough, and they just can't do it anymore and they decide to adopt or something.

Should these women not be allowed to take the pill so theirr body doesn't have to keep going through it again and again?

Or should they just never have sex again?

I had a miscarriage recently, and damn everything about it was hard physically and emotionally. I had to wait a week for it to happen and words cannot describe how much it sucked.

I did a lot of research in the meantime about miscarriage and it got me thinking about the birth control pill and these doctors and pharmicists.

My husband and I are going to try again, but if this were to happen again and maybe a third time.... there is no way I'd keep putting myself through this and it's straight back to the pill.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

11. Sorry about your loss

:hug:

[Skittles]

4. I tell you if I ever run into one of these sick reliigious freaks

I will raise holy hell - pun intended

[rodeodance]

6. and our government at the Fed level has been mute. But if they do step

in, i am afraid of the outcome.

[Skittles]

7. I am disgusted they are allowing these religious FREAKS such power

90% of women of childbearing age use birth control and we are held hostage by FREAKS? It is UNBELIEVABLE.

[SharonAnn]

15. Many of these women are voting for Republicans. They must not

realize that they're voting for the rights to be taken away from them.

[TommyO]

8. A poll from Pharmacists for Life:

Just to see a bit more of what these people are about, I visited the PLFI.org website and found this very interesting (in a very bad way) poll:

Should pharmacists be forced by the government to dispense any medication,

No, this violates our religious freedoms in America

No, but they should refer them since they are mind-numbed order takers anyway

Yes, I prefer to deal with people with no morals or ethics


It says everything you need to know about this particular group of "pharmacists"

[Shallah Kali]

9. Petition against this & more

Tell pharmacy chains to stop discriminating against women!
Target: Walgreens Pharmacies ; Eckerd Pharmacies ; RiteAid Pharmacies ; CVS Pharmacies ; Wal-Mart Pharmacies
Sponsor: NARAL Prochoice America
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/792375278

Also send a letter directly to the pharmacies here:

Tell pharmacy chains to stop discriminating against women
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/pharmacy_petition_web

Tell Congress to protect your access to birth control
It should be easy for women to get birth control. But the reality is, no thanks to the anti-choice movement, that women across the country are getting refused when they go to the pharmacy to get their birth control prescriptions filled.

A group of pro-choice members of Congress - Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), and others - introduced a bill to ensure that women can get their birth control prescriptions filled - without intimidation, inconvenience, or delay. Please send an email to your federal lawmakers today. Help us put a stop to the far-right’s anti-birth control agenda by taking action today!
http://prochoiceaction.org/campaign/congress_alpha_041804

Another petition:
Urge Congress to Put Prevention First
Target: Your U.S. Senator
Sponsor: NARAL Pro-Choice America
SIGNATURES: 6,938

GOAL: 10,000

DEADLINE: 5-10-2005

By increasing access to family planning and creating the nation's first-ever federal sex education program, the new "Putting Prevention First Act" would improve women's health, prevent unintended pregnancies and reduce the need for abortion.

The Putting Prevention First Act is a comprehensive package of bills that will improve access to contraception, family-planning services and sex education. Specifically, the bill:

*increases funding for the national family planning program, Title X;
* expands Medicaid family-planning services for more low-income women;

* ensures that health plans that cover prescription drugs also cover contraceptives;

* funds emergency contraception (EC) public-education campaigns for doctors and women;

* ensures that hospital emergency rooms offer EC to victims of sexual assault;

* and establishes the nation’s first-ever federal sex-education program.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/893809992

[Shallah Kali]

10. Verrrrry interesting info on Pharmacists for Life leader Karen Brauer -

http://riffle.blogspot.com/2005/04/karen-l-brauer-pharmacist-for-life.html

[Lydia Leftcoast]

12. Grrr, one of the uses of birth control pills

is to control excessive menstrual bleeding in premenopausal women.

If I had ever met up with one of those holier-than-thou pharmacists I probably would have told them something like, "If you're going to force your religious values on me in a drugstore, I'm going to go to your church and sell condoms."

[Kerrytravelers]

13. What really gets me, and I'm going to get a bit personal here,

but long before taking the pill would have cause a "silent" abortion in me, I was perscribed the pills for extremly painful and heavy monthly cycles. They were very bad, causing me to miss school and stay awake all night. I was in a lot of pain. Finally, a gyno perscribed the pill and it was like a miracle.

So, these people deny women, or in my case at the time, a teenager, a perscription to ease pain? It changed my life in sucha profound and positive way.

How unbelievably offensive and degrading to women.

[libodem]

14. That can only mean more abortions

hope they like supporting that. There has to be some pressure from the top of some religious or political organization. Margaret Sanger is my hero. Why are we going backward with womens' rights?

[cookiebird]

16. Interference

Don't states have laws against 3rd parties interfering in the doctor--patient relationship? It seems pretty obvious that these "moral" pharmacists are doing exactly that--disrupting the physician/patient relationship.

[wallwriter]

17. WHat a bunch of psychotic freaks

But do you hear word one about Viagra, etc?