What would you think if your advisor refused to give you a RAC number unless you signed up to take a class he was teaching? How would you feel if your waitress refused to serve you anything except her favorite dish? Would it be any different than your pharmacist refusing to fill your birth control prescription because he or she is morally opposed to it?
The consequences in the first two situations are clear: the advisor would be reprimanded and the waitress would be fired. However, the third situation is not as cut-and-dry; there are laws across the nation that protect a pharmacist for doing exactly what I described above. Should there be laws protecting a cashier for refusing to sell condoms to men?
So-called conscience clauses are popping up in the United States; so no matter your zip code-the next time you stop by Walgreen’s for your oral contraception, you may end up heading home with a box of Trojans instead.
I find this unacceptable. When I go into a business, I have a certain expectation of service. If I go to Taco Bell wanting a beef burrito, and the server refuses to give me any food containing meat because she is a vegetarian, then I would be quite angry. The same applies to this situation. If I have money to pay for a service or product that a business offers to the public, I do not expect an employee of that business to stop me from purchasing the service or product.
Maybe I am being unreasonable. Maybe it’s a lot more sensible to allow the pharmacist (in this case) to decide what’s best for me. However, I’d expect the 95 percent of women who will use a form of birth control to say that I’m not being unreasonable.
Nonetheless, we are fighting an uphill battle. If pharmacists are allowed to refuse prescriptions based on moral grounds, then where is the boundary?
For example, some Christian Scientists believe in healing through prayer alone. It follows, then, that a Christian Scientist pharmacist might refuse to fill any prescriptions. Tell that to the mother whose child has epilepsy. Or maybe to the father of three with high blood pressure. Better yet, let them refuse to give chemotherapy treatments to a child with leukemia. Birth control pills can provide numerous health benefits to women. How can we allow pharmacists to refuse these prescriptions? Especially when it is for women who need it for reasons other than pregnancy prevention?
The “Access to Legal Pharmaceuticals Act” was introduced in the House earlier this year, and a similar piece of legislation was brought up in the Senate (check it out at www.theorator.com). The sponsors of the two pieces of legislation hope to compel pharmacists to fill all prescriptions presented to them.
Unfortunately, both bills sit in committee now, gathering dust as pharmacists across the United States impose their superior morals on their heathen customers.
Hopefully, one day these bills will be the law of the land. In the meantime, I encourage everyone to join the “Shut up and give me my birth control” movement.