News Item

Ten states--Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and Wisconsin--are considering passing laws that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions legally written by licensed physicians if the pharmacist objects to the medication on moral or religious grounds. While these laws theoretically could apply to any prescription, in practice, your pharmacist is not likely to have a moral objection to, say, antibiotics or your blood pressure medication. In reality, these laws (already on the books in the progressive bastions of Arkansas and South Dakota) are used to exempt pharmacists from dispensing birth control or the morning after pill to women.

Bluntly, ten states are planning to allow the people who control the dispensing of medicine to say, "I don't believe in birth control, so you can't use it" to the approximately 17% of women ages 15-44 who use oral contraceptives. The pharmacists are supposed to refer the patient to another pharmacist or pharmacy if they have objections to the medication. Thus, a pharmacist's personal beliefs will place the onus on a patient to drive all over town in search of their legal, prescribed pharmaceuticals--that is, provided that the patient lives in an area where more than one pharmacy is available that is covered by her prescription drug plan.

I have a better idea. Allow pharmacists to not dispense medications that they object to morally; however, any pharmacy that employs a pharmacist who refuses to dispense any medication must, upon hiring said pharmacist, mail notice to any customer who has those prescriptions with that pharmacy to tell the customers that the pharmacy may not be able to fill their prescriptions at certain times. Further, the pharmacy should be required to post at their entrance a list of medications that may not be available and the times that the refusing pharmacist is on duty. That would allow people to know before they enter whether that pharmacy would be able to fill their prescription or if they should save time and go to a competing pharmacy. It's really a matter of full disclosure of available services to patients. Sure, such notification requirements might have the side effect of making certain pharmacists less desirable in the job pool, as the employing pharmacy would know that those pharmacists are not willing to do all the same work as other job candidates. Then again, maybe certain patients would decide to patronize certain pharmacies if they know that the pharmacist will not dispense prescriptions that they, too, find morally objectionable.

I don't often agree with the National Organization of Women, but I think their VP has a point: if a pharmacist has a problem with prescription birth control, don't refer the patient to a new pharmacy; refer the pharmacist to a new occupation. A huge part of their job is providing access to medications that must be dispensed by prescription only, and if they will only do that half-assedly, maybe they should go into automotive repair.