On a Saturday in Menomonie, Wisconsin, Jane1returned to her neighborhood drugstore to refill her birth control prescription, which she needed to begin taking the following day. The pharmacist on duty asked personal questions of Jane, including whether she used the medication for contraceptive purposes. When Jane acknowledged that this was indeed her objective, the pharmacist refused to refill the prescription because of his religious beliefs. When she asked where her prescription could be refilled, the pharmacist refused to answer. He went further –he refused to transfer the prescription so that it could be filled elsewhere. It was- n’t until Monday, when another pharmacist came on duty, that Jane received her birth control pills, two days after requesting the refill and one day after she was scheduled to take her next pill.2

Angela3faced an unexpected struggle to prevent a pregnancy after a condom brokeon a Fourth of Julyweekend in Cleveland, Ohio. She did not have her own doctor and the local family planning clinic was closed. At 2:00 a.m., at the nearest hospital’s emergency room, the attending physician refused to provide emergency contraception – a concentrated dose of birth control pills that can prevent a preg- nancy – and he also refused to provide a referral to another source. “What should Ido then?” Angela asked in a panic. The physician responded, “I don’t know. You should have thought about that before.” A nurse who overheard the conversation tried to help. She told Angela to contact a second hospital. But the staff there informed Angela that the hospital only offers emergency contraception to sexual assault victims. Finally, a physician at a third hospital agreed to call in a prescrip- tion to the local pharmacy. But at the pharmacy, the pharmacist told Angela that the store did not stock emergency contraception. Undeterred, Angela called the prescribing physician, who spoke with the pharmacist and convinced her to dis- pense the contraception.4

When Beth5went to the CVS/pharmacy in Coventry, Rhode Island, to fill her pre- scription for emergency contraception, the pharmacist on duty did not give her the medication she sought. Instead, the pharmacistgaveBeth the options of returning the next day or traveling to another CVS/pharmacy.6Following this incident, the corporate office of CVS/pharmacy, the largest pharmacy retailer in the United States, worked with Planned Parenthood Federation of America to create a nation- wide policy that guarantees that all women will be able to fill their prescriptions for emergency contraception at their own CVS/pharmacy, while trying wherever pos- sible to honor an individual pharmacist’s religious objection.7

Thus opens the ACLU's Final Report entitled Religious Refusals and Reproductive Rights: Accessing Birth Control at the Pharmacy (pdf).

Because the ACLU defends civil liberties, it is a staunch defender of religious freedom. (Don't let the right-wing christianist fundamentalist goon squad convince you otherwise.) Therefore, this report is likely to make nobody 100% happy.

It doesn't make me happy. My feeling is that if you're a state-licensed provider of essential healthcare services, you're obligated to provide those services as indicated by a doctor. Firefighters don't get to pick and choose which houses they want to save from fire, paramedics don't get to pick and choose which heart-attack victims they'll resuscitate.

"I think you live an immoral life, so your house can burn!"

Same goes for a pharmacist, in my view. But the ACLU points out that religious freedom allows for personal exceptions. People can let others burn, figuratively, if their religion allows for it. The ACLU says that the refusing pharmacist must, however, at least provide information for alternative ways for the patient to have her prescription filled.

For anyone interested in this topic, this ACLU report is well worth a read.

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