Anti-Choice's newest weapon: Pharmacies.

[SirNitram]

Link

When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

That's because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John's and a Kmart, will be a "pro-life pharmacy" -- meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.

The pharmacy is one of a small but growing number of drugstores around the country that have become the latest front in a conflict pitting patients' rights against those of health-care workers who assert a "right of conscience" to refuse to provide care or products that they find objectionable.

"The United States was founded on the idea that people act on their conscience -- that they have a sense of right and wrong and do what they think is right and moral," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Society, a Chicago public-interest law firm that is defending a pharmacist who was fined and reprimanded for refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. "Every pharmacist has the right to do the same thing," Brejcha said.

But critics say the stores could create dangerous obstacles for women seeking legal, safe and widely used birth control methods.

"I'm very, very troubled by this," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. "Contraception is essential for women's health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women's health."

The pharmacies are emerging at a time when a variety of health-care workers are refusing to perform medical procedures they find objectionable. Fertility doctors have refused to inseminate gay women. Ambulance drivers have refused to transport patients for abortions. Anesthesiologists have refused to assist in sterilizations.

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The most common, widely publicized conflicts have involved pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, morning-after pills and other forms of contraception. They say they believe that such methods can cause what amounts to an abortion and that the contraceptives promote promiscuity, divorce, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and other societal woes. The result has been confrontations that have left women traumatized and resulted in pharmacists being fired, fined or reprimanded.

In response, some pharmacists have stopped carrying the products or have opened pharmacies that do not stock any.

"This allows a pharmacist who does not wish to be involved in stopping a human life in any way to practice in a way that feels comfortable," said Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life International, which promotes a pharmacist's right to refuse to fill such prescriptions. The group's Web site lists seven pharmacies around the country that have signed a pledge to follow "pro-life" guidelines, but Brauer said there are many others.

"It's just the tip of the iceberg," she said. "And there's new ones happening all the time."

Some pro-life pharmacies are identical to typical drugstores except that they do not stock some or all forms of contraception. Others also refuse to sell tobacco, rolling papers or pornography. Many offer "alternative" products, including individually compounded prescription drugs, as well as vitamins and homeopathic and herbal remedies.

"We try to practice pharmacy in a way that we feel is best to help our community and promote healthy lifestyles," said Lloyd Duplantis, who owns Lloyd's Remedies in Gray, La., and is a deacon in his Catholic church. "After researching the science behind steroidal contraceptives, I decided they could hurt the woman and possibly hurt her unborn child. I decided to opt out."

Some critics question how such pharmacies justify carrying drugs, such as Viagra, for male reproductive issues, but not those for women.

"Why do you care about the sexual health of men but not women?" asked Anita L. Nelson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "If he gets his Viagra, why can't she get her contraception?"

The DMC Pharmacy opening in August marks an expansion by Divine Mercy Care in Fairfax, a nonprofit health-care organization that adheres to the teachings of the Catholic Church. The group runs the Tepeyac Family Center, an obstetrics-gynecology practice in Fairfax that offers "natural family planning" instead of contraceptives, sterilization or abortion.

"We're trying not to leave our faith at the door," said John Bruchalski, who chairs the group's board of directors, noting that one of the organization's major goals is helping needy, uninsured patients obtain health care. "We're trying to create an environment where belief and professionalism come together."

Like the doctors, nurses and other staff members at Tepeyac, Robert Semler, the pharmacist who will run DMC Pharmacy, plans to start each workday with a prayer with his staff, which at first will just be his wife, Pam, a nurse.

"Being a faith-based workplace, it's a logical thing to do," Semler said.

Bioethicists disagree about the pharmacies. Some argue that they are consistent with national values that accommodate a spectrum of beliefs.

"In general, I think product differentiation expressive of differing values is a very good thing for a free, pluralistic society," said Loren E. Lomasky, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "If we can have 20 different brands of toothpaste, why not a few different conceptions of how pharmacies ought to operate?"

Others maintain that pharmacists, like other professionals, have a responsibility to put their patients' needs ahead of their personal beliefs.

"If you are a health-care professional, you are bound by professional obligations," said Nancy Berlinger, deputy director of the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y. "You can't say you won't do part of that profession."

California, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington state recently began requiring pharmacies to fill all prescriptions or help women fill them elsewhere, and at least another 10 states are considering such requirements. But some states exempt pharmacies that do not generally stock contraceptives, and it is unclear how other existing rules and laws and those being considered would apply to those pharmacies.

"These are uncharted waters, since the issue of so-called pro-life pharmacies are so new," said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit organization that researches reproductive issues.

Virginia does not have any laws or regulations that would prohibit a pro-life pharmacy, and is not considering adopting any, according to the Virginia Board of Pharmacy.

Critics also worry that women might unsuspectingly seek contraceptives at such a store and be humiliated, or that women needing the morning-after pill, which is most effective when used quickly, may waste precious time.

"Rape victims could end up in a pharmacy not understanding this pharmacy will not meet their needs," Greenberger said. "We've seen an alarming development of pharmacists over the last several years refusing to fill prescriptions, and sometimes even taking the prescription from the woman and refusing to give it back to her so she can fill it in another pharmacy."

Pharmacists at eight pro-life drugstores contacted by The Washington Post said they would not actively interfere with a woman trying to fill a prescription elsewhere, but none posts signs announcing restrictions or offers to help women get what they need elsewhere.

"If I don't believe something is right, the last thing I want to do is refer to someone else," said Michael G. Koelzer, who owns Kay Pharmacy in Grand Rapids, Mich. "It's up to that person to be able to find it."

Semler, at DMC Pharmacy, said he does not feel that will be an impediment.

"We just say there are other pharmacies in the area they can go to," he said, noting that the Kmart across the parking lot has a pharmacy and that there are several other national chains nearby. "We're not threatening anybody. We're just trying to serve a niche market of like-minded individuals."

But others worry about what will happen if such pharmacies proliferate, especially in rural areas.

"We may find ourselves with whole regions of the country where virtually every pharmacy follows these limiting, discriminatory policies and women are unable to access legal, physician-prescribed medications," said R. Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin lawyer and bioethicist. "We're talking about creating a separate universe of pharmacies that puts women at a disadvantage."

Folks, it was never about abortion. It is about controlling sex. But I'm probably preaching to the choir; most of SDN probably grokked that ages ago.

[Guardsman Bass]

Of course it's bullshit, particularly if it's the only pharmacy within a reasonable area. I don't see what you can do about it, though; there's technically nothing that's stopping a private business like a pharmacy from acting in such a way.

[KlavoHunter]

I won't shop at such a place, that's for certain.

[Flagg]

Of course it's bullshit, particularly if it's the only pharmacy within a reasonable area. I don't see what you can do about it, though; there's technically nothing that's stopping a private business like a pharmacy from acting in such a way.

Yes there is. It's called a license. Simply make it a requirement of the licenses that pharmacies must carry all legal drugs and pharmacists must fill all legally obtained prescriptions. If you have some moral issue with that then get into roofing.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Of course it's bullshit, particularly if it's the only pharmacy within a reasonable area. I don't see what you can do about it, though; there's technically nothing that's stopping a private business like a pharmacy from acting in such a way.

Yes there is. It's called a license. Simply make it a requirement of the licenses that pharmacies must carry all legal drugs and pharmacists must fill all legally obtained prescriptions. If you have some moral issue with that then get into roofing.

And as said in the article :

California, New Jersey, Illinois and Washington state recently began requiring pharmacies to fill all prescriptions or help women fill them elsewhere, and at least another 10 states are considering such requirements.

So yes, they can be and in some places have been required to actually do their job.

[Guardsman Bass]

Of course it's bullshit, particularly if it's the only pharmacy within a reasonable area. I don't see what you can do about it, though; there's technically nothing that's stopping a private business like a pharmacy from acting in such a way.

Yes there is. It's called a license. Simply make it a requirement of the licenses that pharmacies must carry all legal drugs and pharmacists must fill all legally obtained prescriptions. If you have some moral issue with that then get into roofing.

Ah, I forgot about the "license" issue.

[The Spartan]

When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

That's because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John's and a Kmart, will be a "pro-life pharmacy" -- meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.

Disgusting.

Absolutely, thoroughly disgusting.

I can understand the Plan B emergency contraceptive objections on some level. I disagree but I can understand not wanting to have them.

But condoms and birth control pills? Fuck you sideways you puritanical assholes. Like Flagg said, get into roofing or something. Jesus Christ I am so angry right now and this is just throwing fuel on the fire.

[Einhander Sn0m4n]

Folks, it was never about abortion. It is about controlling sex. But I'm probably preaching to the choir; most of SDN probably grokked that ages ago.

Yes we have.

Speaking of venereal diseases, I found this in Dan Savage's latest column:

Straight rights update: As I mentioned a few months ago, a vaccine for two of the most common strains of HPV, the virus that causes genital warts, is currently moving through the federal approval process. HPV can also cause cervical cancer in women, and the cancers caused by the virus kill 4,000 American women every year. Who could possibly be against the introduction of a vaccine — one that has proven 100 percent effective in clinical tests! — that will save thousands of women’s lives every year? Those “culture of life” assfucks, that’s who.

“A new vaccine that protects against cervical cancer has set up a clash between health advocates [and] social conservatives who say immunizing teenagers could encourage sexual activity,” the Washington Post reported last week. Doctors want teenage girls to receive the vaccine as a matter of routine when they hit puberty, something the religious right opposes. “Because the vaccine protects against a sexually transmitted virus, many conservatives oppose making it mandatory, citing fears that it could send a subtle message condoning sexual activity before marriage. ... ‘I’ve talked to some who have said, “This is going to sabotage our abstinence message,”’ said Gene Rudd, associate executive director of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.” (To his credit, Rudd said he would want his daughters vaccinated.)

The right’s abstinence message has bigger problems than this vaccine. Studies have shown that young men and women are still having premarital sex — no shit — despite the billions of dollars the Bush administration has poured into abstinence education. A study conducted at Texas A&M University found that kids who’ve been subjected to abstinence-only sex education, the right’s preferred brand, have more sex than kids who aren’t subjected to abstinence-only sex education. So what the right is saying is this: We’re willing to kill American women in order to avoid “sabotaging” our ineffectual abstinence-only message. Nice.

Who ultimately gets to determine the government’s position on the HPV vaccine? Thanks to George W. Bush, the Christian fundies do. From the Washington Post: “The jockeying [around the HPV vaccine] reflects the growing influence social conservatives, who had long felt overlooked by Washington, have gained on a broad spectrum of policy issues under the Bush administration. In this case, a former member of the conservative group Focus on the Family serves on the federal panel that is playing a pivotal role in deciding how the vaccine is used.” W stands for women — that’s what he told us when he ran for president. But, hey, it wasn’t a lie. George W. Bush never said anything about standing for live women.

I’ve said it before, straight folks, and I’ll say it again: The right-wingers and the fundies and the sex-phobes don’t just have it in for the queers. They’re coming for your asses too.

It's already common knowledge that Fundies want sex to be as dangerous, inconvenient, and consequential as possible. They've already proven time and again they'd rather have innocents die horrible deaths than enjoy their own bodies with each other.

[Tsyroc]

I did like the idea of some drug stores making the choice to not cary tobacco.

All the newer Walgreens stores around here have been built without the extra liquor store section. Those stores don't sell any alcoholic drinks at all. I always thought it was amazing that drug stores would have tobacco and alcohol at the front of the store but you'd have to go all the way to the back to get to the pharmacy.


Around here I haven't heard of any pharmacies going so far as the ones in the article. We're kind of saturated with chains though, CVS, Walgreens, Fry's, Wal-Mart, Cost-Co, and even Target. There's probably enough Bible thumpers down here that if someone opened a pharmacy that targeted the wack job Christians (the no birth control etc... like the article) they'd probably get enough business to survive but I can't see them expanding too easily.

I have heard that there are a lot of stores which won't carry Plan B. Some it's because of the beliefs of the managing pharmacist. Other's it's just because it can be a pain in the ass with the other employees or protest groups. Walgreens has at least a few stores in town that carry it and I'm pretty sure that CVS does as well.

We definitely have it at our hospital. I'm not sure if our outpatient pharmacy carries it, they probably do, but it is a standard stock item in two of the automatic dispensing machines we have in our ER. (What's really creepy is that one of those machines is in our Children's ER).

[CaptainZoidberg]

I've never really understood why some Pro-Life people oppose the morning after pill. How can you give the fetus personhood before it has a functioning brain?

IMO the more moderate Pro-Lifers who are against 2nd/3rd trimester abortions need to split off from the nutcases who hate all birth control.

[SirNitram]

I've never really understood why some Pro-Life people oppose the morning after pill. How can you give the fetus personhood before it has a functioning brain?

IMO the more moderate Pro-Lifers who are against 2nd/3rd trimester abortions need to split off from the nutcases who hate all birth control.

You assume there are such moderates, I really do wonder if they exist. But the reason is simple: IT IS NOT ABOUT THE FETUS. IT IS ABOUT CONTROLLING SEX.

See: Purity Ball.

[Kanastrous]

I am just about slobbering for the first case in which a pharmacist concerned about animal welfare, refuses to prescribe medicines produced using animal products.

That'll wipe out, what? A quarter of the pharmacopeia?

Or the first case in which a pharmacist with environmentalist leanings, decides against filling scrips for medicines from companies owned by polluting corporations.

That should be good for, what? Another third? Maybe half?

Or maybe a socially-conscious pharmacist who won't issue meds because they're made using materials bought from totalitarian or police states.

I seriously want these cases to come along, because I suspect that courts would have no trouble censuring pharmacists who did that, which in turn would kind of wipe out arguments in favor of allowing fundie pharmacists to decide others' medical care, based upon their beliefs.

[Mayabird]

More specifically, it's not just about the sex, but about controlling women's sexuality, which is a subset of controlling women. They don't want the woman enjoying it, they want the women to be virgins, they want the woman helpless and having to stay at home with no education or job and be completely dependent upon them. The men gotta be on top or else they can't handle it. It's a neurosis.

I wonder if it's related to their disgust with male homosexuals (cue quote from that imbecile in California: "Men kissing men! EWWW!") while they don't give a flip about lesbians (the imbecile didn't even think about women kissing women, after all, and all the focus was on men getting married to other men). Can't have a man in a woman's position, being married to a man. Or maybe I'm wrong about this. Anybody have ideas here?

[Kanastrous]

I'm willing to take these characters at face-value, when they blather about it all revolving around the "baby."

That's retrograde and foolish enough, for me.

Specifically why they want to interfere with any given woman's medical care is only of academic interest to me: no matter what their rationale, it's equally unacceptable.

[Kanastrous]

ghetto edit - by entertaining the why of their nonsense, it seems to me that one is offering the possibility that maybe somehow their nonsense could merit consideration, if it's the right nonsense...

[Mayabird]

I try to figure out whys not to let them have an excuse, but to figure out how to best counter them, destroy the reasons, and generalize their behavior and beliefs. For instance, I can see these same types bleating that women aren't as good at math and science as boys and then pushing their daughters to take home ec and dancing instead of Physics.

[Shroom Man 777]

They might not even consciously realize that. They'd be thinking that it's for the good of the women because... because it's good! Such cultural idiocy has been so ingrained in our culture that it self-propagates and these blokes just do it for the sake of doing it. Sort of like a whole lot of other forms of conservatism, I guess.

It's the momentum of millennia of cavemen bludgeoning each other over their heads, crucifying one another and burning one another in stakes for reasons ranging from having different forms of Cro-Magnon unibrows to believing in different gods, or no gods, or socialized medicine.

This dickishness stems from the time when Men Hunt Animal, Women Stay in Cave. Conservatism means that we must follow the traditional values of our forefathers from the good old days when they ran around naked hunting mastodons while living in shit-filled caves.

If we had cultural paleontologists, they'd be astounded at the sheer numbers of living fossils. The GOP would be, like, a giant school of Coelacanths. Or dodos.

[Aaron]

Yes there is. It's called a license. Simply make it a requirement of the licenses that pharmacies must carry all legal drugs and pharmacists must fill all legally obtained prescriptions. If you have some moral issue with that then get into roofing.

Expel the pharmacist from the College as well, once a few of them get axed maybe the rest will shut up. After all you can't work if you aren't actually certified.

[FireNexus]

I've never really understood why some Pro-Life people oppose the morning after pill. How can you give the fetus personhood before it has a functioning brain?

IMO the more moderate Pro-Lifers who are against 2nd/3rd trimester abortions need to split off from the nutcases who hate all birth control.

You assume there are such moderates, I really do wonder if they exist. But the reason is simple: IT IS NOT ABOUT THE FETUS. IT IS ABOUT CONTROLLING SEX.

See: Purity Ball.

I'm against third trimester abortion. Second trimester makes me a little less comfortable than first. But birth control, condoms, abortion during the first trimester? Go nuts. Hell, my girlfriend just got an IUD, and it's the best thing ever to happen to me.

I guess unlike the pro-lifers, I actually am against murder, rather than for controlling sexuality.

[Alyrium Denryle]

More specifically, it's not just about the sex, but about controlling women's sexuality, which is a subset of controlling women. They don't want the woman enjoying it, they want the women to be virgins, they want the woman helpless and having to stay at home with no education or job and be completely dependent upon them. The men gotta be on top or else they can't handle it. It's a neurosis.

I wonder if it's related to their disgust with male homosexuals (cue quote from that imbecile in California: "Men kissing men! EWWW!") while they don't give a flip about lesbians (the imbecile didn't even think about women kissing women, after all, and all the focus was on men getting married to other men). Can't have a man in a woman's position, being married to a man. Or maybe I'm wrong about this. Anybody have ideas here?

Just like rapists, and people who give rapists a pass, they are trying to maximize their reproductive success. Think of it like sexually antagonistic selection. Abortion, contraception, they are all tools that allow women to better time their offspring, because despite the fact that a woman's body does have some control over ovulation time, and this is tied to mate quality and environmental conditions, it is not perfect.

However, because men have a lower cost in this (less investment in their offspring should they wish it) the female actually being able to control when and with who they have kids is detrimental to their fitness.

So it sets up an evolutionary arms race, each sex trying to maximize their fitness against the other. Of course, because this aspect of the conflict is cultural and the means of transmittance memetic, and because the benefit/Cost ratio is low... You get a nice ongoing contest eventually in favor of the pro-choicers. Not that the pro-life bitches dont try...

[Eulogy]

I move that in order to aviod confusion and remove obsfusicating bullshit, I move that the terms "pro-life" and "pro-choice" be renamed to "pro-misery-and-counterprogress" and "pro-happiness-and-progress", respectively.

Well, I suppose this could be better if the terms weren't a mouthful.

[Knife]

Of course it's bullshit, particularly if it's the only pharmacy within a reasonable area. I don't see what you can do about it, though; there's technically nothing that's stopping a private business like a pharmacy from acting in such a way.

Yes there is. It's called a license. Simply make it a requirement of the licenses that pharmacies must carry all legal drugs and pharmacists must fill all legally obtained prescriptions. If you have some moral issue with that then get into roofing.

Fuck that, how about we put that on the pharmacists license, not the store. If you're going to distribute meds, you must be willing to distribute all meds.

[PeZook]

I have another observation: Why is it that idiots always use the "America was founded on..." argument to justify their positions?

What does it prove? Europe was founded by slave-driving expansionist xenophobes with a knack for engineering and administration ; Does it mean I get to use that argument in favor of me buying a slave?

Some uses of that sentence are worse than others, but in and of itself it's a shitty argument, no different than "It's tradition that we do this"

[CaptainZoidberg]

You assume there are such moderates, I really do wonder if they exist. But the reason is simple: IT IS NOT ABOUT THE FETUS. IT IS ABOUT CONTROLLING SEX.

Well, if it were 100% about controlling sex and 0% about the fetus, then why do they use those pictures of aborted fetuses to protest? You could say that the people protesting know that such a message will sell better than "Don't have sex", but why would they use the tactic at all if there weren't moderate Pro-Life people who would be swayed by it?

What fetus? Fertilization doesn't even occur until a couple days afterward. What those pills do is muck up that process, preventing anything from being formed at all.

I phrased that poorly. I meant to ask why they would want to protect the rights of anything before the fetal stage where there's a significant brain. I'd imagine that they're just woefully ignorant and think that there's something resembling a full human being from day one.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Of course it's bullshit, particularly if it's the only pharmacy within a reasonable area. I don't see what you can do about it, though; there's technically nothing that's stopping a private business like a pharmacy from acting in such a way.

Yes there is. It's called a license. Simply make it a requirement of the licenses that pharmacies must carry all legal drugs and pharmacists must fill all legally obtained prescriptions. If you have some moral issue with that then get into roofing.

yup, thank you. I know someone who was a pharmacy delivery "boy" during the 50s and recalled the level of harrassment his employer experienced from the local mormons and other fundies for supplying birth control pills to people who had perscriptions for treatment of "PMS" symptoms.