When your pharmacist is allowed to tell you 'no'

It should make you really angry. This makes me see red. I am pissed off, not for myself, but for any woman who is now faced with having her trust in an institution that is part of our primary health care system betrayed.

We go to a doctor for our health. We invest trust in that relationship. Inextricably tied to that trust is the relationship to a pharmacy that will fill a prescription from that doctor. We trust that the pharmacy may even catch an error.  

Who could have possibly foreseen a time when the pharmacist would abnegate his or her part of the health partnership, and work against our health instead of protecting it?

This unethical blight is spreading across the nation. It has been years in the making but is perhaps finally beginning to sink in to our consciousness, and I am posting the RX sign blood red as a flag of danger.  

Warning.  

You can no longer trust certain members of the profession to uphold their ethical oaths.

Last week it was Kansas, where senators voted 23 to 16 to approve a bill that would give pharmacists the right to refuse to fill a prescription for anything they "believe" may terminate a pregnancy. The bill's language is so loose that it gives license to pharmacists to refuse to dispense the morning after pill, which is not an abortifacient. Frankly, I wouldn't give a damn if it were.

In recent years, the proliferation of right-wing zealots who are pharmacists is on the rise. There are pharmacies in the U.S. that will not sell condoms or anything related to birth control. The state legislatures that have adopted "conscience clauses" are growing in number.

This goes hand in hand with the betrayal in medical schools, many of which fail to teach OB/GYN students how to do certain crucial procedures related to pregnancy termination. Pushing back against this are groups like Medical Students for Choice, but they need our help.

Years ago I warned my students that their right to birth control was under attack. Few heeded that warning at the time. Now that it is coming to pass, will we be able to reverse these betrayals?

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