Well, here is the next step in the God-complex infecting the pharmacists here in north Texas. Enough is ENOUGH.
I've had it with pharmacists imposing their moral code on everyone else. Her belated comment that BC pills "cause cancer" was too convenient, too inaccurate, and too late.
Where does it goes next?? Does the pimply faced teenager at McDonald's get to refuse to serve a Quarter Pounder to an overweight person and insist that he have a salad instead?
http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/news...lls.62c30.html
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Pharmacist refuses to refill birth control
Area woman denied pill in what some fear is becoming trend
12:41 PM CST on Wednesday, March 31, 2004
By GRETEL C. KOVACH / The Dallas Morning News
A pharmacist refused to fill a North Richland Hills woman's prescription for birth-control pills this week, but the woman hopes her experience will provoke an examination of pharmacists' power over patient care.
Julee Lacey, 32, a first-grade teacher and mother of two, ran out of birth-control pills Sunday night and went to her local CVS pharmacy for a last-minute refill. The new pharmacist at the branch told her, "I'm sorry, but I personally do not believe in birth control, so I will not fill your prescription," Mrs. Lacey recalled.
Her husband and the assistant manager could not persuade the pharmacist to change her mind.
When pressed, the pharmacist added that birth-control pills "cause cancer."
"I think my doctor should make these decisions," Mrs. Lacey said. "If they're going to decide not to do birth-control pills, where are they going to draw the line?"
CVS officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but a company spokesman told KXAS-TV (Channel 5) that a pharmacist who cannot fill a prescription because of a deeply held belief should ask another pharmacist to do so or call a competing store, if needed.
The incident may stoke a national debate that has put pharmacists on the front lines of the abortion issue.
In January, Eckerd drugstores fired a Denton pharmacist and two co-workers for refusing to sell the "morning-after" emergency contraceptive to a woman identified as a rape victim.
A Wisconsin state agency filed a complaint this month against a pharmacist who refused to fill a woman's birth-control prescription at a Kmart store in 2002, saying he also declined to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy.
Officials at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which dispenses contraception and medical care, including abortions, decried what appeared to be "a dangerous trend" and called birth-control pills "basic health care."
But Elizabeth Graham, director of the Houston-based Texas Right to Life Committee, has said pharmacists have a moral right to refuse to fill some prescriptions.
According to the Texas State Board of Pharmacy, pharmacists may decline to fill prescriptions if they might harm patients, but not on moral grounds.
The Denton firings inspired pending legislation in several states that would shield pharmacists from losing their jobs if they refuse to prescribe the emergency contraception.
But federal officials and several states are also considering laws to make such pills available without a prescription.
Mrs. Lacey said she plans to file a complaint against the pharmacist.
A CVS employee delivered Mrs. Lacey's prescription to her home the next night.
But she is concerned that other women, who may have been prescribed birth-control pills to treat endometriosis or cysts, will be at the mercy of pharmacists' personal convictions.
"A lot of doctors don't believe in transplants," she added. "Where will this go?"
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
E-mail
gkovach@dallasnews.com
Remember the pharmacist problem in Texas?
Just wait till the pharmacists start asking to see your marriage license before dispensing your Viagara prescription!
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