This does strike at how medication is regulated. For instance there is a licensing requirement that pain medication has to be dispensed within 24 to 48 hours once an M.D. has order it and anyone that fails to adhear to these quidelines can be fined and/or found deficit by these standards. I think it unlikely that every medication requires this level of regulation but time sensitive issues should be addressed at the physical level, not while you are standing in line at a pharmacy.

If you want to decrease abortions then you have to consider better options for unintended pregnancy, like family support.

If pharmacists 'of faith' will refuse to prescribe contraceptives, its not a stretch to see that perhaps Doctors 'of faith' who work in these big-box religious institution-owned hospitals may be quietly not aggressively treating or maybe even withholding treatment from people who are considered undesirables.

It wasn't all that long ago that women were not treated the same by doctors, and minorities still suffer less-than-equal treatment in hospitals. Not to mentioned the 20-something people who were euthanized in a New Orleans hospital by their doctor during Katrina.

D n G -- Yes,

_____ R E V E R E N C E _____

__ for __ A L L __ L I F E __

Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
« We must be the change we wish to see in the world »
« There is a sufficiency in the world for man's need but not for man's greed »

As one who respects life in all of its forms, war, the death penalty, and abortion are things that I am consistently opposed to. I believe that life is a superior value and therefore should be respected. I support the rights of someone who for reasons of conscience refuses to participate in something that they consider to be immoral. I do not support a woman having an abortion but neither will I judge her personally if she does.

It was the Nazi's who denied Pharmacists and Doctors to act in accordance with their conscience and follow the Hippocrattic Oath. During Nuremburg trials the acts of the German state to deny the rights of doctors and pharmacists was condemned. It was noted in the trials that the removal of the Hippocratic Oath was necessary in its eugenics campaigns (e.g. T4).

For those on this site that support conscientious objectors but to deny not only the same rights to pharmacists but to deny them their status as medical professionals is worse than hippocracy. Its following in the footsteps (or goose-steps) of those so often condemned here.

Now that the Bush and the Republicans have achieved near total control of the Judiciary, there can be no denying that more of these kinds of religiously-based laws will get passed. That was their goal all along. That was why it was so important to have an idiot like Bush be in the Oval office. With the Judiciary in check, corporations can have their way and so can the conservative churches.

Immorality should not be legislated.

ezeflyer has a strong point. It's not just about women. It's about the monied elites using various divide-and-conquer tricks to keep us all in the losing column. Worse, out here in South Dakota, the so-called "liberals" that even exist act like conservatives in that they could care less about hostile corporate takeovers that have devasted South Dakota for the past 2-3 decades. The only time they wail is when the abortion ban hits but by then it's already too late. Structurally, the liberals and conservatives are twiddle-dee twidle-dum. They just use social issues to distract the public. By the way, not only are women's lives at stake but so too are the men's believe it or not. For all the talk on "winning the war on terrorism" this country has done a hell of a job creating more of it here within and to other countries.

grumpyoldlady - how I wish I had you in my life. I live in Ohio now and miss having such "thought-full" friends (male and female) as yourself in my existence. My material grandmother died in 1949. At her funeral, some of her friends came up to my mother & told her something remarkable: My grandmother died of ovarian cancer. These women believed that a woman got such a disease from having had abortions, and to their knowledge my grandmother was the ONLY one in their group (Hungarian, Roman Catholic) who had NEVER had one. 1949. Can you imagine?

Blessings to all.

Juliann, you hit the nail on the head. The power to end or continue a pregnancy has always resided with women, for as long as the species has been around. Since the beginning of human history, and for a variety of reasons, women have sought and found ways to terminate unwanted pregnancies. They require neither the participation nor the consent of the state, the church, society at large, nor the male of the species. This is the fundamental reality of human existence that those on the far Right simply refuse to understand. It is the same misunderstanding that makes their arguments about the "traditional family" and the sanctity of marriage illogical and ridiculous. Whether we choose to "recognize" them or not, or whether our government chooses to "permit" them or not, women can and will find ways to terminate unwanted pregnancies, some citizens can and will choose to live and raise children in non-traditional families, and gay folks will continue to exist and ask us why some members of society are more entitled to basic human rights than others.

Each of us should live within the precepts of our individual beliefs. But at some point we also have to acknowledge that there are some aspects of human behavior that are simply beyond our ability to control, either through social pressure to conform or through the power of legislation and the threat of punishment. Control over one's person and over one's individual destiny is a powerful human urge that is deeply engrained in all of us. It's the fundamental urge to be free so well described in our Declaration of Independence. Societies and governments can impose whatever rules they choose in an attempt to supress this human urge, using the high-sounding language of "morality" to justify their oppression of less powerful members of society. In the end, the urge to be free trumps the instruments of oppression every time.

In my State of MN, the emergency birth control pill has finally become an over the counter drug. About time I'd say. However, I've been told it's got a high price of $35. Lets be real here, women don't have time to delay by seeking out a doctor, add the the personal reasons why you want the drug and all the other embarassing hassle. What about the young women who weren't planning on having intercourse for the first time and those that have been date raped.

Getting back to the pharmacy issue, I don't know if all pharmacies carry the product. However, Wallmart does.

To the man who wrote "I'm all for giving women the right to choose" -you can't "give" us what is ours (but thank you playing the superior male game). We had a saying in the '60s: that's damned white of you.

"To restrict access to birth control deprives a woman of the ability to make critical decisions about when and whether to start a family ultimately, rendering her powerless to fulfill her potential in terms of her education, career and family life."

Please stop, you're making 'pro lifers' drool.

"AND so many women, especially the younger women, find any excuse to not support Hilliary in her bid for the Presidency of the United States."

One of Hillary's statements on religion affirms her support for the "crisis pregnancy centers" run by churches under the pretense that women will receive counselling about their choices, when they are simply proselytization centers where women are told they will be committing murder if they fail to carry the baby to full term.

"Denial of Contraception Is Immoral"

Moreso if you deny it to Republicans.

Rockerbabe1

Follow the money. If I remember right, Rupert Murdoch has had fundraisers for Hillary. And as you probably know, Rupert Murdoch owns FauxNews. FauxNews broadcasts unadulterated rightwing trash while claiming to be a news channel. Just for that one reason, I cannot trust or support Hillary.

When people join the military, they are not given discretion to selectively obey or decline orders, avoiding the ones they might disagree with on principle--such as, say, the orders to drop a bomb that will most likely kill somebody. With a voluntary military, people who have conscientious objection to military operations simply do not sign up to be in that situation. And by not joining, one also does not get military job security, benefits and pension.

We should expect the same of pharmacists. There is something questionable about a pharmacist who wants to be in a lucrative medical profession but selectively comply with the wishes of doctors and patients. The right answer is, do your duty to pharmacy (secular or not), or be in another career. The fact that these professionals are so high-paid that they can comfortably demand exception-to-duty privileges is symptomatic of our health care crisis. The truth of the matter is that most prescriptions could just as easily be dispensed by lesser-demanding pharm techs and probably should be.

Isn't it ironic that those who scream loudest to stop abortions and prevent a woman from getting birth control are often the very same people who oppose programs designed to help poor children. Let's also realize that religious fanaticism is not gender specific.

While the people sleep, the corporations are thinking up ways to control us, enslave us and take our money. Controlling our bodies through religion is as essential a form of control as controlling our minds through their MSM. They've laboriously packed the courts and put their thugs into positions of power, intending to make us lose all hope and turn us into lambs for slaughter.

AND so many women, especially the younger women, find any excuse to not support Hilliary in her bid for the Presidency of the United States. It is my belief that when women start to demand consideration and back up this demand by supporting the best candidate [who just happens to be a woman] for the top political power job in this country, will we be respected in the manner men already receive. Our gender needs to stop relying on others (mostly men) to secure our rights to liberty and medical care of our choice. Vote with your money - go elsewhere for pharmacy services, write letters of disapproval and refuse to shop in business that do not respect you as a person or a customer. Afterall, the mantra of most successful business is "the customer is always right". GO HILLIARY GIRL, GO!!!!

usually is a bastard.....

More important than the immediate question at hand is the principle involved--the authors referred to it very briefly at the beginning of the article:

"While the decision means that a pharmacist can deny filling any prescription - including one for antidepressants, syringes for insulin, or AIDS drugs - the medication most often referred to in the case is emergency contraception and, specifically, the brand Plan B."

********************

Today it is plan B birth control, tomorrow? Medicinal marijuana for nausea from chemo-therapy, pain from glaucoma, or terminal illness? Where this issue begins is not as important as where it ends.

A pharmacist is esentially a medicinal technician who is suppossed to be following doctor's orders when filling a perscription--if they cannot do that in all cases of legal medicinal substances then maybe they need to look for another line of work.

If, on the other hand, the state regulatory agencies who license pharmacists decide that they are entitled to such privilige they ought to require them to post consipculously exactly which perscriptions they refuse to fill so that potential patrons know the limits of their service to the public.

Similarly, each state licensing authority ought to be required to inform all prescribing practitioners of the healing arts which pharmacies offfer such limited service so that those professionals know to steer their clients to some other establishment for thier prescription needs.

In the absence of such notification should a pharmacy refuse to fill such a legal perscription, they ought to be subject to sanctions agsint their license to practice pharmacy.

Or that bastard, yes?

Hey, man-hater, I'm a man and I'm all for giving Women the right to choose.
Having animosity for all men because of some mysoginistic a-holes is the same as hating all christians because of the a few fundamentalist a-holes. Or hating all Musilims because of a few jihadists.

That being said, I can't believe that this is happening in my own country. I can't imagine the anger I would feel as a woman it some self-rightous prick denied me the chance to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. I think I would smack that bitch up, personally.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Years ago I volunteered at a Planned Parenthood in Lakewood, Colorado. The clinic director/midwife told me she believed in "women taking care of women."

And so do I.

Men - butt out.

As a woman I want to tell the government...stay away from my body.

Amen