Pro-Life Pharmacies Will Not Fill Your Birth Control Prescription

LovesIt
wrote on June 16 2008 @ 12:56 pm: [report]

Well, imho, one of the great things about America is our freedom of choice.  This includes that stores are free to choose what they will and won’t sell (just like you can choose your brand/method of birth control).  I vote to keep the government out of my [future] privately held business as much as possible—it’s mine dammit! 

Plus, my gut reaction is… why are you going to the “pro-life” pharmacy for the morning after pill?  Duh, go to CVS!

Elle
wrote on June 16 2008 @ 01:13 pm: [report]

This is BS.  They shouldn’t be denying medication to anyone that wants it.  They aren’t in the business of playing gatekeeper, they are a pharmacy and as a pharmacy they should be forced to dispense all forms of medication and birth control. 

Besides, the last time I checked, condoms and other forms of barrier protection like dental dams are primarily used for health precautions in addition to birth control.  Way to be ignorant DMC Pharmacy, please go ahead and contribute to the rising STD cases in the country.

TheNerd
wrote on June 16 2008 @ 06:35 pm: [report]

So much for being “pro-life”.  If they really wanted to prevent deaths, they’d do their part to prevent unwanted pregnancy.

eliana
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 01:24 pm: [report]

There’s a new kind of drug store in town. And they don’t sell birth control pills, or the morning after pill, or condoms, or anything else that makes Jesus cry. They’re called DMC Pharmacy, a Christian drug store that thinks sex is for making babies and nothing else. So come on down to DMC, the Pro-Life pharmacy where you can buy all the Vicodin you want, just make sure not to wear any condoms when you have some of that hot and sloppy Pill-Sex. Check out their circular for great deals!

Amelia
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 01:33 pm: [report]

@eliana HA! That’s hilarious. Thanks for the link!

LovesIt
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 01:49 pm: [report]

There’s a certain irony (or lack of logic?) in that you all are encouraging mandated choice yet denying personal, individual choice simultaneously where it does not fit your own personal needs or likes.

Here’s some food for thought: if it were a Muslim-owned store, would you still mock it like this?  What if, in addition to no birth control or condoms, it also chose not to carry tampons?  Or required women to cover their heads before entering?  Would you still mock it?

Amelia
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 01:59 pm: [report]

@LovesIt Yes.

I have a problem with “medical professionals” like pharmacists being allowed to deny patients the medicine they’ve been prescribed because it conflicts with their religious beliefs.

What if a Scientologist ran a pharmacy and refused to dispense your ADD medicine prescription etc? I mean, where does it start? Medical professionals are supposed to be committed to their profession first and foremost.

LovesIt
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 02:05 pm: [report]

@Amelia. It’s a privately held company.  They have a right to choose what to stock.  You chose to go to their pharmacy.  Go somewhere else or to a government-owned facility instead.

Doctors have a right not to perform abortions if they choose.  Should a doctor be legally required to, in his mind, murder an innocent person despite it going against his personal beliefs?  That’s not the kind of government we have, last time I checked.

Amelia
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 02:18 pm: [report]

@LovesIt Ruh-roh. This is when we just differ over life begins and Amelia ain’t takin’ the bait!

You’re right, under Virginia law this pharmacy does have the legal right. But I can still think it’s crappy!

LovesIt
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 02:23 pm: [report]

@Amelia.  Haha, yea, realized the danger of mentioning the big A topic right after I hit “submit.”  This will NOT turn into an abortion debate.  Ugh!

But, sometimes a girl has to stand up for her beliefs when others’ comments become mocking.  There’s no fun in alienating anyone on this board, right? 

Actually, I think a really good legal compromise would be that if you’re not going to stock it, then you need to refer the customer elsewhere that does.

Amelia
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 02:24 pm: [report]

@LovesIt THAT I totally agree with.

Suzanna
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 08:06 pm: [report]

@ LovesIt - a pharmacy is not mere a “store” or “privately held business” (nice GOP codeword BTW), it is a vital component of our nation’s healthcare system.  By your faulty logic, if I’m a Christian Scientist, and I own the only pharmacy in Smallville USA, I can impose my nonsense belief in faith-healing on everyone else, and refuse to dispense any medicine whatsoever.  So what, according to you, I’m supposed to just pop over to CVS?  What if CVS is 30 miles away?  Gas will soon be $5/gallon, if you hadn’t heard.  So please, don’t cloak your draconian, small-minded, anti-choice McJesus blather in the vacuous “free market” rhetoric you heard on Fox News.

As for mocking Muslin-owned stores, hell yeah!  Three Muslim-owned delis in my town recently stopped selling all alcohol - for similarly absurd religious reasons - and I mock them mercilessly (AND boycott them).  Stupid, small-minded positions that effectively infringe the rights of others deserve to be mocked.

Elle
wrote on June 17 2008 @ 08:17 pm: [report]

It’s time to pack up and move to Canada. 

Alexa
wrote on June 26 2008 @ 07:06 am: [report]

To those of you advocating the “freedom of choice” of the pharmacies that refuse to sell medications, that sounds all great and everything if you happen to live in an urban area where there might be another pharmacy down the road.  What about those places where the nearest pharmacy might be hours down the road, like some small towns?  What happens if the one pharmacy in town decides to be “pro-life” (there’s an oxymoron if ever there was one), and decides it won’t stock Plan B, or regular BC, or condoms? 

Medical professionals ought not to be allowed to impose their morals or religious beliefs on anyone else if they are doing business with the general public.  If a doctor in an ER refused to treat a patient that came into a hospital because of religious beliefs, s/he’d be gone and probably either charged with a crime or sued for malpractice.

What about if my religious practices forbade me to sell medications to blacks?  Would that be okay, as well?  As it stands right now, women are the only people for whom it is still wholly legal to discriminate against in these kinds of things.  If you don’t want to do your job (i.e., filling legal prescriptions), then find another line of work. 

The government’s role is to ensure public health, and denying women access to BS (including, perhaps especially, emergency contraception) does directly impact public health, so as I see it, there is a legitimate, viable reason for the government to require pharmacies to fill any legal prescription.

KELLBEL
wrote on July 20 2008 @ 07:05 pm: [report]

HA that circular hyperlink is hilarious. honestly, this pharmacy’s policy is utterly ridiculous.

Annika Harris
wrote on July 21 2008 @ 08:33 am: [report]

FYI: The birth control pill can be used for other reasons besides pregnancy prevention. I’ve been taking BC for years to control endometriosis, a rather painful disease that has already caused me to endure a serious surgery. It’s utterly ridiculous that in certain parts of this country I would be unable to fill this prescription. Also, there is a Christian supermarket in my urban neighborhood that refuses to sell alcohol, yet cheats its customers by advertising one price and charging another.

Mindy Skelton
wrote on August 8 2008 @ 04:24 pm: [report]

The cost of buying birth control and raising a child is behond comparable. This infuriates me that people think they can make these posible life altering descisions for you.

Lisa Small
wrote on October 15 2008 @ 02:44 pm: [report]

Chantilly is just blocks from my home.  My boycott will have no effect on them; I’ve never been in there at all, ever, for anything. 

As adultery and pre-marital fornication are contrary to most religious doctrine, I wonder… does the DMC Pharmacy here require men to provide proof of their marital status before allowing them to pick up Viagra?

Georgetown University Medical Center is just as hypocritical.  About eighteen years ago, I was in a drug trial protocol there which *required* female participants to sign an agreement promising to use birth control.  They wrote me a prescription for same on a GU Med Center prescription pad.  And when I took it upstairs to fill it at the GU Med Center’s pharmacy?  They loudly refused to fill it, because, you know, they’re CATHOLIC and it was against their rules.  Yeah - not so Catholic that they weren’t eager to protect themselves against lawsuits if a woman in the drug trial got pregnant with a damaged fetus.

Mom of Six
wrote on October 25 2008 @ 07:03 pm: [report]

Ok all this is very interesting however DMC has the right in the United States to choose which products they sell. No one tells Target what they have to sell. I find it appalling that women are never directly educated on what they are doing to their bodies when they take these pills for birth control or plan B.

Before getting married and having my children I was on the pill and learned the hard way what it could do to my body. So many women are learning the hard way what this does to your body and your reproductive system.

Alexa
wrote on October 25 2008 @ 07:39 pm: [report]

LOL @ Mom of Six.  The irony of you talking about what it can do to your body with six children.  I’m sure that didn’t do anything at all to your body!  lol

Millions and millions of women take hormonal birth control without any problems whatsoever.  Every. Single. Day.

Lisa Small
wrote on October 26 2008 @ 06:47 pm: [report]

When a pharmacist contradicts a doctor’s orders… at what point do they get prosecuted for practicing medicine without a license?