The battle over reproductive rights in the United States has taken another turn with some pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills on the grounds that dispensing the medications violates their moral or religious beliefs.
This has provoked an intense debate over the rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant, versus a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed.The action has triggered pitched political battles in state legislatures across the nation as politicians try to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalised, or force them to carry out their duties.
Steven Aden, of the Christian Legal Society's Centre for Law and Religious Freedom in Virginia, which defends pharmacists says the issue is big and is just beginning to surface as more and more pharmacists are becoming aware of their right to conscientiously refuse to pass objectionable medications across the counter.
As the number of clashes grows many pharmacists often risk dismissal in standing up for their beliefs. Adam Sonfield, of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, which tracks reproductive issues, says there are pharmacists who will only give birth control pills to a woman if she's married and there are pharmacists who mistakenly believe contraception is a form of abortion and refuse to prescribe it to anyone. Doctors are frequently being called late at night, by teenage girls and women who are desperate after being turned away by pharmacists and there are cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they refuse to transfer them to another pharmacy when time is of the essence.