Other than taking time to verify the prescription or noting it may be harmful, should it be illegal for pharmacies to refuse to accept prescriptions?

[Kelley1]

Susanne Koestner was 32 years old, just out of graduate school, and about to start a new job when an unexpected turn of events at her local pharmacy transformed her from a customer into a patient advocate.

Koestner wanted to refill a birth control prescription in her hometown of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She had been on birth control since her late teens, and didn't expect to encounter any problems. But the Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill her prescription — due to his religious beliefs.

Koestner ended up getting the prescription from another Walgreens about five miles away, but was determined to do whatever she could to help other women from feeling as judged as she did. She filed a complaint through the American Civil Liberties Union alleging sex discrimination, and Walgreens ultimately agreed to a company-wide policy so customers would get prescriptions in a timely matter, even if pharmacists had personal objections to the medication.

[abc3643]

I believe a pharmacy - especially if it is an independent, family-owned pharmacy - can refuse to fill a prescription. The example you provided is perfect.
Since Walmart is a chain, they can dictate their policies. However, if that objecting pharmacist was not beholden to the chain, but independent, the the pharmacist would not be required to fulfill the request.

These are fallouts from the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case and also the case of the Colorado baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a same-sex marriage.

Basically, a "closely-held" company is allowed religious exemptions.

I was shocked when Hobby Lobby was decided and the cake case. In particular, Hobby Lobby. Personally, while I may disagree with some of their positions, I have no ill-will toward Hobby Lobby and have spent there. But, I believe Hobby Lobby was wrongly decided. To me, your relationship with God is YOUR relationship with God. Once you are off your residential property and out in the real world with the rest of us, you obey the law which needs to be applied equally and with no religious exceptions.

[abc3643]

Back to your example, if the Walgreen's pharmacist is an employee, then he or she needs to do what the company says or be terminated. That's it.

[Kelley1]

I agree that it is legal in many states, but should it be? There are two big differences between a pharmacist and the cake case. First, it was not a purchase of an off-the-shelf cake. It was a specialty cake requiring individual design. Second, selling a cake doesn't require a cake license. The pharmacist sells off-the-shelf drugs and requires a license.

Should the pharmacist be allowed to discriminate based on sex?

Methotrexate is a medication that is commonly used to treat autoimmune illnesses such as inflammatory arthritis, psoriasis, and lupus. Higher doses are also used in cancer treatment to prevent cell division. It can also be used in for abortions

A report by AFP narrates the story of a nurse from Alabama, Melissa, who spoke of the harsh realities of living with arthritis and how the impact of the ban upended her life.

According to Melissa, on requesting her arthritis medication, she was told it had been placed on “hold” following an investigation that she wasn’t going to use it to induce abortion.

Melissa expressed her outrage at the current state of the abortion ban and how double standard it is. She was at a loss on how the same society who let her male friend get his prescription methotrexate filled without delay denied hers.

Melissa is not alone. Multiple reports of women have come forward to express their outrage at the ban on abortion pills and how it keeps them from getting treatment at the right time.

[abc3643]

Well, I haven't fully researched this, but my attitude is what I said elsewhere in this question...
Your relationship with God is YOUR relationship with God. Once you leave your residence, you live by the law like everybody else and there are no religious exemptions to those laws.

So, under that aegis, a pharmacist given a prescription should fill it out regardless of how they feel about it. Normally, I might be fine with a pharmacist not filling it out because another pharmacist likely will fill it out. However, if one can reject fulfulling the prescription then presumably all pharmacists could reject fulfilling it on the same grounds. That's unacceptable because that permits discrimination.

As for women having birth control, yes, I think all pharmacists should be required to fulfill it. Their religious objections are based on not preventing pregnancy, but:
1) it's not the pharmacist's business why the customer wants birth control,
2) if God wants to intervene, God will intervene and doesn't need the pharmacist to do it for God,
3) the birth control isn't just for preventing pregnancy; it's often a prescribed drug for various gynecological conditions such as endometriosis.

[msc545]

This is like saying the bullet isn't just for murder since it can be used for target practice... luckily, pharmacists in the US can refuse to fill any prescription, and they do not need a reason. This includes meds that a woman can use to murder her unborn child or treat her endometriosis or both.

[Kelley1]

Methotrexate is a medication that is commonly used to treat autoimmune illnesses, so refusing to fill a prescription can be life-threatening. Moreover, although Methotrexate can be used for abortion, medication abortion typically involves using a combination of two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, to end an early pregnancy.

When doctors prescribe Methotrexate, the primary reason is to treat autoimmune illnesses, including inflammatory arthritis, psoriasis, and lupus; not for an early abortion. Nevertheless, since Methotrexate can be used for abortion, some pharmacists are refusing to fill the prescription if the patient is a woman, but not if the patient is a man.

[msc545]

Pharmacists are not obligated to sell anything to anyone at any time, your rant and irrelevant pseudo-medical information notwithstanding. The medications women want to obtain to commit murders of unborn children can always be purchased at another pharmacy if the first one refuses.

[abc3643]

@msc545 I am afraid you don't understand how bitrh control works

The most common type of birth control pill is the combination pill, which contains both estrogen and progestin (a synthetic form of progesterone). These hormones work by "tricking" the brain into thinking the body is already pregnant. This prevents the pituitary gland from releasing the hormones (FSH and LH) that would normally stimulate the ovaries to release an egg. Without an egg to be fertilized, pregnancy cannot occur. Progestin-only pills (mini-pills) can also sometimes suppress ovulation, but this is not their primary or most reliable effect.

Thus, there's no baby to "murder" because it was never conceived.

Contraception
Contra- against
Conception..

[msc545]

If there is no fertilized egg, I agree there is no baby. If there is one, that fertilized egg represents an unborn child, and destroying it is murder.

[onedarkcloud]

Refusing the prescription was a personal decision, not a company policy. I am glad she took steps to prevent that from happening to other women. A pharmacist will refuse to fill a prescription only when it interacts with other medicines that can sicken or kill the patient, or the Doctor made a mistake in the strength and time between doses to the detriment of the patient's health. This prescription problem is nationwide.

[purplepoppy]

They should be struck off. Your religion does not give you the right to decide what medication I get or to over ride a doctor.

Do we let them refuse peoples prescriptions because they look gay, or perhaps they've the wrong religion? Of course not. You simply can't expect people to have to drive from pharmacy to pharmacy until they find one that isn't a religious bigot.

[Jennz6]

The pharmacist should be fired

[Kelley1]

Or his license revoked.

[abc3643]

License revocation is too extreme here. The pharmacist did nothing inappropriate "pharmaceutically" to warrant it. In other words, the pharmacist did nothing unethical. The only thing the phamacist did was not fulfill a prescription. If the pharmacist is an employee and was obligated to fulfill the prescription were documented company policy, then the pharmacist should be reprimanded including possible termination (but I would terminate after a second offense, not the first). If the pharmacist had owned the pharmacy (but not if it was a franchise, so, thus, it was independent), then I have no problem with the pharmacist refusing; the customer can go to a different pharmacist.

[Kelley1]

@abc3643 "the customer can go to a different pharmacist." You are uninformed. Doctors call in prescriptions and sometimes refuse to give a written prescription or the staff lies and say it is impossible, and at the very least, it is a hassle. Getting a call-in prescription transferred requires a lot of time and effort.

[abc3643]

YOU are uninformed. Because I've shifted pharmacists numerous times and have had to.
For instance, I have 4 prescriptions, but one of those I have for eyedrops to combat glaucoma.
Now, suppose my prescription is normally automatically refilled every 3 months at my CVS pharmacy in my state of Missouri. However, then, I go on a work assignment in Connecticut for 6 months. Am I going to have not have eyedrops for those 3 extra months? Yes, because I go to the CVS pharmacy in Connecticut and transfer the prescription from being filled at my Missouri CVS to my Connecticut CVS. Then, when I return to Missouri, I switch them back.

This stuff happens all the time which is why chain pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens and Walmart are useful. Your prescription enters their system, but you can change which pharmacy within their to get them at.

For a small independent pharmacy, I don't know how that would work, but the prescriber can issue the prescription again if the first one isn't fulfilled. But, with such a pharmacist anyway, if they refuse to fill (likely lawfully under Hobby Lobby), the customer would likely know that already but, even if the customer didn't, then the customer can take steps to ultimately go to another pharmacist.

[slatyb]

@abc3643 That's fine in a city with multiple choices, not so easy in a small town.

[AviatorTom]

That pharmacist had no right to refuse to fill her prescription, so long as the prescription was valid, which it apparently was. His religious beliefs should have no bearing on things. He is not a doctor and doesn't know why she is prescribed birth control. It's possible it's to regulate her period (my sister had that), not necessarily as a form of birth control.

[msc545]

The pharmacist can refuse to sell anything and everything. It's his store and these are his drugs. He cannot sell them without a prescription, but he does not need one to NOT sell them.

[Lliam]

It goes to show that some of these "right to lifers" aren't just opposed to abortion. They are also opposed to contraception.

Would a Jew or Muslim working in a restaurant be allowed to refuse to serve bacon? No. They would get their asses fired.
The same should apply to this religious nut pharmacist. He should not only be fired. He should have his license revoked and be banned from practicing in any medical field.
I hope his life gets wrecked.

[molonski2]

Well the example you give , she should not have been refused , but in many many cases where the pharmacist on the front line suspects misuse or poor diagnosis they should be..
Especially in USA where script medicine is treated like a bag of jelly beans..
Not the serious and dangerous drugs that they all are , more checks and balance required , especially overuse , misuse , seen first hand so many times , taking pills should not be the first go to.

[Stevepro68]

No medicine should be decidily separate from personal religion. I will still electively operate on jehovah witnesses and will agree to not give them blood or blood products even if their life is at risk during surgery. Even though morally they are asking me to watch them die from an easily fixable problem and be a deeply personal injury to myself. It's the proffession you signed up for.

[dustybiker2]

I've been on the mini pill purely to control hormone affected cancer for the last 49 months, two days from now. Birth control does not just prevent pregnancy. I would have a very loud and serious problem with them.

I believe pharmacists swear the oath to do no harm just as doctors do. It's late and not looking it up right now so could be wrong.

[contentious]

So what are you endorsing here slavery? Clearly if you tells someone to do something, they can make a decision to do it or not do it. What are you going to do put your pharmacist in the hot box on your Democrat plantation and get out the bullwhip...

[Kelley1]

No force, no slavery. Just take away their license. With a license comes obligations.

[contentious]

The pharmacist's oath starts with "I will consider the welfare of humanity", yet you think you should force pharmacists to prescribe drugs with the goal of reducing the human population and potentially killing babies. Your brainwashing is showing.

[contentious]

American Pharmacists Association (APhA) recognizes the individual pharmacist’s right to exercise conscientious refusal. Pharmacists are no't going to lose their licence because you want to subscribe to the ideas of Marget Sanger and her aspirations to spread eugenics via the N**** Project.

[GetJinxed]

L take. 🙄 Your religious beliefs don't supercede someone else's healthcare. Get a job that doesn't have this issue.

[GetJinxed]

Then maybe we should allow sporting goods stores employees to refuse to sell certain guns to customers. By your logic, sboukd be totally fine!

[contentious]

@GetJinxed Businesses already do have a constitutional right to refuse service to anyone. Thanks for showing the world that you are mentally retarded.

[contentious]

@GetJinxed The left wing get's more stupid everyday.

[Lalablackdahlia]

Then you support an ER doctor denying someone life saving care? What you don't seem to be understanding is if your beliefs impede your ability to do your job properly, you should choose a different vocation. Especially when it comes to healthcare. You never answered my question, though. I'm pro second ammendment by the way. That's why I brought it up. Resorting to name calling and then blocking me is pretty pathetic snowflake behavior, by the way. You really that fragile?

[contentious]

@Lalablackdahlia Like I said the left wing gets dumber every day. You just made a direct comparison between recreational abortion and life saving care. You're a fucking moron. You made another account to show just how fucking retarded you are.

[contentious]

This mental retarded doesn't know that stores don't have to stock specific guns to sell to buyers, or that stores can refuse to do business with people for just about any reason with the small exception of explicit discrimination under Title II which protects civil rights based on "race, color, religion, and national origin". A store owner having their own moral and religious beliefs is not discrimination against any specific religion. They are conducting themselves based on their beliefs and applying their policies across their entire business not discriminating against any specific religion, race, color, or nation of origin. They are practicing their freedom of religion and right to conduct commerce. If you don’t want to do business with them, then go elsewhere. People don't have to do business with you. They are not compelled into servitude. Furthermore, many times gun stores are required by law to make judgment calls about customers merely based on their ethical/moral feelings. Even if the customer passes a background check, they can be refused service based on their behavior and it is a moral judgment call for the gun store employee to not sell guns to people who act in specific ways. This was already answered in short but retardo feels entitled to buy whatever she wants and doesn’t know she can’t compel people into slavery. She’s a typical Democrat that thinks she runs the fucking plantation.

[contentious]

Doctors also are required to practice based on their moral judgments. Doctors have to follow their physician duties to improve quality of life when possible, avoid doing harm, and fairly allocate medical resources along with a number of other moral boundaries. Thus harming a child's life to make the mother happy is actually a violation of those physician duties and yes doctors can refuse to serve you even if your life might be saved. One glaringly obvious example would be mass casualty events. They could maybe save your life if they used a number of doctors to provide care to you specifically, but during triage they make a moral judgment call that they could save more people by using resources on them rather than you, and that your quality of life might be horrible even if they did save your life, so they leave you to die while helping others. That’s reality.

[contentious]

Another example would be a doctor practicing within their scope of training. Not every medical doctor is a cardio-thoracic surgeon. You may need heart surgery, but if you go to your dermatologist they are going to say sorry I can’t help you. You can stamp your feet, call them racist, and scream at the of your lungs and say but you are a doctor you need to give me life saving care and at the end of the day they are going to refuse to serve you. They will tell you to go see another doctor with the appropriate skill set. I don’t know how Democrats can be this fucking stupid.

[Jumpintoadstool]

someone is experiencing some big feelings. If I knew you were so fragile you would be triggered by disagreement, maybe I'd use kids gloves. What kind of a man can't even handle debate like an adult and has to resort to blocking someone not once, but twice so they can't see or reply to your comment? We're you afraid I'd pick apart your argument?

[Jumpintoadstool]

Gender applies to that civil protection by the way. Argument invalid. All that text and you still got wrecked.

[Jumpintoadstool]

Lastly, that medication she was prescribed is used for a number of other things. For the pharmacist to assume its for abortion is 1. Unethical and 2. Not their business. Don't like it? Get another job and quit acting like the world revolves around you. It's entitled to expect the public to give you special treatment when you knew what the job entailed when you applied.

[contentious]

@Jumpintoadstool Making more accounts to make up more bullshit just makes you look more stupid. It's not like I can't just post a link to Title II that I mentioned. Anyone can search the text for gender and find that it's not there. Tada!

www.justice.gov/.../title-ii-civil-rights-act-public-accommodations

See you lied.

[contentious]

In a debate, arguments are put forward for opposing viewpoints on a specific topic. You have to come with evidence to back your claims. There are also generally moderators to keep the discussion on topic. You blatantly lie and say dumb shit, you don't back up your claims with evidence because your position is wrong and formed out of ignorance, and you couldn't stay on topic to save your life. The topic was forcing someone to do work, yet you've blabbered on about guns, healthcare, women's right, religiosity, etc. You're scatted brained, unintelligent, and disrespectful. You whining like a bitch isn't a debate. You're just a waste of time.

[On_cloud_wine]

I have a friend that has to wear some device to his body since birth.. something to do with his heart because his mother took pills for weight loss when she was pregnant.

i hate all forms of medicine. Except for your natural healing remedies

[Twalli]

If a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription on a religious basis, they shouldn't have been a pharmacist in the first place.
As a medical coder, I don't make sure everyone I coded for didn't vote for our convict POTUS, which I believe shouldn't have been allowed to run.

[genericname85]

it should be and it is. if a "religious believe" prevents you from giving a customer the medicine that their doctor prescribed, you can't work in a pharmacy. simple as that.

[nawtee_me]

How do you get sex discrimination when only women are filling birth control prescriptions? If he had filled a prescription from a man and not a woman then that would be discrimination based on sex. Just because he is the opposite sex does not make it discrimination.

[Kelley1]

Methotrexate is a medication that is commonly used to treat autoimmune illnesses such as inflammatory arthritis, psoriasis, and lupus. Higher doses are also used in cancer treatment to prevent cell division. It can also be used for abortions. However, it is rarely, if ever, the medication doctors prescribe for abortions.

It is sex discrimination because pharmacists refuse to fill the prescriptions for women but do not refuse for men. Refer to: Should Congress impeach and remove the Supreme Court for placing the health and lives of 5 million people at risk? ↗

[Cice369]

It took me forever to get Hydroxychloroquine, and Ivermectin because I kept getting refused by doctors, and yelled at by the pharmacists, in person etc... Then did an online call and the Dr was understanding, helped and went through a pharmacy they use all the time.

Practically every industry is bullshit and corrupt. Medicine, Education, Science, etc... We are truly the dumbest human civilization that has ever been on the planet Earth.

[exitseven]

I would think that the store management would fire the pharmacist. They are in the business of selling medication. This pharmacist was not doing his/. her job.

[Surely]

Unless the pharmacist suspects fraudulent scripts or a possibility of medicine interaction. They should do their job!

[slatyb]

Bravo to Walgreens. If someone doesn't want to provide care, they should choose another profession.

[katiesmuff]

That ignorant pharmacist should now be a dishwasher in a nearby restaurant!

[HeartShapedHaze]

If you are legally prescribed a prescription, the medical professional should have to fill it.

[DrPepper12]

The fact that stupidstitons beat science in USA is just more evidence of Idiocracy being a documentary

[DonaldDarko]

That shit should be illegal. Keep your weird fucking religion OUT of other people's face. We need to deport every single Muslim or this will get much much worse.

[Twalli]

Why do you think he was Muslim?
Unless you think Clarence Thomas is. He wants to make birth control illegal.

[DonaldDarko]

@Twalli I think he was probably Christian but if he Muslims were in charge, you'll think Christians were progressive and you'll miss them.

[Twalli]

Well, if you want to kick the people who didn't sell bc meds because of their personal religion we should remove all people of his religion.

[DonaldDarko]

Ideally there wouldn't be religion to begin with. It's a form of superstition.

[Twalli]

Religion has been used to great effect by most emperors to subdue the masses. They may suffer now, but if they're gopd, heaven will be their eternal reward. My view is that this may be all we get, so live it to the fullest. Most people think heaven would be better, but that's still within our idea. The idea of what we have now would be incomprehensible 200 years ago.

[RedInnocent69]

Yeah, it’s a public service. It’s not like firefighters get to decide who to save and who to let burn

[NordicInScandinavia]

How American as fuck this is. 😂

Jesus Christ and the holy trinity. For the God lovers here too.

[jamesgoldman]

Absolutely, personally I think all religions should be banned

[seeyounexttuesday]

When conservatives were being banned on social media sites the left kept squawking that a private company can do what it wants. Now it's time for them to be consistent.

[noohair]

A pharmacist has the power to not fill a prescription. But it should not be done for religious reasons.

[Sal_Monella]

There are government restrictions on narcotics like Oxycontin.

[msc545]

No. Some Pharmacists don't want to fill prescriptions for ethical and/or moral reasons. This should be respected. There is nothing that compels them to sell you certtain things just because you want them.

[Kelley1]

Unlike other businesses, they require a license. With a license comes greater responsibility.

[msc545]

That license does not mandate that they stock or sell anything and everything you want. Go to a different pharmacy if the one you usually go to won't sell you the poison to kill your unborn child.

[Twalli]

They stocked it. Otherwise they would have said they can't fill the prescription.

[msc545]

@Twalli So they don't want to fill the prescription. There is no law that says they have to. Women act like they are somehow entitled to this, and they are not.

[Twalli]

She's not asking for free meds

[msc545]

@Twalli I know she is not asking for free meds. Nonetheless, she is asking for something they do not want to sell her, and they DON'T HAVE TO.

Is that so hard to undrestand?

[msc545]

I realize you want to "empower women" and all that shit, but in this instance, no amount of rephrasing will change this. Pharmacies are not legally obligated to sell *anything*.

[msc545]

This includes the drugs some women want that will literally starve their unborn child to death, since it is an inconvenience to them to allow it to be born and have a life, like they have. You should be ashamed of supporting murder.

[Kelley1]

@msc545 Methotrexate is a medication that is commonly used to treat autoimmune illnesses, so refusing to fill a prescription can be life-threatening. Therefore, not filling the prescription should be a justification to remove their license.

There are two big differences between a pharmacist and the cake case. First, it was not a purchase of an off-the-shelf cake. It was a specialty cake requiring individual design. Second, selling a cake doesn't require a cake license. The pharmacist sells off-the-shelf drugs and requires a license.

[msc545]

The pharmacy license doesn't include a mandate that the pharmacist sell something just because someone wants it.

[Kelley1]

@msc545 It doesn't in all states, only in some states. However, it should be a requirement in all states.

[Agape93]

Yeap, to accept them and dispense them.