Background Noise: Neverland - Piano Variation In Blue, Nick Ingman
Last website visited: Pharmacists Refuse to Dispense Birth Control
Mood: ... woa, did someone just punch me in the stomach? sure feels like it...
Right now i want... ::sigh::

Birth Control is an issue that ranks up there with Affirmative Action, Gay Rights, Assisted Suicide and Abortion ¹ as a highly divisive, highly personal, highly emotional issue that is considered political dynomite ². Amazingly enough, these are issues which most people cannot find the correct words to phrase their reasons for falling on one side of the issue or the other, and tend to hide behind the next closest uncontested argument they can find - for example, their "religion", or on "moral grounds."

Taking one of these positions is, quite frankly, evasive bull shit ³.

A few highly religious pharmacists around the country refused to fill the valid and legally written prescriptions for birth control pills to a select number of women at their pharmacies and further, refused to return the prescription or forward it to a pharmacist who would fill it. Wait, let's simplify this a bit, shall we? It will help frame the situation better.

A Pharmacist (gender unknown) refused to refill A Woman's current prescription ⁴.

Now, in most states, a pharmacist is allowed to refuse to fill a legally written prescription as long as they either return the prescription to the patient, or give that prescription to another pharmacist to fill. The Pharmacist in the above case did neither of these things - refusing to return or forward the prescription; that action was illegal and that Pharmacist should have either been sanctioned, fired, or had their license revoked. End of Story.

Only, since the pills were birth control pills, it wasn't the end of the story.

The Pharmacist - who apparently only refused One Particular Woman her prescription refill (perhaps because of a personal bias?) - claimed a religiously motivated moral opposition to birth control and thus won the support of the Religious Conservatives who believe that all contraception is evil and should be illegal, and thus changing basis of the debate from their actual actions to the theory of birth control and whether it should be considered a form of abortion.

Let me say that again, i feel like i'm not getting my point across and this is one of those fundamental issues that really sets me off, so: The Pharmacist ignored his professional responsibility and illegally refused to do his job but got away with it by hiding behind a supposedly personal religious belief that is so sacred that no one dare challenge his actions. It's really a brilliant strategy, if you think about it: you do something that should get you fired, and instead, you are applauded, lauded, and have laws sponsored to protect your right above everyone elses. wow, that's good. because that is what's going on here: one person's rights and liberties are being trampled on to protect someone else's discrimination and ignorance.

The funny thing is, birth control pills are not solely used for birth control - they have a whole range of applications that i would bet people aren't aware of unless they have a reason to be aware (as in, they have a problem that requires their help). Birth Control Pills - or rather, the active chemical in them - are much like Viagra in that their names have a knowledge base associated with them that people assume to be true in all cases: if a teenage girl is filling a prescription for birth control pills, she must be a slut, end of story; if a teenage boy goes home from the hospital pumped full of Viagra... wait, what? oh, you mean it helps control the blood pressure of patients with heart problems? didn't know that....

Doctors go to school for a very long time and take a whole host of tests to become licensed to practice medicine and write prescriptions - and when one has been written, it is the Pharmacists job to fill that prescription instead of making assumptions and judgment calls on what they think they know, and really know nothing about. Legislators are not Doctors, they don't have the knowledge or the right to allow Pharmacists to second guess these licensed professionals over inflammatory religious grounds.

Everyone is allowed to their religious beliefs and opinions - I certainly am not saying that the Pharmacist isn't allowed to disagree with birth control in general. However, [he] chose a job that requires him to fill birth control prescriptions and sell condoms. [His] beliefs do not give [him] the right to poke holes in those condom wrappers or to refuse a birth control prescription. If [his] beliefs are in such conflict with his profession, he should find a different career. After all, what's to stop [him] from deciding next week that women were meant to suffer for Eve's sin or man was meant to feel pain and therefore refuse to fill any pain medication prescriptions?

::sigh::

Of course, being a woman, hearing about this childish and hurtful behavior cuts me a bit more than it probably would if birth control wasn't something i had to worry about (read: if i were a man). But discrimination is discrimination any way you mask it, and evading one's responsibility is disgusting any way you frame the issue, and those fundamental issues don't change because of your gender. This behavior, and the support it is gathering, should be offensive to everyone.

1 There are groups which equate Abortion and Birth Control. I happen to disagree, and since this is my blog, if you disagree with me, feel free to state your argument... in the comments.
2 Setting off an argument about any one of these topics is likely to blow up in your face.
3 "Uh-oh, here she goes again... remember to breathe, darlin. geez, someone must have
really pissed her off...."
4 I'm going to leave out what the pills were for for the moment, it will help clarify what is actually happening here.
5 More discussion, if you want it (and because i can, so there).