Druggists Shouldn't Act as Morality Police

The Editors
Scientific American
Originally published July 18, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

In states with conscience carve-outs for pharmacists, pharmacies honoring those policies should be required to preemptively notify state authorities and medical providers that they might refuse service.

That way, women and their doctors could make alternative arrangements to fill prescriptions at pharmacies that will give them the medications they need —avoiding situations like the recent one in Arizona. (This follows a model worked out in 2014, when the Supreme Court told the Obama administration that employers with moral objections did not have to offer an insurance plan with birth control coverage. But such employers did have to notify the Department of Health and Human Services so the government and insurers could provide birth control coverage via a private insurance plan or a government-sponsored one.)

And in situations where individual pharmacists may refuse service—even if their pharmacies generally fill family-planning prescriptions—there should be a legal requirement to automatically refer that prescription to another pharmacy within a certain reasonable distance or to have a backup pharmacist on call to do the work so that patients can get medications quickly and efficiently.

The information is here.

Physicians, Not Conscripts — Conscientious Objection in Health Care

Ronit Y. Stahl and Ezekiel J. Emanuel
N Engl J Med 2017; 376:1380-1385

“Conscience clause” legislation has proliferated in recent years, extending the legal rights of health care professionals to cite their personal religious or moral beliefs as a reason to opt out of performing specific procedures or caring for particular patients. Physicians can refuse to perform abortions or in vitro fertilization. Nurses can refuse to aid in end-of-life care. Pharmacists can refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception. More recently, state legislation has enabled counselors and therapists to refuse to treat lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) patients, and in December, a federal judge issued a nationwide injunction against Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which forbids discrimination on the basis of gender identity or termination of a pregnancy.

The article is here, and you need a subscription.

Here is an excerpt:

Objection to providing patients interventions that are at the core of medical practice – interventions that the profession deems to be effective, ethical, and standard treatments – is unjustifiable (AMA Code of Medical Ethics [Opinion 11.2.2]10).

Making the patient paramount means offering and providing accepted medical interventions in accordance with patients’ reasoned decisions. Thus, a health care professional cannot deny patients access to medications for mental health conditions, sexual dysfunction, or contraception on the basis of their conscience, since these drugs are professionally accepted as appropriate medical interventions.

Illinois cannot make pharmacists give 'morning after' pill: court

By Mary Wisniewski
Reuters
Originally published September 21, 2012

An Illinois appellate court Friday affirmed a lower court finding that the state cannot force pharmacies and pharmacists to sell emergency contraceptives - also known as "morning after pills" - if they have religious objections.

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"We are dismayed that the court expressly refused to consider the interests of women who are seeking lawful prescription medication and essentially held that the religious practice of individuals trumps women's health care," said ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka. "We think the court could not be more wrong."

The entire story is here.