Contrary to some who have said that a pharmacist couldn’t or wouldn’t refuse to fill birth control prescriptions on religious grounds, apparently it can and does happen. In Washington State, a pharmacist was sanctioned in just such a case.
According to court records, Noesen was working as a substitute pharmacist at a Menomonie Kmart in 2002 when a University of Wisconsin-Stout student sought to refill her birth control prescription.
Noesen testified he advised the woman of his objection to the use of contraception and refused to fill the prescription or tell her how or where she could get it refilled.
The woman was able to get the prescription filled two days later but missed the first dose of the medication, court records said. She filed a complaint with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing.
Noesen, 34, of St. Paul, Minn., told regulators that he is a devout Roman Catholic and refused to refill the prescription or release it to another pharmacy because he didn’t want to commit a sin by “impairing the fertility of a human being.”
. . .
The Pharmacy Examining Board ruled in 2005 that Noesen failed to carry out his professional responsibility to get the woman’s prescription to someone else if he wouldn’t fill it himself.
The board reprimanded Noesen and ordered him to attend ethics classes. He was allowed to keep his license as long as he informs all future employers in writing that he won’t dispense birth control pills and outlines steps he will take to make sure a patient has access to medication.
. . .
A pharmacy should accommodate its pharmacists’ religious beliefs but it can’t leave “a patient high and dry,” Dupuis said.
Noesen said the discipline “critically devastated” his business as a traveling pharmacist because some pharmacies refused to hire him and he lost his liability insurance, court records said.
Seems about right. Disclose the information up front and let the invisible hand of the market determine the value for a pharmacist who will not fill prescriptions for birth control. I might go a bit further and require the pharmacy to put up a sign disclosing the hours during which it will not have a pharmacist on duty who will fill birth control prescriptions. Earlier this year, Senator Drozda proposed legislation that would have protected pharmacists like Noesen from adverse consequences for refusing to fill such a prescription.
Birth control is used for physical issues *other* than preventing conception… some of them quite serious.
The biggest problem was the fact he wouldn’t release the prescription to another pharmacy that would fill it. Also my guess would be that this particular K-Mart would have at least another pharmacist on-staff. He could have told her to wait until that person was on duty.
BTW-my church-sponsored health care plan does pay for birth control pills.
Rev. AJB… that’s where I was heading with that – I just didn’t quite finish it off. Gross negligence? Criminal negligence? (I’m iffy on these terms.) Not, for the record, that I don’t believe unwanted pregnancy isn’t quite serious as well. (wow, how many negatives in that sentence?)
Seems to me that a customer has a reasonable expectation that their prescriptions are going to get filled unless something exotic is going on. Birth control isn’t exotic. Advance disclosure would make it so that a customer doesn’t waste time and energy having to deal with the religious preferences of a random pharmacist.
I guess this “pharmacist” would have felt better if she’d had to seek out an abortion due to contraceptive failure.
Enough already! Glad he has morals and scruples. Just keep them under his smock and we’ll all go just fine.
(On a snarky note that will do nothing but get me into trouble, I wonder if there are Jewish waiters who refuse to serve shellfish or meat mixed with milk? Do they disdain telling their patrons that they can get another waiter to provide them with that forbidden food? Do those waiters separate women from men, asking whether the woman is “unclean” and if so, chucking her out of their establishment? Didn’t think so.)
I’m going to get a job a Wal-Mart and refuse to sell any meat or leather to customers on the grounds that I’m a Hare Krisna. I’m curious how long my job would last.
What a really irks me from a religious point of view on matters like these is the characterization ‘he couldn’t fill the percription because he was a devout catholic.’ So if I were working there and I filled that percription I would be among the non-devout(2nd class?) catholics? What does that mean? Who would make that judgment except the person filling/not filling the percription?
I would bring the issue up with a priest not with my employer.My employer expects me to do my job. I think I know what the catholic answer would be: We all have our freedom of conscience.We are free agents and we must take personal responsibility for what we believe and what our decisions are. We always have a choice.
Pharmacists need to find a way to get comfortable doing their job.
I have treated murderers and child rapists at various points in my medical career. It doesn’t mean I condone child rape or murder. It means the jail called the doctor on duty, and I was the one wearing that hat that day.
Some people need to get over themselves.
oops… just for the record I meant ‘prescription’
For the record I have a member who was imprisoned years ago for sexual assault; and is now out on parole for robbing four banks. Do I agree with his “life choices?” Of course not. Do I minister to him, listen to his rambling phone calls, etc? Of course.
I’ve thought a bit more about this situation overnight and two thoughts come to mind. 1. I wonder if the ACLU will represent this man? And 2. Why can’t he be up front with future employers and make sure that he works a shift where there’s always another pharmacist on duty?
I don’t see where the ACLU has a case, since it is a professional group sanctioning him.
If he was being put under arrest for it, then they had better support him. However, even losing his job wouldn’t be something that he should have legal recourse for.
If I don’t agree with cigarettes, I shouldn’t work for an ad agency that works for a cigarette company.
Jason, for that reason I won’t be taking a job at a gas station anytime soon! I’d get in too much trouble giving my opinions about smoking and the waste of money lottery tickets are!