DALLAS, April 5 (UPI) -- The refusal of two Texas pharmacists to fill prescriptions because of moral concerns has set off a controversy that may spread nationwide.
In one case, a pharmacist refused to sell a "morning after" emergency contraceptive to a rape victim, and in another a pharmacist declined to refill a woman's birth-control prescription. Both said they acted out of conscience.
The debate revolving around the right of pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription is not new, but the issues of abortion and birth control in Texas have inflamed this particular episode beyond the normal discussion.
Planned Parenthood Federation of America urged CVS/Pharmacy to take action after the pharmacist at its store in North Richland Hills, Texas refused to fill a birth-control prescription last month, allegedly saying that she did not believe in birth control.
"On behalf of America's women, I want your personal guarantee that this will never happen again," wrote President Gloria Feldt. "We want to know the immediate steps you will take to guarantee that all CVS pharmacies ensure that every patient's prescription is filled. ... I urge you to consider whose conscience really counts here."
CVS said after the incident that a pharmacist who cannot fill a prescription due to deeply held beliefs should ask another pharmacist to take care of the customer or call another pharmacy. CVS later delivered the pills to the customer's home.
"Contraception is basic medicine for women," Feldt said. "The refusal to provide it is an unacceptable imposition of narrow personal ideology on women's rights. This latest episode is just another in an ongoing series of attacks on women's reproductive health, and pharmacy refusals constitute a dangerous emerging trend."
In the second incident, Eckerd drugstores fired a pharmacist and two co-workers in Denton, Texas for refusing in January to sell a "morning after" emergency contraceptive to a rape victim. That incident led to talk of new legislation in a few states this year.
The policy of the Texas State Board of Pharmacy is that pharmacists may decline to fill prescriptions if they might do harm to patients, but not on moral grounds.
Texas Right to Life believes pharmacists should have the same rights that doctors and nurses have to exercise their conscience, said Elizabeth Graham, director of the Texas Right to Life Committee in Houston.
"Texas Right to Life supports conscience laws that would include not only pharmacists but all healthcare workers from providing medicine to which they are morally opposed," she said.
Texas Right to Life doesn't take a position on birth control itself, Graham said. "We are only opposed to those birth-control methods that do cause abortions," she said.
The debate over a pharmacist's role is not new, and a policy has developed in the profession, said Susan Winckler, vice president for policy and communications for the American Pharmacists Association in Washington.
"We support the pharmacists in being able to excuse themselves from activity that they find objectionable, but in tandem with that is to set up an alternative system so that the patient can have access to the legally acceptable therapy," she said.
The association supports a proactive approach in which the pharmacist addresses the issue with the employer and fellow workers before a problem crops up with a prescription.
"The pharmacists and their colleagues set up the alternative, whether that means referring the patient to another pharmacy or if it will be handled by another pharmacist in the same facility," she said.
