The theocon war to dictate the specifics of our lives goes on to a new front. Now some Christian pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth-control or morning-after pills, once again trying to push
their beliefs into
our lives. From
WaPo:
Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs...
An increasing number of clashes are occurring in drugstores across the country. Pharmacists often risk dismissal or other disciplinary action to stand up for their beliefs, while shaken teenage girls and women desperately call their doctors, frequently late at night, after being turned away by sometimes-lecturing men and women in white coats.
More below.
It gets worse. Not only are they refusing to fill prescriptions, but they are holding prescriptions hostage.
"There are pharmacists who will only give birth control pills to a woman if she's married. There are pharmacists who mistakenly believe contraception is a form of abortion and refuse to prescribe it to anyone," said Adam Sonfield of the Alan Guttmacher Institute in New York, which tracks reproductive issues.
"There are even cases of pharmacists holding prescriptions hostage, where they won't even transfer it to another pharmacy when time is of the essence."
That is what happened to Kathleen Pulz and her husband, who panicked when the condom they were using broke. Their fear really spiked when the Walgreens pharmacy down the street from their home in Milwaukee refused to fill an emergency prescription for the morning-after pill.
"I couldn't believe it," said Pulz, 44, who with her husband had long ago decided they could not afford a fifth child. "How can they make that decision for us? I was outraged...
Emphasis mine
Exactly. The can't make that decision for us. This is a gross violation of our rights, and another example of how the Religious Right is trying to force their values into our lives and remake America into a Christian Iran.
No one knows exactly how often that is happening, but cases have been reported across the country, including in California, Washington, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Texas, New Hampshire, Ohio and North Carolina.
Advocates on both sides say the refusals appear to be spreading, often surfacing only in the rare instances when women file complaints.
Emphasis mine
Attacks on our abortion rights, attacks on our right to die with dignity, and now this. And it doesn't end here. Michigan is preparing to let doctors refuse medical treatment to gays (seriously).
The theocons are fighting a multi-front war to impose their way of life on us, and the war is only getting bigger.