Last week, a pharmacist in Hilly Home, Idaho invoked the state conscience clause and refused to fill a customer's prescription for Viagra.
The customer, Watt Allen Goodman, said he initially thought the pharmacist, Alf Richus, was just a friendly guy who wanted to get to know him when he asked Goodman if he was married, if he had children, and if he wanted more children.
(See: Pharmacists Say No to Viagra)
Goodman reports that he laughed at that last question from the pharmacist saying "oh God no, four is plenty. Nida had her tubes tied last year because she said she couldn't take even one more dirty diaper!"
After hearing that, Richus refused to fill the prescription "on moral grounds." When asked by a reporter, Richus explained "I'm a religious Christian. If a customer needs Viagra or another ED prescription in order to procreate, I'm all for it. But I won't contribute to recreational sex."
When the reporter asked Richus about men whose wives were no longer of childbearing age or unmarried men, Richus said "yeah, them too. I'm not giving any of those guys Viagra from now on."
He cited the Idaho law that allows him to refuse to provide any service he feels is morally objectional as the basis for his refusal.
Richus went on to say that he's refused to fill contraception prescriptions for a number of women over the last couple of months and no reporters or news shows have called him. But this was his first time refusing to give a man an erectile dysfunction medication, and it immediately garnered lots of attention. "I've had quite a few reporters ask me about this now. It's a big deal for men so the papers and TV are really paying attention," he said.
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Note: Don't believe everything you read on the internet (just look at the names).
I chose Idaho for this fictional account because of this:
Idaho Code § 18-611 provides that no health care professional shall be required to provide any health care service that violates his or her conscience
http://www.ncsl.org/...
In the above report from National Conference of State Legislatures, most of the other states with a so-called conscience clause have laws that allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraceptives, but not for anything else. I guess women's sexual activities are the epicenter of immorality.
Some progressive state legislators who are disgusted with the passage of state laws requiring sonograms prior to abortions have been coming up with similar Viagra-related proposals to make a point. But I was thinking about this conscience clause business, and how many old male legislators it would take to rescind these laws if they discovered that pharmacists were using the laws to deny them Viagra. How long would Rush Limbaugh last?
Note2: the link in the introduction is to real (potential) refusals of Viagra but in Italy and for entirely different reasons.