Targeting Your Neighborhood Theo-Pharmacist

Speaking of pharmaceuticals, you might want to take a beta blocker before reading this tale of what theofascism has wrought (via Adam at A Violently Executed Blog, who cribbed it from nuvo.net. . It's got it all - assault, rape and a pious pharmacist who says no to filling a legal prescription. Here's an excerpt which takes place following the rape:

After nearly an hour of discussing the options with her doctor, Michelle finally agreed to be examined in his office on Monday and to see a rape counselor. In the meantime, he would call Michelle’s pharmacy with a prescription for emergency contraception to prevent any chance of a pregnancy.

Driving to the pharmacy a little while later, Michelle said she felt a huge sense of relief. “I felt like I was down, but not out. I felt like I could get through this like I had everything else, and it would all work out.”

But standing at the pharmacy counter, Michelle learned otherwise.

Michelle’s pharmacy didn’t stock the medication. “They said they could order it for me, and it would be in on Monday afternoon. But that would be too late. By then it would be nearly 72 hours, and it should be taken during the first 24 hours. After 72 hours, it doesn’t work. I just didn’t want to take that big of a chance.”

She asked for her prescription and drove a few blocks to Wal-Mart. She knew they had a pharmacy, and she thought she would pick up a few things for the apartment while she waited.

“Again, I was trying to stay really positive. I was trying to hold myself together and concentrate on solutions, not the problems.”

The pharmacist at Wal-Mart, however, was less helpful than the previous one. “He looked at me with what was clearly contempt and said, ‘We don’t carry this.’ Then he shoved the paper back towards me and walked away. At first I didn’t understand. I mean, I thought he was saying the same thing — that they didn’t have it in stock. So I said, ‘Can you order it?’

“And from about 50 feet away, he turns and says loud enough for practically everyone in the damn store to hear, ‘I mean we don’t kill babies. You’ll have to find someone else to do that for you.’”

Michelle picked up the prescription from the counter and drove back to her apartment where she searched through boxes for the phonebook.

“I called 13 pharmacies. Some of them were nice, and said they didn’t have it in stock but could order it for me. Some of them were rude, and said they didn’t have it and just hung up. Not one of them had it available. After the last one said no, I just started to cry. I couldn’t stop.”

Michele made one more phone call. She called her doctor and through her sobs she told him that she had tried 15 pharmacies, but none of them would or could fill her prescription. Just before 5 p.m., her doctor knocked at her door with the medication in hand.

“I didn’t ask him where he got it. I didn’t even care. I was crying too hard at that point and I just wanted the whole thing to be over. I took the medicine, drank a glass of water and thanked him over and over. When he left, I just laid down on the couch and slept until the next afternoon. I woke up when my mom called and asked what time I was coming to pick up the boys.”

I strenuously object to the argument that pharmacists should have the professional and legal authority to deny any patient a legally prescribed medication. A patient's access to any medication should not be held hostage to the whims - religious or otherwise - of the pharmacist. The "conscience clause" movement sweeping the country (today's legislators really have that Orwellian naming scheme down pat, don't they?) is a scourge on public health policy. I've also heard of pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control pills for similar reasons. Given the tension between advances in science and the rise of theofascism, it's safe to assume the list of medications pharmacists will refuse to dispense will only grow longer if they're ultimately given the authority imparted to them via "conscience clause" legislation.

This is one arena where progressives can prevail against (or at least thwart) the onslaught of theofascist policy. Even when state legislatures pass bills imparting this papal-like authority to pharmacists, individual pharmacies can be pressured to work around such obtuse legislation. For example, in stores where more than one pharmacist work the same shift, store managment could ensure patients aren't deprived of medication by assuring at least one of those pharmacists is not a fundie whackjob. If a pharmacist objects to such a policy, that puts him or her at odds with their employer as opposed to the employer being at odds with state law.


The next time you go to the pharmacy, ask where store management stands on this issue. If their pharmacists' morality - or lack thereof - trumps the public's access to legally prescribed medications, let them know orally and in writing you will take your business elsewhere - and that this action may well be augmented by a visible protest of the store's policy. Unlike protesting, say, Halliburton or GE, drug stores - at least once the light of public scrutiny is on them - can be brought around if challenged forcibly enough by us. Your local drugstore has the potential to be one of the better battlegrounds in which progressives can take a stand and have a positive, real world effect.