A nurse practitioner at an Idaho Planned Parenthood called a local Walgreen’s pharmacy to fill a prescription for Methergine, a medicine used to prevent or control bleeding of the uterus following childbirth or an abortion. The pharmacists refused to fill the prescription unless the nurse told her whether or not the patient had an abortion. Because of patient confidentiality laws, the nurse refused to disclose that information, and asked for a referral to another pharmacy. The pharmacist hung up.
Let’s recap: A nurse practitioner needed a medication to prevent bleeding. The pharmacist refused to fill it without knowing if the patient had an abortion because… why? If the patient had terminated a pregnancy, the pharmacist would refuse to give her medicine to stop bleeding? That is how you kill people.
Situational Pro-Life Ethics
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@43 – Spot on. A woman speaks her mind and he threatens to beat her up.
@50 – thanks for providing that perspective. You’ve opened my eyes.
Apologies for going off topic, but I know the troll is reading this and I really want to make its head asplode:
Congratulations to Anne and Elaine, and Joe and Kevin. Suck it, haters.
Full story with video
This should be publicized, yes, as a violation of medical ethics. But don’t pretend like the woman was going to die just because one pharmacist wouldn’t fill a prescription. Hospitals HAVE vital medications on-site already. It was as simple as hanging up and dialing the other walgreens in town.
Amazing ethical violence. I agree with #1: it’s time to start revoking licences for people who act that unethically.
How about the names and addresses of Walgreens’ central management? Time to tell the company that I won’t buy so much as a stick of gum from them as long as this person is in their employ as a pharmacist. When they want my business, they can let me know as soon as she has been let go (or transferred to some other position where her personal beliefs can’t cause medical harm, like maybe janitor), and that they’ve crafted an employment policy that disallows this behavior.
As far as I’m concerned, that message should be delivered to the company nationwide.
52
explode?
really?
my my my.
why are we not surprised to find a canadian ‘vet’ so ill informed about explosives…..
50
those silly silly people.
it is well known that black churches used to hire the Klan as private security for their churches, after all…..
53
please please don’t spoil Slogs ‘IndignantlyPissOurselves’ Party with the Truth.
the HomoLiberal Haters need a good dose of (manufactured) outrage to kick off their weekend…..
Nobody else to quote here but George Carlin, “Pro-life is anti-woman.”
@KiminPortland
If you’re reading this, I have been looking for a companion guide to study the bible with for some time. I asked my super-religious family members to find one for me that is based in scholarly perspective but I haven’t found one yet.
If you have the name of such a thing could you post it? PLease? 🙂
I took a pharm tech training class through community college with a former Walgreens employee just when Duh Shrub first signed into law the “Health Care Provider Conscience Rule”. The instructor informed us that while we could chose to opt out of filling the rx and have another person in the pharmacy fill the rx. She stated that this was typical company policy for the big chains. I do not know if this is true now but that’s what we were told and it was a fairly conservative, Mormon/Catholic heavy, area. I don’t think Walgreens will go very easily on this pharmacist because it is a HIPPA violation at the very least and a lawsuit at worst along with all the bad PR.
However, if they don’t terminate the pharmacist and do the appropriate amount of public groveling you can do what people do to large corporate chains that piss them off; Don’t patronize them. If you do have prescriptions with Walgreens (local retail pharmacy or mail order), move them else where and tell them why.
If you follow the link to the Idaho Press-Tribune article (as opposed to the Feministe article) you’ll see that the pronoun “she” is used to describe the pharmacist.
It wasn’t a sanctimonious son of a bitch who did this, it was a woman! Aaargh!
& KMonkey,
At present my fascination and study is focused on the historical Jesus.
The complete Gospels: the scholars version/ Robert J. Miller, editor.– 4th ed.
You might want to check out the Westar Institute, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg, and Solomon Schimmel.
I hope that helps.
@56: So we can assume you’ll be adding Ann and Elaine, and Joe and Kevin to the list when you’re out shopping for Dan and Terry’s anniversary gift yes? Ten years is tin or aluminium, which isn’t very sexy, but the alternate is diamond! Now that might be too expensive for you so, as we discussed, you can always go to Hallmark and get them a nice card. Remember! Hallmark has been selling cards celebrating same sex unions since 2008, so you won’t have any problem find a nice selection. Right by the stuffed Garfields and Precious Moments figurines.
@59:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AvF1Q3Uid…
@62 et al: You’re very, very fat.
Just to clarify, the Washington State pharmacy board actually ruled in December to uphold a rule passed a few years ago that requires pharmacists to fill all legal prescriptions and to dispense Plan B without discrimination or delay. So at least in WA state there would be consequences for a pharmacist who refuses medications. They can ask another pharmacy staff to fill them if there is another staff member on site otherwise they have an obligation to fill the prescription.
Thanks to everyone who expressed their outrage to the pharmacy board over their attempt to overturn this rule, women in our state are protected from the tyranny of bad pharmacists.
They should be fired and publicly shamed for their callousness.
Just to clarify, the Washington State pharmacy board actually ruled in December to uphold a rule passed a few years ago that requires pharmacists to fill all legal prescriptions and to dispense Plan B without discrimination or delay. So at least in WA state there would be consequences for a pharmacist who refuses medications. They can ask another pharmacy staff to fill them if there is another staff member on site otherwise they have an obligation to fill the prescription.
Thanks to everyone who expressed their outrage to the pharmacy board over their attempt to overturn this rule, women in our state are protected from the tyranny of bad pharmacists.
They should be fired and publicly shamed for their callousness.
@53
they can call the next pharmacy, until the right wing movement has every pharmacy in the area following this policy. In a place like Idaho, that can happen a lot faster than you might think.
And I don’t agree that hospitals have all the important meds they need. Clearly, the person that called the pharmacy did NOT know who to call next because she asked for a referral.
We’ve got to stand up to these lunatics before they overtake the country. they clearly don’t care about “conscience”; their goal is to prevent women from getting any meds that they don’t want them to have. Even if it kills them.
Here’s the link to contact Walgreen’s via email:
http://www.walgreens.com/topic/marketing…
@66 et al. troll(s): Why don’t you do something productive and go jerk-off to the Handmaid’s Tale?”
How are those pharmacists allowed to do that? Seriously, how are they not fired? I really really don’t get it.
That’s appalling. Politics shouldn’t interfere with medical care. If anyone wants to stage a protest or write a congressman outside of work hours, that’s fine. But when it comes to filling perfectly legal prescriptions, politics shouldn’t enter into the decision. If you are so stuck on politics that you would refuse someone medical care, then you shouldn’t be a pharmacist, nurse, doctor or other medical care professional.
Private business yadda yadda: if one is going along with this whole private business/private health care paradigm, I don’t see that one really has a well-founded objection. I agree that in a competitive-market system, insurers should be able to choose what they cover, pharmacies should be able to choose what they stock and provide, and doctors should be able to choose who they treat. This is one of my primary objections to a private health care system, as a public employee would not be able to do this.
That said, I’m not sure why Walgreen’s doesn’t fire these asshats for not doing their jobs, as this sort of behavior is likely to piss off the majority of the country that thinks reproductive planning is just dandy. Might this prick be subject to ethical review for asking for confidential (and irrelevant) medical information?
If anyone cares, the State Board of Pharmacy announced yesterday that the pharmacist in question was cleared of any wrongdoing. They said she didn’t violate state law (not sure how they got around that one) and that since the patient was able to get the medication at another pharamcy, there was no danger presented to the patient. Makes me wonder if they would have ruled differently if this was the only pharmacy for 50 miles? But, it is Idaho….. Guess this gives pharmacists license to start discriminating at will over anything that violates their “conscience”. Very bad precedent, IMO.