Fill the Prescription Hold the Moral Objection

I was reading an article on the Huffington Post under the women’s section today. The article was titled Pharmacist allegedly refused to fill teen’s IUD related prescription. I have been and will always be very vocal about a woman’s right to chose and a woman’s right to control her fertility. But what got me about this story is that the pharmacist assumed things about this young lady and then decided that his or her personal belief should out weight the young lady’s rights and her doctor’s prescription. In summary she was getting three prescriptions filled two there was no objection to the third is commonly used as a prep for a IUD, which the young lady wasn’t getting she was using the doctor prescribed medicine for something else. In short her mother questioned why it was filled and found out that the pharmacist wasn’t filling it based on his or her moral beliefs. The mother has since gotten the ACLU in New Mexico involved. Whatever reasons the young lady needs the prescription that was between her and her doctor. The pharmacist should not get a voice at the table.

This article irritated me for several reasons first why do people feel they have the right to impose their moral beliefs on others. If you don’t agree with a drug then don’t take it but there is a level of self-righteous arrogance at play here when the pharmacist refuses to do their job based upon their personal beliefs. He or she knew when they became a pharmacist that their job was to fill a variety of prescriptions written by doctors. If this particular pharmacist or any pharmacist isn’t willing to filled a prescribed medicine then maybe they are in the wrong field and they should pick another occupation. Because frankly I have a moral objection and personal beliefs about judgmental people who feel they have a right to inflict their morals on others instead of minding their business. I have a moral objection to people who want to make their morals the law of the land by which everyone should submit. I have personal beliefs about people who want their morals respected but don’t want to respect the morals or choices of others. I have personal beliefs about people who think their way of life is the only way to live and go out of their way to make it difficult for others to live their lives. But the difference is I’m not demanding people like the pharmacist change what I’m asking is that they mind their business, fill the prescription, and let the reasons for the prescription be between the patient and the doctor who wrote the prescription. Because unless you are alerting the doctor and or the patient to a possible conflict with the medications. The why and what for is not the pharmacist concern.

Second reason why this story irritated me is because I have an eighteen-year-old daughter and if she were to want or need a prescription that is birth control related it’s going to really pissed me off if her prescription is denied because a sanctimonious, arrogant, and just down right ignorant pharmacist decided to stick his or her nose in my daughter’s reproductive business. The pharmacist has no right to question or judge her. My husband and I have made it very clear to our daughter what her rights are and that we would support her in taking all of the steps necessary to stand up for her rights.

I’m tried of people making the rights of a woman’s fertility and reproduction their business and doing it under the guise of morality. When it has nothing to do with morality but everything to do with certain sects of society feeling they have a right to dictate what a woman does with her body because the voice in their head they call god tells them they have the right to. Well I don’t want my body or the bodies of my daughters and sons governed by the voices in someone else’s head. And that goes not just for reproductive rights but rights and laws in general. I’m very much a logic, reason, and science person.

The third reason the story  bothered me was because this isn’t the first time a pharmacist has done this. There have been stories of pharmacists refusing to fill the morning after pill as well as birth control pills, but I never hear of pharmacist refusing to fill Viagra or drugs like Viagra on the bases of moral objection or person beliefs. I don’t hear stories about men being questioned, judged, and or shamed by a pharmacist for needing pills to achieve an erection. You don’t hear of a man’s sexual activities being judged because of his Viagra prescription. I haven’t heard of legislation being passed to stop insurance from covering those pills. I don’t hear evangelicals decrying their moral objection to those pills. Men aren’t called derogatory names and vilified for needing Viagra. If one only has a moral objection to prescriptions that pertain to a woman’s reproductive system is it really a moral objection or is it just plain old misogyny disguised as morality.