It seems like this whole religious grounds bullshit pharmacists have been using to deny women medication has reached a new level with one of the groups founded by Pat Robertson filing a lawsuit against the State of Illinois. The state has a new law requiring pharmacists fill all prescriptions if the drug is in stock. The only way a pharmacist could use the moral excuse is if there is another pharmacist present who will fill the prescription. The case revolves around five pharmacists suspended indefinitely by Walgreens for failing to comply with the law’s requirements.First let me just say that I adore these little names that religious groups give their army of lawyers. In this case the name of the group is the American Center for Law and Justice. Of course this group and others like it have no interest in law and justice for anyone other than individuals who think just like them and screw the rest.

While I have no direct connection to this new phenomenon because it seems to be isolated to women’s health and I have absolutely no need for something like birth control or the “morning after pill”, I am still disturbed by it because of the ramifications of this and other attempts to add a “conscientious objector” clause in medicine. This is because it becomes a real possibility that it would then be okay for pharmacists to deny prescriptions for medication used to treat HIV/AIDS because they morally object to homosexuals and so forth.

While I do believe in freedom of religion and all that, I also believe there are times where your faith needs to be left at the door. The practice of medicine is one such instance. It is my belief that when an individual chooses to become a certain profession they are agreeing to everything that comes with it. When these so-called conscientious objectors decided to become pharmacists they knew that there was a possibility of them having to fill some sort of prescription that they may disagree with. If they do not like it then they should find a new career that does not put them into that position. It is not their job to defend the morality of their patients or America at large.

Another thing that disturbs me is the fact that these pharmacists are essentially overriding the care of a doctor. For example say a woman walks into a pharmacy with a prescription for the morning after pill. The pharmacist may assume the reason she has this prescription is to perform an “abortion” because she just wants to terminate a potential pregnancy. But that woman’s case may be different. She may have been told not to have kids for medical reasons which pose a risk to her life or perhaps she is on medication like Accutane which has an extremely high rate of birth defects in children born to women who took the drug during pregnancy. In fact, the literature I read while I was taking the drug myself seemed to stop just short of telling women who got pregnant while on the drug to get an abortion. The same goes for birth control because it is not just used to prevent pregnancy but also to help women regulate their menstrual cycles as well. The bottom line is that these pharmacists who are attempting to impose their morals on their customers are making assumptions about women’s health and that is unacceptable.

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