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Some pharmacists refusing to fill birth control


CrispyQ
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5490-2005Mar27.html

 

snip...

 

Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs.

 

The trend has opened a new front in the nation's battle over reproductive rights, sparking an intense debate over the competing rights of pharmacists to refuse to participate in something they consider repugnant and a woman's right to get medications her doctor has prescribed. It has also triggered pitched political battles in statehouses across the nation as politicians seek to pass laws either to protect pharmacists from being penalized -- or force them to carry out their duties.

 

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Should these pharmacists be allowed to make decisions based on their personal morality that affect OUR health? Doesn't this basically give them the right to supercede what our doctors have prescribed? If we allow them to make these types of decisions, where will it end? Will it become acceptable, at some point in time, to force pregnant vegans to eat dairy/meat to assure a healthy baby. (We all know how many people think a vegan diet isn't healthy. "Where do you get your protein?")

 

BTW, are said pharmacists also refusing to fill Viagra perscritpions for single men? No, of course they aren't.

 

As a vegan, if I work in a restaurant or grocery store, would I be allowed to refuse to serve/sell meat or would my employer tell me, "That's part of the job. If you have an issue, there's the door." We all know the answer to that.

 

Regardless of your view of birth control/morning after pills, we are all standing on the proverbial slippery slope with this issue.

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I completley agree with what you have stated, If they don't want to fill the prescription then they should not be in the job.

It s me how the far right have permiated every part of our society.

Karen

 

I concur that they shouldnt be in the job then.

 

sidenote: I do not agree with birth control.

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*deep breaths, deep breaths*

 

As either of my roommates can tell you, I get IRATE when it comes to reproductive issues, pharmacy, the FDA....one only needs to venture over to my MySpace blogs to see what I'm talking about...I'm constantly ranting about these very things.

 

I cannot imagine a job where one can refuse to do the perfectly legal demands of the work. F#$&(*$ing ridiculous. I forget what they're called....conscience clauses or something like that? That states are enacting to let pharmacists off the hook for this behavior? Birth control pills and emergency contraception are vitally important drugs! And if the right wants to prevent abortions, I think they ought to be passing them out as quickly as possible, not PREVENT access to them!!!!!!

 

I get SO angry!!!!

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sidenote: I do not agree with birth control.

 

If you had a uterus I suspect you would.

 

I know you are all for abstinence, which is definately a good form of birth control. (Works for me) But what about for example, my cousin who is married but not ready for kids. Or other people in long term relationships...food for thought.

 

I hate the argument that birth control is a form of abortion. It's retarded. It's like veggymeggy said, birth control prevents abortions.

 

Those pharmacists don't have any right to deny the pills because of their beliefs. Its like crispyQ said, if we refused to serve people or sell people meet because of our beliefs we would be out of a job.

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I hate the argument that birth control is a form of abortion. It's retarded. It's like veggymeggy said, birth control prevents abortions.

 

Probably depends on your definition of abortion and your understanding of when life begins... no?

 

 

*rethinking this*

 

Wondering if Toph meant it in the more Catholic-esque sense... like anything that's done sexually without conception as a goal - use of pills or barriers, masturbation... etc.

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I hate the argument that birth control is a form of abortion. It's retarded. It's like veggymeggy said, birth control prevents abortions.

 

Probably depends on your definition of abortion and your understanding of when life begins... no?

 

No. That's a misunderstanding of how hormonal birth control functions.

It is designed to prevent the fertilization of an egg by suppressing ovulation, NOT by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg.

 

Read: "How do birth controls with artificial hormones work?

Hormonal forms of birth control contain artificial estrogen and/or progestin to mimic the hormones your body produces. Your body then responds to these increased levels of hormones in different ways, all of which can prevent a pregnancy. The main way in which these forms of contraception are designed to work is by suppressing ovulation. The extra hormones also work to thicken your cervical mucus thereby creating a hostile environment for sperm. Both of these methods help to prevent fertilization. " (http://www.epigee.org/guide/medfaq.html#hormones)

 

If you read on, there is some debate over if the primary means of preventing pregnancy fail and an egg does become fertilized, if 'the pill' or what have you then prevents implantation...it is however a completely undecided topic, and really the source of more political debate than scientific.

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Wondering if Toph meant it in the more Catholic-esque sense... like anything that's done sexually without conception as a goal - use of pills or barriers, masturbation... etc.

Yeah, that's the only reason I can see to oppose birth control... holding the belief that one should never engage in a sex act if it can't result in procreation. But I'm curious about what his reason actually is.

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VegMeg from your link:

 

If the other two methods fail and an egg were to be fertilized, then the Pill may work to thin the uterine lining thereby blocking the implantation of a fertilized egg. However, ther eis some debate as to just how often this occurs.

 

So it occurs. Or may reasonably be understood to potentially occur. We're certainly not sure it doesn't.

 

And if you insist life starts at conception then this fact that it may possibly occur and that the situation where it occurs is one where someone has actively chosen to take the pill and mostly likely actively chose to have sex - the whole thing might look to you like a person creating that potential within themselves for the pill to act as an abortificant which probably strikes you as a moral injustice. Right?

 

I recognize that's not the intent of the pill taker or the intended function etc. I'm just saying it creates the potential, potentially. Which for some may well be too much.

 

The link didn't mention politics in that section... I don't think? I'm going to guess you've got another link that does? I'd be interested to read more on how political it is

 

Meanwhile -

 

FormLino: I think if you understand life to begin before implantation and have the understanding that hormonal BC causes an inhospitable environment I think that one may not necesarrily have to ride the Catholic esque belief pony. Although that segment of society is probably not well populated AND! Vegspace! Omg I had no idea it existed! Awesome

Edited by Aaron
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A little off-topic: i can't recommend hormonal contraception. It's NOT good for your body. I think nowadays there are other safe alternatives, condoms and ... *lacks english word* femidoms? Silicon things used by the woman... like internal condom *lol* Works very well

Polluting your body with hormones and disturbing your natural cycle isn't a very clever thing to do. It really puts me off that physicians invented and promoted this practise, so that it's very common and normal now.

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Most condoms = not vegan

 

Although I suspect they're incidentally not vegan rather than directly, if that makes sense... Like the manufacturers would make them without casein if casein prices rose because cows weren't being milked for other things? Or something? My brain just failed to be able to make sentences. I'm taking a break

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A little off-topic: i can't recommend hormonal contraception. It's NOT good for your body. I think nowadays there are other safe alternatives, condoms and ... *lacks english word* femidoms? Silicon things used by the woman... like internal condom *lol* Works very well

Polluting your body with hormones and disturbing your natural cycle isn't a very clever thing to do. It really puts me off that physicians invented and promoted this practise, so that it's very common and normal now.

 

But what about if one's own hormonal cycles, while natural, are problematic? I've got friends who get such bad cramps and that sort of thing they can't even stand, and various other things like that. There are a multitude of small and large issues that hormonal birth control seems to fix, incidental to the whole preventing pregnancy thing

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FormLino: I think if you understand life to begin before implantation and have the understanding that hormonal BC causes an inhospitable environment I think that one may not necesarrily have to ride the Catholic esque belief pony. Although that segment of society is probably not well populated

Well, if one is against all birth control as concept, then I can't see any other reason than believing that sex not open to procreation is wrong. I see what you are saying above, but that would lead a person to be opposed only to those specific forms of birth control and not all forms together (e.g., including condoms).

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VM:

There are a multitude of small and large issues that hormonal birth control seems to fix, incidental to the whole preventing pregnancy thing

 

True dat.

 

FL:

I think what I was saying broke somewhere but essentially... nevermind me My head broke trying to discuss discussions.

 

It's funny. I was raised in a synagogue where we spent all this time going over nuances of text. Whether people walked or walked fast and what that meant in the grand scheme of things. Whether a word meant that they smiled or grinned or something like that to try to find insight. In 40 years when I've naturally lost all my hair, rather than shaving it as I do now, I hope I've got the ability to examine as minute nuances as they can. When I try it's as if I'm trying to catch water in my hands, I get most of it but there's always something slipping just out of my grasp.

 

VM (again):

Foodfight in portland oregon. There's a few places online I think too but you'd have to google them up. Isn't there a vegan sex shop online?

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VM (again):

Foodfight in portland oregon. There's a few places online I think too but you'd have to google them up. Isn't there a vegan sex shop online?

 

Foodfight, good to know, thanks! On the other - I don't know, but if there isn't there should be! And if there is I shall endeavor to find it, because that sounds like a fun site

 

Just out of curiosity, what part of Portland are you in? (Not looking for an address, just wondering, SW, NW, etc.) I go up and stay at a house in SW about every other weekend. I know madcat is in Portland too....why is it that I'm up there so often and have never met you Portland vegans??

 

Oh, and I understood where you were going with your previous comments, no worries. The sentences might have been jumbled in your thoughts but they came out ok:) And, I think you're right. I don't think condoms are intentionally non-vegan, it doesn't seem particularly necessary for them to be. (Except the lambskin ones, ewwww. Can you imagine pulling lambskin over your.....EWWWWWW)

 

There. This thread is sufficiently hijacked

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FL:

I think what I was saying broke somewhere but essentially... nevermind me My head broke trying to discuss discussions.

'scool. I have a bad habit of not typing out everything I am thinking and therefore not being clear about where I'm going in a discussion. I certainly get what you are saying, and I do think there are actually a fair number of people who do believe that. I know that is a huge part of the resistance to the Plan-B type of contraception, so I'm sure there are people who feel similarly about the pill.

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Plan B requiring a prescription still is utterly absurd. The FDA is supposed to be an apolitical administration, but here they are repeatedly ignoring the advice of their medical panel, prompting the resignation of multiple experts, just because it's a controversial issue thanks to my buddies over on the religious right. Gotta love it.

I'm just glad I'm both educated enough and affluent enough (at least by family and association, if not personally at the moment ) to have the ability to pursue all possibilities when I have a medical need. I can't imagine being say, a 18yr old poor single girl in Mississippi.

Ridiculous.

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