Pro Life Pharmacies

This should make for some entertainment.

When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

That’s because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John’s and a Kmart, will be a “pro-life pharmacy”—meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.

The pharmacy is one of a small but growing number of drugstores around the country that have become the latest front in a conflict pitting patients’ rights against those of health-care workers who assert a “right of conscience” to refuse to provide care or products that they find objectionable.

“The United States was founded on the idea that people act on their conscience—that they have a sense of right and wrong and do what they think is right and moral,” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Society, a Chicago public-interest law firm that is defending a pharmacist who was fined and reprimanded for refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. “Every pharmacist has the right to do the same thing,” Brejcha said.

Hat tip Dad29.

1. What’s the objection to selling condoms and birth control?

   It’s fine with me if someone owns a store and doesn’t want to sell something - but I’m trying to figure out the objection to condoms?

   Posted by on June 18, 2008 at 0716 hrs




2. Bill, it’s well-known that artificial contraception fails--which sometimes leads to abortions.  Thus the “pro-lifers against artificial contraception.”

   As an aside, the pharmacy in question is run by a Catholic health system--and the Catholic Church teaches that use of artificial contraception is a grave sin.

   Posted by dad29 on June 18, 2008 at 0744 hrs




3. Will they fill your Valtrex or Gardasil prescriptions?

   Condoms get shoplifted a lot, too; some pharmacies won’t carry them or lock them behind the counter because they can’t afford to supply the neighborhood.  Seems silly to me to go steal something you can get for free at any junior high or “women’s clinic”, but kids seem to be trained to expect they shouldn’t have to pay for ‘em.

   Posted by HeatherRadish on June 18, 2008 at 0821 hrs




4. Guess you can look at it like this....

   Anything that assists with promoting/allowing/assisting sexual behavior without benefit of marriage can be purchased elsewhere.  If they don’t want to be a party to the “crime”, why should they?

   :::::applauding loudly:::::

   Posted by on June 18, 2008 at 0834 hrs




5. I really have zero problem with this, as long as one condition is met… if someone goes to that pharmacy not knowing they don’t fill birth control prescriptions, that the pharmacy simply turns them away, and doesn’t confiscate the prescription, which has sadly happened.

   Posted by Nick on June 18, 2008 at 0847 hrs




6. Nick, I agree with not confiscating the prescription.

   Otherwise, this pharmacy has every right to run its business according to its Catholic principles.

   Posted by on June 18, 2008 at 0941 hrs




7. Will consumers need to provide a marriage license to get a Viagra prescription filled?? Just wondering!!!!

   Posted by on June 18, 2008 at 1201 hrs




8. Will they fill your Valtrex or Gardasil prescriptions?

   Since Valtrex is also used to treat shingles, I don’t see why they would turn it down.  Gardasil is a vaccine, which is typically administered at the dr’s office or a county health dept, and I’m not aware of vaccinations administered outside of a health professional’s office.

   I applaud this decision too, and it is good for consumers who are looking to take their business to a place which reflects their own personal beliefs.

   as long as one condition is met… if someone goes to that pharmacy not knowing they don’t fill birth control prescriptions, that the pharmacy simply turns them away, and doesn’t confiscate the prescription

   I agree—simply turning them away should be sufficient.

   Posted by hsgbdmama on June 18, 2008 at 1545 hrs




9. In a true free-market, this should be no problem.  Business owners should be able to run their personal businesses as they see fit. There is nothing stopping a pharmacy from setting up right next door that does carry these things.  Either there is a place in the market for each of them, or one will sink while the other swims. 
   I agree that they should not be able to confiscate the prescription.

   Posted by Jennifer on June 19, 2008 at 0837 hrs