Let's Hear it for Illinois

[rolanni]

Illinois governor: No delays in birth control prescriptions

Friday, April 1, 2005 Posted: 7:29 PM EST (0029 GMT)

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Gov. Rod Blagojevich approved an emergency rule Friday requiring pharmacies to fill birth control prescriptions quickly after a Chicago pharmacist refused to fill an order because of moral opposition to the drug.

The emergency rule takes effect immediately for 150 days while the administration seeks a permanent rule.

"Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to," Blagojevich said. "No delays. No hassles. No lectures."

Under the new rule, if a pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist must be available to fill it without delay.

The rest of the story

Comments

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Yea! for Blago.

He's had his moments, and he's had his moments, but this is good.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Under the new rule, if a pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist must be available to fill it without delay.

Which I suspect means that any pharmacist has one opportunity to grandstand before being fired. That should put a crimp into the Religious Wrong's agenda.

Right and Wrong

[neyland-tarr.livejournal.com]

Now, y'see, this is the kind of knee jerk Liberal reaction that has moved the country from 70-80% in favor of "abortion rights" to 60% in favor of 'broad limitations' on abortion.

You both (that is to You and the Pharmacist) have an agenda. Frankly, your comment does not convey any sense that you are aware of YOURS. Both are based on opinions that cannot be proven 'right' without recourse to faith.

Not that I think the new law is wrong; Quakers should not join the military, and and buttinski Catholics probably shouldn't be pharmacists.

Nevertheless, the automatic assumption of moral superiority is what is putting Abortion Rights in this country into jeopardy.

The Pro-Choice activists should not have tried to use anti-racketeering laws to bankrupt anti-abortion protesters. It smacked of fascism, and the Left especially is in no position to complain of disruptive protest tactics.

The Pro-Choice activists should not have positioned themselves to defend "partial Birth" abortion. Any moderately bright child of five could have told them that it was political poison. If there is a practical difference between "partial Birth" abortion and infanticide, it is a very fine line indeed. It is not defensible in a democracy.

Lastly, the Pro Choice activists should not position themselves to oppose parental notification laws. In the first place, it is hard to imagine a circumstance where obtaining an abortion for a girl without notifying her parents would be a right thing to do. where making her a ward of the court would not be better. In the second place, it flat out alienates just about all parents and a large cross section of people who expect to be parents.

All three positions were adopted with a smug attitude of moral superiority. All three are likely to cost the women of this country more than they want to pay for feeling morally superior.

P.S. I'm pro-abortion, just anti-smug politician.

Re: Right and Wrong

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I'm really failing to see how a woman with a prescription in hand from her doctor expecting the pharmacist to fill the prescription demonstrates an "agenda," other than her own health needs.

The rest of your argument belongs somewhere else -- it's not under discussion here.

Re: Right and Wrong

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Excuse me, do you mind if I ask who you are? You have no interests, no friends listed, two posts, and I don't remember seeing you around. You'll pardon me, I hope, if I wonder out loud whether you are trolling random journals looking for examples of "liberal smugness" to comment on. If you have, perhaps, another identity, one not apparently dedicated to this activity, I of course apologize.

Having said that:

Of course I have an agenda. Am I supposed to be so open-minded that I have no opinion of my own? I have an agenda, and that agenda is to support the freedom of individuals against those who appear to be trying to take it away. I am against war as well, but were a Quaker to join the military for the express purpose of refusing to fight, I would call that grandstanding too.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank the gods.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Hurray. A governor doing something right. A nice change.

Hooray and...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hooray for Illinois. But at the same time it's scary when enforcing a basic human right is seen as a courageous moral stand.

Be interesting to see how much flack there is as they try to turn the emergency order into a permanent rule.

And how many other governors/legislatures follow suit....

Re: Hooray and...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Hooray for Illinois. But at the same time it's scary when enforcing a basic human right is seen as a courageous moral stand.

Be interesting to see how much flack there is as they try to turn the emergency order into a permanent rule.

The head of one of the state pharmacy groups is already objecting, according to the expanded story in the online NYT. Her concern is that phamacists who feel a drug is being wrongly prescribed may be prohibited by this law from questioning the prescription.

A spokesperson for the governor's office said, no, the intent of the directive is only to keep the pharmacist's personal feelings out of it. In so many words.

Re: Hooray and...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

The head of one of the state pharmacy groups is already objecting, according to the expanded story in the online NYT

Quote from the NYT, which is kind of ...interesting in its take of what it is pharmacists do...

But Susan C. Winckler of the American Pharmacists Association, which represents 52,000 pharmacists, said she had concerns about the emergency rule in Illinois. The association, she said, believes that pharmacists should be allowed to "step away" in cases where they feel uncomfortable dispensing a particular drug - so long as their customers can still get their drugs from alternative sources.

Ms. Winckler said she also worried that Governor Blagojevich's new rule might reach beyond the question of a pharmacist's own moral sensibilities, and require pharmacists to dispense all prescriptions, even those that were "clinically inappropriate" for patients. Such cases might include ones in which a pharmacist discovered a customer's allergy or a potential drug interaction that a prescribing doctor had missed.

"Depending on the wording of the rule, there is a real risk that the governor could be creating," Ms. Winckler said. "The pharmacist is not a gas station attendant where if there is gas you have to sell it. Pharmacists are supposed to assess the appropriateness of a drug."

Rest of the story here (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/national/02pharmacy.html?ex=1270098000&en=d5d72e7b4f09d1a2&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland)

Re: Hooray and...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Ok, she reps a national organization, not a state one.

I can understand a pharmacist feeling the need to 'step away' if they feel a a drug addict is being overprescribed, but in that case, aren't they required to report the matter? I work with enough pharmacists--I should ask one.

Re: Hooray and...

[indiw.livejournal.com]

If the issue is for overuse of a narcotic, I think most pharamcists tell the doc (so it doesn't get prescribed *again*) and the same for the allergies -- but if the doc thinks the medicine is justified; if the risk for an allergic reaction negligible, then the pharmacist should fill it -- it's on the doc's head. (From what I can tell, if it's the pharamacist not filling the medicine, the doc has to find out, one way or the other. If it's the patient not picking up the med, of course that's a whole other story).

Even seemingly minor changes -- the doc prescribing some odd number of pills that doesn't seem right to the pharamacist, the pharmacist generally sends/calls the doc for clarification.

The bit about the birth control pills doesn't seem to be a question of patient safety, which the other examples cited are, but of someone imposing their moral beliefs on another.

Re: Hooray and...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

but in that case, aren't they required to report the matter? I work with enough pharmacists--I should ask one.


I'd be interested in the answer to this question from a working pharmacist point of view...

Re: Hooray and...

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm out of the office this week (yes!), but next week I'll ask around. Many of the pharmacists still do a few hours of retail a week to maintain their licenses.

Re: Hooray and...

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm out of the office this week

Yay!

but next week I'll ask around.

Thank you.

Re: Hooray and...

[badgermirlacca.livejournal.com]

What part of if a pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist must be available to fill it without delay did she miss?

I don't see that this regulation requires a pharmacist to fill a prescription over his own moral objections. It just says that the prescription will by golly get filled.

You know, I've never heard before of an RC pharmacist refusing to fill a birth control prescription (and what if it's not for birth control, huh? huh? ever think of that, you turkey?). They might not approve, but they'd do it. Refusing seems to me to be a more fundamentalist kind of response. And fundamentalism and Roman Catholicism.... oh, well. It's been a long time since I attended Mass. Things have changed.

I guess the fundamentalist movement has sanctioned, you should forgive the pun, a lot of actions in churches where they never used to exist.