Birth Control...Control?

Posted on Fri, May. 13, 2005

Druggists stop selling birth-control pills

Some pharmacists take position on moral grounds, causing health care dilemma
By KATIE FAIRBANK
Knight Ridder Newspapers

FABENS, Texas ?- Steve Mosher's Medicine Shoppe pharmacy is inside a grocery store on one of the two main streets in this small West Texas town. It's the only local place residents can fill prescriptions.

Fabens might be miles from nowhere, but it's smack in the middle of the decades-long fight over reproduction and contraception.

Last year, Mosher decided he'd had enough. He joined the growing ranks of pharmacists refusing to dispense birth control because of moral objections.

"I'm a Christian, and I believe that abortion is taking the life of an innocent human being," Mosher said. Because birth control pills could keep a fertilized egg from implanting, he opposes them, too. " ... That's the same thing as abortion. I know there are a lot of people that don't agree ... but that's the way I see it."

More than 30 years after the U.S. Supreme Court held that it is a woman's constitutional right to have an abortion, the fight rages on. Now, it has moved into the local drugstore.

"This is absolutely a new way to keep women from having access to contraception," said Susan Hays, a Dallas lawyer who has represented minors seeking judicial approval of abortions.

On one side of this latest battle are pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control on ethical and religious grounds. They particularly oppose such medications as the "morning-after" pill, an emergency contraceptive that can prevent fertilization if taken within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse. An organization known as Pharmacists for Life International, with 1,600 members, urges its members to refuse filling such prescriptions.

On the other side are reproductive-rights groups pushing for access to the drugs. And there are others concerned that pharmacists might refuse to dispense a wide range of prescribed medicine, not just birth control.

"There's a lot more to this than just a reproductive issue," said Julee Lacey, who was denied a birth control prescription by a North Richland Hills, Texas, pharmacist in March 2004.

The American Pharmacists Association, which has 50,000 members, says druggists can refuse to fill prescriptions on moral grounds, but they must make arrangements for a patient to get the medication.

But that's not always easy for small-town America.

The problem can be further exacerbated because many stores, including national chains, don't offer all forms of birth control. The morning-after pill is frequently not offered.

Mosher, the Fabens pharmacist, owns his store and said it was his personal decision to stop selling birth control.

"I've had a lot of people who don't agree with my opinion, but they understand that I should be able to have the right to make a stand on a moral issue in my own business. I shouldn't be forced to dispense birth control pills if I choose not to."