Can Pharmacists Refuse to Dispense Drugs on Moral Grounds?

ByABC News via logo
October 26, 2005, 9:09 AM

Oct. 26, 2005 — -- To 29-year-old Megan Kelly, picking up birth control usually is nothing more than an errand.

But last July, Kelly went to a pharmacy to pick up Plan B, emergency contraception that can be taken after unprotected sex. Her doctor had prescribed it as a precaution because she had missed three regular birth control pills. Plan B is legal -- but Kelly's pharmacist refused to fill the prescription on moral grounds.

Kelly and her husband have one child.

"The pharmacist actually came up to me and said 'I'm sorry I personally don't believe in this,'" said Kelly. "'I'm not able to fill this prescription.' And I just said to her, 'this is your job you need to get my prescription.' And she said, 'I won't.'"

Kelly is not alone. There have been reports in 12 states of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for Plan B or regular birth control on moral grounds.

"It's not the job of a drugstore or a pharmacist or someone who works in a drugstore to make those decisions or to pick and choose who gets birth control and who doesn't," said Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, who earlier this year issued an emergency rule requiring pharmacies to accept and fill prescriptions for contraceptives without delay.

Some pharmacists disagree. They say denying Plan B is their legal right and moral duty. Luke Vander Bleek, a pharmacist and devout Catholic, is currently challenging the Illinois measure.

"I've always stopped short of dispensing any sort of product that I think endangers human life or puts the human embryo at risk," Vander Bleek said.

The conflict raises the question: when does life begin? Plan B, a high dose of the same hormones found in regular birth control pills, interferes with fertilization by stopping a fertilized egg from implanting in the womb. Most gynecologists agree that pregnancy does not begin until the egg is implanted -- so Plan B stops a pregnancy before it starts.

But pharmacists like Vander Bleek say they should be able to "walk away from something they find morally unconscionable."