They are the ones attacking Governor Rod Blagojevich for instituting the emergency order requiring pharmacies that stock contraceptives to dispense them upon receipt of a valid prescription (the order includes the ability to make professional decisions regarding the pharmaceutical).
They are calling the Govenor, Rod “Slobodan” Blagojevich.
Governor “Slobodan” Blagojevich refuses to back down from his unconstitutional rule making dispensing of abortion drugs mandatory for IL pharmacists, even if they invoke the state’s healthcare provider conscience clause. Hiz Honor continues to show a despotic disrespect for the law and freedom of religion and conscience, as did his “namesake” who is up for war crimes following ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Heczegovina. The Guv would love to cleanse IL of any pharmacists who still have a conscience, or so it seems!
Let’s start with what’s wrong here
1) He only requires pharmacies to dispense drugs they already carry
2) He’s a doofus, but he isn’t a genocidal dictator. You lose pretty much all credibility when you compare promulgating an emergency order regarding contraceptives to genocide. No, not pretty much all, all credibility
3) The Health Care Conscious Clause applies to individuals delivering care and even then there is controversy over whether it covers pharmacists. Let’s say it does, the order doesn’t require an individual pharmacist to do anything. It requires a pharmacy that carries a drug to dispense that drug, order it as its written policies require (or not if they don’t carry it), at the patient’s direction to return the script or pass it along to a pharmacy that will.
4) and talk about bashing an ethnicity…
Americans United for Life are suing him over the rule as well.
The guffaw line is
The suit alleges in part that the Governor’s emergency rule violates the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act by telling compelling pharmacy owners who do not want to carry drugs such as the morning-after pill that can cause abortions to act against its ethical and moral beliefs in dispensing such drugs.
What they don’t quite realize is that the text is quite clear
Upon receipt of a valid, lawful prescription for a contraceptive,
a pharmacy must dispense the contraceptive, or a suitable
alternative permitted by the prescriber, to the patient or the
patient?s agent without delay. If the contraceptive, or a suitable
alternative, is not in stock, the pharmacy must obtain the
contraceptive under the pharmacy?s standard procedures for
ordering contraceptive drugs not in stock, including the
procedures of any entity that is affiliated with, owns, or
franchises the pharmacy. However, if the patient prefers, the
prescription must either be transferred to a local pharmacy of
the patient?s choice or returned to the patient, as the patient
directs.
The simple conclusion one should reach is that if your policy is to not stock a drug, you would have a standard procedure of not doing so–and hence could then return the script or pass it on to a pharmacy that does carry it.
What the order does is very simple–if you carry a contraceptive, you have to dispense it upon receipt of a valid prescription and assuming you don’t identify a therapeutic problem for the patient.
There are many, many things for which to criticize Rod Blagojevich, but in this case the Governor has shown good judgment in issuing an order that is narrowly tailored yet guarantess women reasonable access to drugs that a pharmacy already provides.
And it wasn’t just once they call him Slobodan
BTW, when I said Crooks and Liars and Eriposte at The Left Coast missed the point on this issue the other day, that should have read miss an important point—my apologies for the more awkward language.
UPDATE: Oliver Willis reminds me Media Matters did work up on Pharmacists fro Life International
UPDATE 2: Apparently Albertson’s is allowing pharmacists to refer such prescriptions to other pharmacists. Dobson’s Focus on the Family applauds the move:
Citizen Link(Dobson’s Gang): “Pharmacists should not be forced to fill prescriptions or the ‘morning after’ abortion pill,” he said, “if it iolates their conscience.” Albertsons distributed a memo to all its Illinois pharmacists stating it would accommodate their right of conscience by permitting them to refer prescriptions to which they conscientiously object to another Albertsons pharmacist or to a competitor.
More….
Blagojevich imposed an “emergency rule” stating that a pharmacist “must dispense . . . without delay” contraceptives, including so-called emergency contraceptives such as the “morning after” pill, despite the state’s right-of-conscience act.
Steven H. Aden, chief litigation counsel of CLS’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom, said the right of conscience is an important component of religious liberty. “Pharmacists should not be forced to fill prescriptions for the ‘morning after’ abortion pill,” he said, “if it violates their conscience.”
Shortly after ADF and CLS filed suit, Albertsons distributed a memo to all its Illinois pharmacists stating it would accommodate their right of conscience by permitting them to refer prescriptions to which they conscientiously object to another Albertsons pharmacist or
to a competitor.
“We applaud the decision by Albertsons to restore to Mr. Scimio and other Albertsons pharmacists the same rights they had prior to the governor’s action,” Aden said, “and allow them to be true to their beliefs about the sanctity of human life.”
This is just wrong on so many levels. The order never required INDIVIDUAL PHARMACISTS to dispense the drug. It required that a pharmacy that carried a drug dispense the drug upon a valid prescription if they carry that drug. Nothing in the rule forces individuals to dispense drugs. Albertson’s isn’t restoring anything–and it’s complying with the law. Whether an individual pharmacist dispenses is irrelevant to the rule. The rule only requires that a pharmacy dispense what it carries–so the choice by Albertson’s is a choice between employer and employee. In short, Focus on the Family is lying about the rule to try and make an issue out of something that doesn’t exist.
ArchPundit
