14-Year-Old Speaks Out After Being Denied Medication Because She's Childbearing Age

[Jilly_in_VA]

Over the weekend, a local news outlet in Tucson, Arizona, reported that a 14-year-old girl had been denied her medication, methotrexate, for her debilitating arthritis and osteoporosis, because methotrexate can possibly induce a miscarriage and the girl is of childbearing age. This comes just after Arizona’s pre-Civil War, total abortion ban took effect at the end of last month.

Arizona’s ban threatens two to five years in prison for providing abortion, offering exceptions only for the life of the pregnant person—an exemption that sometimes forces people to prove they’re on the brink of dying just to get care.

On Tuesday, the 14-year-old girl, Emma Thompson, gave her first interview, telling KOLD News 13 she’s been taking methotrexate all her life due to her rheumatoid arthritis and other conditions. “My entire life I was in and out of the hospital,” she said. “I was never able to stay in school until this past year, I was never able to ride a bike or get on the monkey bars like other kids could.” Thompson said the pharmacist who helped her at Walgreens “didn’t look at my history” and “just denied my prescription because of my age.”

“It’s not right,” Thompson continued. “They’re trying to make any girl who’s on this medication drop a pregnancy test when they get their medicine, and I feel like it’s really unfair.”

https://jezebel.com/14-year-old-speaks-out-after-being-denied-medication-be-1849614724

But they don't deny it to 14 year old boys......

[brewens]

1. Must have been an Evanpedical Christian looking at a 14 year old girl and declaring her child

bearing age. I'm sure they would like that to be the case. Maybe they will lower the age of consent to where they want it?

[Hugh_Lebowski]

3. Medically child-bearing age is independent of societies moral judgement

on when little girls SHOULD be having babies.

Most 14 year old girls (esp. these days, puberty is coming earlier and earlier) are physically mature enough to get pregnant.

So yes, child-bearing age is an appropriate term medically, and we're talking about medicine here.

That is NOT TO SAY I agree in ANY FUCKING WAY with withholding her medications on those grounds. I'm friggin' PISSED

[ShazzieB]

32. This is correct.

[TigressDem]

42. Also, medically speaking. Aren't vasectomies reversible?

IF we give vasectomies to all young men who go into puberty then when they decide they WANT a family, they can get it reversed.

That gives young boys/men some responsibility for birth control, some freedom to explore the world without making babies.

It puts some of the responsibility for NOT GETTING PREGNANT on the boy.

Girls could still take the pill and encourage condom use, just in case, but if there was a high level of stopping it before the sperm started it's swim.... lot less reason for unwanted pregnancies OR abortions.

Just saying.


MAN UP. Snip snip.

[progressoid]

2. Sickening.

[Thunderbeast]

4. WE HAVE LOST OUR FREAKING MINDS!

[TNNurse]

24. They have, please do not say "WE".

[StormKing]

5. Tell everyone you know about this

Keep spreading the word. That's the only way to drag them down. Republicans need to lose hard.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

6. Do you WANT them to deny it to 14 year old boys?

On what grounds?

I say we liberals, male and female, all work on RESTORING women's rights together, and not make this it about tit-for-tat revenge-based platitudes (that don't even make sense in this particular case) where we encourage taking away rights from MORE people?

My HUMBLE opinion, fwiw.

[hlthe2b]

8. COme on, HughL... The point is to underscore that this is an indefensible maltreatment of WOMEN

and girls thereby putting their very health at risk. That boys/men with the same conditions are not similarly denied this drug only underscores the absolute proof that it is an indefensible and malign gender-based policy. No one is suggesting boys/men should be denied it but rather that NO ONE should be denied this drug for its intended indications.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

15. Abortion Bans period are INDEFENSIBLE, we absolutely agree on that ...

And we also agree NO ONE should be denied the drug.

So let's just agree on the most important points here and ignore our smaller disagreement about the downstream implications of these abhorrent bans, which shouldn't even exist in the first friggin place.

For the record the first 'political' position I ever recall adopting was being pro-choice, I was like ... 11? And I've donated more to Planned Parenthood than any other person or entity over the years.

When you feel like I do about this, and you're a guy, but you see seemingly constant male-bashing (both subtle and overt) on this issue on your favorite message board, it gets disheartening

At least it does to me, and I'm probably being a bit defensive bit at this point. Probably a personal problem though

[Ms. Toad]

40. It has nothing to do with male-bashing.

It is the basis for a legal challenge under the 14th amendment: Making decisions (you get the medicine or not) based on gender, is presumptively a violation of the 14th amendment.

[TomSlick]

41. Exactly.

I hope this child's parents have contacted a lawyer.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

43. Fine this one wasn't, but there's a lot of exactly that going on here lately

And I'm getting frustrated with it, so I may over-react at times. Forgive me. Please know, I'm pissed off right along with my DU sestrahs.

But this horrible setback is neither the exclusive doing of 'men', nor do 'all men' support this repression of female bodily autonomy. It's the people on the fucking RIGHT, mostly men yes, but plenty of RWNJ/evangelical women as well. And for a lot of them? They want to control other women's bodies too.

I understand women in general are pissed and their ire is justified, I just wish there was a little more sensitivity about stereotyping here on DU. "Men as an entire gender" are not the enemy in this fight

[Ms. Toad]

46. I'm not seeing male-bashing

any more than I'm seeing white-bashing in (actual) critical race theory..

And, as someone who has to put up with at least weekly LGBT bashing (disguised as calling out hipocrisy - to the extent those doing it even bother to justify it) despite a very clear statement from EarlG that it is prohibited; bashing which has been going on as long as I've been part of DU, ridding DU of male bashing is not terribly high on my list.

[chowder66]

16. +1

[Gore1FL]

18. Where was that implied?

The OP never said anyone should strive for equality through oppression.

[kcr]

45. Wow

[moondust]

7. MAGA like 1860!

[Liberty Belle]

9. Time for her to find a new pharmacy or see if she can fill prescription online.

Yet another outrageous intrusion into healthcare for women and girls.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

17. I believe she's gotten it filled at this point, still, the delay and the degradation involved

Are despicable

[EndlessWire]

10. Poor little girl...

The stress of dealing with this will not be helpful to her condition. Like, she wants to have to take medicine for RA...as soon as you find something that works, they take it away...shame on the Governments who did this to a child.

[iluvtennis]

31. Her mental health will be affected. Fingers crossed this is

resolved quickly to lessen the impact on this child.

[Rebl2]

47. A simple

letter from her rheumatologist explaining that she has been on this for her RA for several years should be all a pharmacist needs. Especially if she has been going to the same pharmacy for the last year. They know she uses it for RA. My pharmacy knows what I take it for. It’s ridiculous she has to deal with this.

[BigDemVoter]

11. This is making me more and more and more angry. . . .

[nattyice]

12. The Morality Police cramming Catholicism down our throats

[whathehell]

33. It seems you're forgetting Protestant Evsmgelicals..

In Arizona, Protestants outnumber Catholics 43% to 25%, and are, on a national level, as likely, if not more likely, to be involved in the anti-abortion movement as Catholics.

[Warpy]

13. Thar pharmacist should be FIRED

Being the morality police and protector of the vague possibility of a pregnancy due to rape (which is how 14 year old girls get pregnant) is not his/her job. S/he can't do the job, firing is the only option.

I suppose they'd deny her prescriptions for cancer because she might bet pregnant with some rapist's fetus.

(Poor kid, I got sick with it at 14, too, only I had parents in deep denial and there weren't that many treatments)

[Hugh_Lebowski]

22. Only problem is ... the corporation/owner may be telling them that this is their job

given this bullshit Civil-War era AZ ban that was allowed to stand by the court.

Pharmacist personally may not have wanted to deny her the meds, but thought they'd get fired if they didn't do what management said they have to do.

I'd need more details in order to be sure whether the Pharmacist was ... doing what you said.

As an aside, the friggin law doesn't even really say a woman cannot choose an abortion, it says that a man can't poison her (give her abortifacient drugs basically) because he doesn't want her to bear his child, essentially. So, even the READING of the law that claims it denies a women's right to choose ... is fucking wrong. So friggin frustrating

[Warpy]

26. When I was moving away from Boston

because I couldn't afford it and I was getting too old for those winters, I liked Tucson.

I'm glad I chose NM instead.

[Warpy]

27. For that to be true, the pharmacist would have to know she was pregnant.

It's a pretty wretched law, but women were pretty thin on the ground in the old west and too many prostitutes were being killed by ineffective and often lethal snake oil. Most antique antiabortion laws were meant to save lives, barbers being the other option for abortion if a woman wasn't in the area of a sympathetic midwife. I can't imagine having a barber do the job.

I have to say one of the few instances I've seen any government be proactive was here in NM. The antique laws were stricken from the books in 2021. We all knew what was coming.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

29. Right, so, those laws were based around a presumption that there were a lot of shady

and life-threatening concoctions being used as 'cures' for pregnancy, administered by shady men, which were harming and even killing women in some cases. It also said that an actual doctor could perform abortions in the case of danger to the woman's life.

Seems to me the intent was, in essence, to criminalize men performing 'back street abortions'.

I'd also wonder if it was basically 'assumed' that all pregnant women wanted to have the baby they were pregnant with at the time ... i.e. maybe wasn't socially acceptable to say out loud 'a woman might WANT to terminate' so that scenario isn't really addressed.

But these fundamental premises no longer hold, as women now clearly want choice, and abortion is now far, far safer than pregnancy. Abortion doctors of today are a far-cry from the dangerous operators this law was meant to apply to way back then.

I don't quite understanding how that old law can properly be interpreted as denying women the right to a safe abortion. It seems like bullshit to me, and I hope it's challenged by some deep pockets soon.

[ShazzieB]

34. We got rid of our trigger laws in Illinois a few years ago, too.

So we were not blindsided by them when Roe was killed. Of course, there are plenty of nuts who would love to start enacting new ones, but so far they're in the minority. Gotta keep electing Dems so it stays that way!

[Warpy]

38. Absolutely, most of those laws were written in a time

when anesthesia via ether was a new thing and knowledge of women's inner reproductive plumbing was considered sinful, even for the women who had it. That attitude persisted well into the 1960s, anything regarding it discussed in hushed tones, far away from men.

That's what the Republicans want to return us to, a toxic innocence that ends up as shame.

[Farmer-Rick]

14. She maybe of child bearing age

But on average it will be another 13 years, almost as long as this little girl has been alive, before any girl will likely get pregnant.

But for those 13 years they sure are going to make this little girl suffer because a fetus is possible.

I hate that term, child-bearing age. I know it's accurate but it's as if you judge every woman by if she can pop out a baby.

And do we really believe a 10 to 15 year old girl should bear a child? Their bodies may have the potential to be pregnant but it doesn't mean it is morally, emotionally or socially acceptable. Nor does it mean the little girls can safely bring a fetus to birth.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

20. This is why I strongly feel there should be, in ADDITION to 'rape' and 'incest'

there should be an explicit carve-out for 'Age 15 and below'.

If two 14 year olds have sex and the girls ends up pregnant, I don't want there to have to be police reports and other assorted proofs she was forced, the fact that she's 14 IS ENOUGH, even if the consensual coupling of 14 year old's may not technically 'rape' per the given state law.

I mean, of course I don't even want there to be any bans period, but if we're going to have to make compromises in some places, which ATM it seems like we might ... let's also lobby for an age cutoff, make it explicit, IOW.

[ShazzieB]

35. Makes sense to me!

[niyad]

19. May all involved receive everything they deserve.

[leftyladyfrommo]

21. Holy cow! That's awful. My niece takes that medicine

for RA. Thank goodness she lives in a blue state.

[HotRod Deluxe]

23. UUhhh...

This story is atrocious, facepalmish and...yeah...CREEEEEPY!!!

[Solly Mack]

25. K&R

[The Jungle 1]

28. I don't need to say this to yuns but vote.

I have been having fun with my republican friends.
I am telling them we will win the midterms cause they haven't figured out how we cheated the last election and we are going to do it again.
Dad always told me when they call you names you are winning.

[FakeNoose]

30. Perhaps the Rx can be mail ordered from another state that isn't so strict?

I find it hard to believe that Arizona physicians are going along with this nonsense.

[Trueblue1968]

36. THE GOP SUCKS

[Tickle]

37. Her Doctor is supporting her

I understand why the pharmacist denied her as he was covering his ass and probably afraid to lose his license. This needs to go through the courts to get corrected. Her body is doing well on this drug and she should be able to continue.

I really wish congress would codify abortion. This is has gone from ridiculous to life threatening.

boggles the mind!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

39. End the evil -- GOTV!

Roe, Roe, Roe your vote
against theocracy!
Republicans revoke your rights
and kill democracy!

THESE are the races that will determine control of the House of Representatives:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217192221

Stick 'em up for a blue wave: https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217078977

[Meowmee]

44. Until she can legally appeal this

I think she may be able to order the drug elsewhere if they can afford it.

[Heather MC]

48. I hate that we live in a country that makes this poor child have to tell the world her personal...

FUCKING Business, Just to get a medication she's been taking her entire f****** life
November 2022 ladies AND gentlemen burn it all down beat the Republicans so bad
The only time we'll ever hear from them again is 30 years from now in A VH1 special called "Republicans, Where Are THEY "?

And then we eat some popcorn and we reminisce about the time the men tried to take OUR BIRTHRIGHT TO CHOOSE AWAY FROM US, And THEN we turn the show off and forget about them for another 40 50 60 70 years OR FOREVER 🤷🏾?♀️

MY PRAYER TRUTH
LOVE that we choose in November to burn it all down and beat the republicans so bad, they fall back into history like a forgotten myth
LOVE TRUTH AGREEMENT 💜

OUR TRUTH?
LET'S DO THIS!

[CTyankee]

49. I'm wondering if her doctor could network with a pharmacy in a nearby state that didn't have such

hideous laws. Is New Mexico a prochoice state?