Napolitano vetoes 'conscience clause' for pharmacists

[Rose Siding]

Gov. Janet Napolitano on Wednesday vetoed a bill to let pharmacists refuse to provide abortion-related medications if doing so conflicts with the pharmacists' moral or religious beliefs.

Napolitano, an abortion rights supporter, did not immediately release her veto letter but said previously she saw the idea as a way to deny legal drugs to consumers.

Supporters expressed disappointment with the veto of what one called civil rights legislation for health care professionals and institutions, which could be forced to contribute "to the taking of an innocent life."
....
Opponents say pharmacies already have such policies and predicted the bill would be found unconstitutional if it became law.

The Senate passed the bill April 6 on a 17-11 vote. The bill cleared the House on a 35-24 vote in late February.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0413az-abortion-bill13-ON.html

[SaveElmer]

1. If their beliefs keep them from DOING THEIR JOB

They need to get into a different line of work!!!

[Lars39]

4. I think some of these *sanctified* pharmacists

are going into that profession just so they can deny birth control to women.

[Warpy]

9. Anyone who runs into one of those pious thugs

needs to write a letter of complaint to the state pharmacy board.

Threaten their licenses. It's the only way.

[saigon68]

19. I would fire an insolent employee in a Nano second

And if the business condones this bullshit they should be instantly deprived of their license to distribute medicine.

Ridiculous Hateful Fundy Nut-Jobs out to REMAKE amerika.

[BlueIris]

23. Good for you, saigon68. n/t

[BlueIris]

16. Or get fired like any other ignorant, incompetent employee.

Then GET LIVES. Just--GET OVER THEMSELVES AND GET LIVES. It's not 1895.

[sendero]

32. Seriously..

... I keep hearing that the "free market" is the answer.

Pharmacists who cannot do their jobs because of "morality" issues are free to find other jobs. It's really simple.

[havocmom]

33. Free market doesn't help when a pharmacist not only refuses to fill the Rx

but also refuses to send it to a different pharmacy or refuses to return the written script back to the customer. There have been some cases where the sanctimonious asses just confiscated the written prescription. That should get their asses arrested as far as I can see. It's either theft of that customer's property OR practicing medicine without a license (by the act ofinterfering with an MD's treatment of the patient).

Birth control pills have been on the market for over 40 years. Anyone working as a licensed pharmacist today probably came into the field after those pills became part of the job. Fire them, sue them, arrest them, depending on what action they take to deny a woman a lawful prescription. It IS NOT religious persecution like the fundies are trying to claim. The pill is part of the job and they can do the job or do something else to earn their daily bread.

[Sal316]

2. Go Janet.

I so love that woman!

[paineinthearse]

3. Just another day in a blue state.

There is a bill pending in the lower house that would permit certain pharmacies to dispense the "morning after" pill without prescription
and all hospitals to dispense it to rape victims on demand.

Just another day in a blue state.

[Ken Burch]

6. a Mottled Purple state, actually

being so closely divided as it now is.

[Renew Deal]

5. The point is that we have to take back these state houses.

[cry baby]

7. Gutsy move by the Gov. nt

[tyedyeto]

8. Finally, something good from my state of AZ...

the latest brouhaha being the 'Minutemen Project'.

Go Janet!

[DulceDecorum]

10. Hattie Durham didn't abort the Antichrist's child.

Abortion is contrary to
the wishes of the pretzeldent
and his six-flagged minyan.

[nodehopper]

13. well...she spontaneously aborted or whatever, or still-birthed

Still, a dead antichrist baby is better than an abortion!

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. Good for her!

My Governor, Blagojevich, signed an emergency rule until a permanent rule is passed. These wacko religious nuts have to be stopped.


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 Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation has also filed a formal complaint against the Chicago Osco pharmacy for the February 23 incident.

The pharmacy was cited for "failing to provide appropriate pharmaceutical care to a patient." Penalties could include a fine, reprimand or revocation of the pharmacy's license.

An Osco spokeswoman did not immediately return a call Friday.

Steve Trombley, CEO for Planned Parenthood in Chicago, praised the state's efforts.

"When medical professionals write prescriptions for their patients, they are acting in their patients' best interests," Trombley said. "A pharmacist's personal views cannot intrude on the relationship between a woman and her doctor."

The Chicago pharmacist was not the first to attract attention for refusing to fill a birth control prescription.

In February, a judge recommended that a Roman Catholic pharmacist in Wisconsin be reprimanded and required to attend ethics classes after the pharmacist blocked a woman's attempt to fill a prescription for birth control pills in 2002.

[Voltaire99]

12. Yes, bravo! We can't let Talibanism dictate our social policies. (n/t)

[jdj]

14. "abortion related medications????" wtf?

is this what they are calling birth control now?

there is just no way you can support dispensing viagra and not birth control.

if we are going to force women to let nature take it's course, then I say let them all droop and be damned. And I am sure there are some older women who would just as soon their pharmacists refuse to dispense the prick pills as well.

[BlueIris]

15. More like WTF? WTF? WTF?!?!?!???!!!

Assholes. ASSSSSSSSHOOOOOOOOLLLLLEEEEEEES. I just can't even deal with the idea that an actual "news provider" anywhere allowed that backwards, ignorant, medically...it's not even medically inaccurate terminology so much as it is a phrase that is NONSENSICAL because it is a PIECE of PROPAGANDA. IN THE YEAR 2005. I just...there are NO WORDS.

[barackmyworld]

26. DAMN even the morning after pill isn't "abortion related"

this is ridiculous.

[BlueIris]

31. TELL THAT TO THE GOVERNOR OF COLORADO.

Who recently chose to veto a measure passed by his legislature which would have provided free emergency contraception to victims of rape and sexual assault because Colorado anti-choice groups termed the funding "state-sanctioned early abortion." Yes, that's right, the prevention of a pregnancy is somehow the same as the legal termination of one. And that's not okay, EVEN FOR SURVIVORS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT. What ignorance. Seriously, tell him he sucks (I had my whole neighborhood write letters over this one):

Bill Owens, Governor
136 State Capitol
Denver, CO 80203-1792

[truthisfreedom]

17. the moral of the freaking story? PICK JOBS YOU CAN DO, A&&HOLES. it

goes with the territory. pharmacists are just COGS IN A MACHINE. they are not JUDGES, they are not GODS, they are NOT YOUR MOM AND DAD. activist pharmacists should FIND A JOB THEY CAN DO RESPONSIBLY, not impose their SELF-RIGHTEOUS, SANCTIMONIOUS will on others. if that means BICYCLE CHAIN SALESMAN, so be it.

[leftchick]

20. well said !

I wonder if the fundies are stacking Pharamacy classes like they are law scool classes. :scared:

[BlueIris]

21. Better yet...they could LEARN to READ.

And go figure out the difference between PREVENTING a pregnancy and ENDING one. And the difference between activist and MISOGYNIST. And between 2005 and 1905. Then they can fuck off. Go live in their hypocritical little no-one-has-sex-organs-except-men-and-"breeders"--FOR BREEDING ONLY parallel universe. Leave us CIVILIZED adults to care for the rest of society since they've proven themselves too incapable of doing even their tiny part of that. Sick bastards.

[MaineDem]

18. Brava, Governor! (nt)

[DeepModem Mom]

22. It's a brave thing to stand up to the "Religious Right"...

in the present climate. Thanks, Governor!

[bunkerbuster1]

25. Is it, though? Is it really so tough?

Straying a bit from the topic, but I'm getting a little tired of hearing this. The "Religious Right" is nowhere near as powerful nor as influencial in most parts of this country as they are imagined to be, and we Dems could use this opportunity--when, post-Schaivo, post-Rudolph, their nuttery looks about as bad as it ever has--to appear to...

umm, you know...

stand for something?

[DeepModem Mom]

30. You have a point --

I should have said it's an UNUSUAL thing for a politician to stand up to them, given the numbers in which they vote! I agree it could be politically advantageous to oppose these peoples' attempt to yield power over us all, and impose their ideas of morality on the whole country.

[Kimber Scott]

24. Yes! I love Janet Napalitano. She works hard. She's straight-forward

and she's got guts.

Thank you, Ms. Napalitano, for not selling us out to the religious right.

[xxqqqzme]

27. did some rabid, religious

nut job write this POS. This piece is so loaded - 'abortion related medications'? how about birth control pills; 'abortion rights supporter'? how about pro-choice;

[callous taoboy]

28. O.K., so when will we hear "Activists governors" ? n/t

[reprobate]

29. And once again religion is the cause of societal unrest.

I have to wonder, if you added up all the lives lost or ruined by religious fanatics, then subtracted those lives saved and psyches calmed , just how far religion has held us back over the centuries.