“Whose Body Is It?”: Pharmacists Can’t Be Allowed To Deny Women Emergency Contraception
Women deserve the chance to prevent pregnancy after birth control failure, sexual assault, or unprotected sex. Emergency contraception, also known as the “morning-after pill,” is FDA-approved and prevents pregnancy after sexual intercourse. But it is time-sensitive; it only works if women are able to obtain it without delay or discrimination.
Unfortunately, healthcare providers are refusing to dispense emergency contraception based on their own religious or moral beliefs, thereby overriding women’s decisions about their bodies and lives. Pharmacists in at least 24 states have refused to sell birth control or emergency contraception to women. Some hospital emergency rooms refuse to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.
Some healthcare providers even lie to women—for example, by saying it will cause an abortion. In one case, a woman believed a Wisconsin pharmacist who called her a murderer. Although it will not work once a woman is pregnant, she did not fill her prescription and got pregnant. In a California incident, a couple with a newborn sought emergency contraception after birth control failure. The pharmacist called them irresponsible, refused to fill the prescription, and did not enter it into the system so that it could be transferred elsewhere.
Laws should require all hospitals and pharmacies to establish a system to ensure that women in need of birth control, including in emergency situations, receive it without discrimination and delay. Individual healthcare providers with religious objections may be accommodated—for example, by making sure two pharmacists are on duty—but not at the expense of patient access to critical healthcare. This approach is consistent with long-standing protections for individual religious beliefs in the workplace. Refusing providers must treat patients with respect and ensure that patients receive care from another provider. They cannot—as one Wisconsin pharmacist did—leave customers waiting indefinitely for assistance in the store and on the phone. A patient should not even know her healthcare professional objects.
Refusals often result in women feeling judged, shamed, angry, and vulnerable, and they reduce women’s trust in the healthcare system. Additionally, refusals violate informed consent, restricting women’s information and options. Delays or denials of emergency contraception can lead to pregnancy. For some women, pregnancy can entail severe health risks and even life endangerment. A refusal to provide emergency contraception can further traumatize an already traumatized woman—like a rape survivor. Refusals are most burdensome on people in rural areas, or those with low incomes and no job flexibility. For example, an Ohio woman refused emergency contraception at her local pharmacy had to drive 45 miles to find another pharmacy. And some women may be limited by their insurance plan to a particular pharmacy or provider.
Recognizing the harm of refusals, states, national professional associations, and pharmacy chains have acted to protect women’s access to emergency contraception. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have laws and/or policies that improve women’s access to it, such as requiring hospitals to provide it to rape survivors. Major pharmacy chains have adopted policies ensuring that women leave the pharmacy with contraception in hand. Professional healthcare associations have issued guidance protective of patients’ right to receive care. The religious beliefs of pharmacists, doctors, nurses, or other healthcare providers should not trump a woman’s ability to make decisions about her reproductive health. Those decisions are personal, and they should stay that way.
By: Gretchen Borchett, U. S. News and World Report, October 15, 2012
“Another Shift In The Works?”: Mitt Romney’s Latest Conversion On Abortion
Is Mitt Romney shifting his abortion position again?
It’s fairly well-known that Romney proclaimed himself in favor of abortion rights when he ran for office in Massachusetts, then reversed himself before launching his presidential bid. But recently, the GOP nominee seems to be softening his opposition somewhat. Or is he?
Romney proclaimed himself a strong supporter of abortion rights both in 1994, when he ran unsuccessfully for Senate against incumbent Democrat Edward Kennedy, and in 2002, when he defeated Democrat Shannon O’Brien to become governor.
“I will preserve and protect a woman’s right to choose,” he said in a 2002 debate with O’Brien. “And I do take exception to Shannon characterizing my view as being any different than hers in this regard; The Boston Globe recently reported there’s not a paper’s width worth of difference between our two positions in this regard.”
But that changed halfway though Romney’s term as governor. He says his conversion came after he talked to a Harvard scientist about embryonic stem cells. Now, he says his position is to oppose almost all abortions.
“My own view is that I oppose abortion except for cases of rape, incest, and where the life of the mother is threatened,” he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt Aug. 24.
But that’s slightly different from what he told CBS that same week.
“My position has been clear throughout the campaign,” he said. “I’m in favor of abortion being legal in the case of rape and incest, and health and life of the mother.”
So in that interview, Romney added one more exception — for the woman’s health.
The Romney campaign won’t say the candidate misspoke, but a spokeswoman does say he doesn’t support an exception to protect the health of the pregnant woman. That’s because other abortion opponents, including GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan, insist it creates too large a loophole, since health often encompasses mental health, too.
“The health exception is a loophole wide enough to drive a Mack truck through it,” said Ryan on the House floor during a debate in 2000 on a bill to ban the procedure some call “partial birth” abortion. “The health exception would render this ban virtually meaningless.”
Beth Shipp, political director for the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America, says she’s stunned by those who oppose exceptions for health reasons.
“They actually think that somehow women make up health problems like diabetes, or kidney failure, or breast cancer,” she said, “or any of the myriad of other health concerns that women in this country face when they become pregnant.”
But even without a health exception, the question remains: Does Romney really support abortions for victims of rape? The question has become more relevant in light of the recent controversy surrounding Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin. He suggested that victims of “legitimate rape” couldn’t get pregnant, and later apologized.
But for all of Romney’s efforts to try to distance himself from Akin, when he was governor of Massachusetts, Romney vetoed a bill that would have required that rape victims be provided not abortions, but morning-after pills in the emergency room.
“It’s very important to remember that emergency contraception is birth control,” says Shipp of NARAL. “It’s not RU-486, which people refer to as the abortion pill.”
Although some very ardent opponents say the morning-after pill can technically cause a very early abortion by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg, medical experts insist that’s not how it works. Yet Romney said it could “terminate life after conception” in a Boston Globe column explaining his veto.
The Republican platform calls for protecting life from conception. It doesn’t allow any exceptions, including those for rape, incest or the life of the woman. Shipp says if that’s Romney’s position, then fine. But voters will see through it if he tries to go back and forth.
“They pay attention. They learn about the issues,” she said. “And every time that Mitt Romney tries to reinvent himself, they say, ‘But wait a minute, I remember you said …’ They do their homework; they understand the responsibility that comes with voting for the highest office in the land.”
Last week, Romney’s oldest sister Jane told reporters at the convention that her brother wasn’t going to ban abortion if he becomes president. “It’s not his focus,” she told a National Journal reporter.
But comments like that, clearly aimed at closing the candidate’s sizable gender gap, could come as a rude surprise to social conservatives Romney’s worked hard to woo for the past seven years.
By: Julie Rovner, NPR, September 3, 2012
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