The Post Dispatch is reporting that one of the four Walgreens pharmacists suspended for refusing to fill a “morning after” subscription has been reinstated after agreeing to follow state law.
One of the pharmacists signed a document last week agreeing to follow the state rule and returned to work on Monday, Walgreen spokesman Michael Polzin said.
I had previously heard that Illinois had a “law” that required the filling of these prescriptions. This article says that it is a state “rule”. I would normally assume this was an agency regulation but the article specifically states it was “a state rule first imposed by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in April.”
The state rule requires that Illinois pharmacies sell contraceptives approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to fill prescriptions for emergency birth control such as the morning-after pill.
But, in any event, a challenge to the law/reg/rule is on its way with respect to at least the three remaining pharmacists:
Frank Manion, an attorney representing the pharmacists, said he expects to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and will refile a lawsuit that challenges the legality of the rule.
It’s unclear if the “document” the reinstated pharmacist signed contained a release or if that pharmacist would also be part of the suit.
This is actually an AP story but the Post picked it up because its local.
I can’t think of anything that pisses me off as much as this. Shut up and do your damn job, or change careers.
It’s an odd position for conservative Republicans who believe in capitalism to be in. Normally you would expect them want Walgreens or Target or Walmart to have the complete right to require their employees to service the customers needs as long as it was within company policy. In effect your theory: shut up and do your damn job or go find another job with an employer with a different policy. Giving the employee the right to refuse on grounds of conscience seems like something that conservatives would normally attack as a “loony liberal” policy. My personal feeling is that the owner of the pharmacy should be allowed to make policy but if you are employed there you have to do your job per that policy.
But you’re conflating “today’s Republicans” with “conservatives.” While there’s a small intersecting subset, by and large the two groups have no ACTUAL connections. “Today’s Republicans” as a group have no more use for “conservatives” than they have for any other post-birth life form.
I know. I had this conversation with a good friend of mine who is Republican — and he voted for Kerry. Not because he really liked Kerry, but because as a true conservative he is appalled by what has happened to his party. He regularly warns me that as soon as the Republican party is sane again he is going back again. I told him that was fine with me as long as he fought with us now.
Here’s a link* to a MedPage piece about how pissed off the doctors are at the nutjob pharmacists, and how the doctors want the AMA to press to change the laws to allow them to dispense meds from their offices if there’s no sane pharmacist within 30 miles. It’s from back in June, so hopefully they’re still making progress on how to implement this policy. I bitch about doctors a lot, but I sure do like to see this, so credit where it’s due: YAY DOCTORS.
*Link shamelessly pilfered from poster aeonsomnia in a Pandagon thread.
Good for them. This was an amazing paragraph in that story:
Refusing to return the prescriptions? That should be illegal.
this thought had occured to me also. i’m glad to read about it. thanks for the heads-up.
If this idiot wasn’t a right wing fundie, Faux News would do an investigative report and discover that the guy dresses up like Marlow Thomas in That Girl and makes phone calls to the White House trying to get a press pass.