Wal-Mart and Walgreens Sued Over Contraception
02 February 2006 9:17 am by Taylor Marsh
Wal-Mart and Walgreens Sued Over Contraception
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| Don't shop at Wal-Mart. |
I won't deny it, this brought a smile to my face. I don't like
Wal-Mart, their employee rules – the ones that we know about – or the fact that
they once locked up their overtime workers because the company evidently believes
it's still the middle ages. But when I heard women were suing them over access
to Plan B, well, it just made me giddy. Forty-four stores and four Sam Club
stores in Massachusetts are at issue. However, it's really about the two little
words, "commonly prescribed." If a drug doesn't fall under that category,
Wal-Mart claims it doesn't have to provide access. Of course, they don't want to prescribe Plan B, so they have decided it doesn't fall under that category.
Then there is the case of the Walgreens
pharmacists who were fired for refusing to fill Plan B prescriptions. The plaintiffs
claim that when they got fired, Illinois violated the Illinois Health Care Right
of Conscience Act, which prohibits any employee from retaliation based on actions
stemming from his or her own conscience. But there's a problem because Illinois
Gov. Rod Blagojevich, in an executive order, demanded pharmacies fill contraceptive
prescriptions "without delay."
Other states have such mandatory fill requirements on contraceptions,
where pharmacists that have a problem with 21st century medicine can just refer these
requests to other pharmacists in the company. In Walgreens case, the company
even offered to transfer the pharmacists to a state that didn't have the "without
delay" demand. Of course, that would be to the state where I was born,
Missouri, where Roy Blunt's son Matt runs wild with religious zealotry from
the governor's mansion.
Of course the nitwit wingnuts believe Plan B is a prescription
for promiscuity. This head in the closet crowd don't seem to understand that
if we're going to prevent every abortion we can, without reservation or hesitation,
we need every medical tool we can muster. Anyone in this country, including
pharmacists and the corporations for whom they work, that keep Plan B and other contraception out of the hands of women should be boycotted. Pesonally, I don't shop at Wal-Mart.
