http://cbs11tv.com/localstories/local_s ... 24102.html Controversy Over Pharmacists Continues
Jul 8, 2004 11:35 am US/Central
Wisconsin authorities may discipline a pharmacist for refusing to fill a woman's birth control pills. The case mirrors what happened here in north Texas, when pharmacists at two drug stores turned away customers, citing moral reasons.
Now an Irving doctor says he's run into yet another case. Doctor William Goldman says a Kroger pharmacist south of Fort Worth refused to fill the drug Ritalin for hyperactivity for a child who was his patient.
The doctor says he assured the pharmacist the prescription was necessary but she didn't believe him:
Last winter, protestors chanted outside an Eckerd's in Denton after a druggist refused to fill the morning after pill. What 32-year-old gene Herr didn't know at the time was the victim had been raped, but it hasn't changed his mind:
And in North Richland Hills, a CVS pharmacist refused to fill a married schoolteacher's prescription for birth control pills.
Pharmacists across the nation are refusing to fill prescriptions that ASSAULT THEIR CONSCIENCE.
Contraception at Kmart's in Wisconsin and Ohio... The 'morning after pill' at Eckerd's in New York...and CONDOMS at a Miami Florida Eckerd's.
Dozens of north Texas women marched in Washington this spring outraged in part by the growing pharmacists' movement.
Even the state pharmacy board says Texas law is unclear about the issue. But pharmacists believe they should have the same right to deny medication as doctors.
Two states do have laws protecting pharmacists' jobs if they refuse prescriptions on MORAL or RELIGOUS grounds.
Ten other states are considering similar legislation.
That brings us back to doctor Goldman's run-in with the Kroger pharmacist.
He filed a complaint with the Texas pharmacy board. But hasn't gotten a reply. He's worried pharmacists will exercise their rights over the patient's rights:
The Kroger pharmacist didn't want to go on camera but she told me she didn't object to the prescription on moral grounds...she claimed it was an insurance issue.