A pharmacy in Virginia was certified by the anti-choice organization Pharmacists for Life International, which believes that all forms of birth control are morally wrong. Now, I’m pro choice, but can usually see the point of pro life people…abortion is a tough issue. But then we have these crazy groups that want to take away birth control and call it abortificiant and I get so angry. Who are they to turn women with prescriptions away? Who are they to tell us what is wrong and what isn’t? Now, in a city like Fort Worth, someone like myself (lives near many pharmacies, has a car) may not consider this a big deal. So what if a pharmacist refuses to fill my prescription? I can just go down the street where the pharmacist will do his/her job and not shove their politics/religion down my throat. But there are hundreds of thousands of women in America who do not have their own transportation, who cannot afford to pay for transportation to get to an alternative pharmacy, or who live in towns with only one or two pharmacies. There are women who would be intimidated by a pharmacist telling them their hormonal birth control pills (nuva ring, patch, etc.) are abortificiant and would not seek out another pharmacist. How is it that this group does not realize that this policy will cause more of what they want the least — unintended pregnancies resulting in abortion? This is the most illogical political/moral stance I have ever heard of. Are there any pharmacies in Fort Worth that deny birth control to women? Tell me in the comments.
Read more at: http://www.feministing.com/archives/011792.html (warning, headline NSFW)
I agree that this is absolutely ridiculous. Not every woman has the choice (no pun intended) to go to another pharmacy! And, not even every woman takes birth control to prevent pregnancy – many teenage girls take birth control pills in order to regulate their periods and/or hormones [I'm a teenager, and I know quite a few girls who do that]. It is absolutely terrible to deny someone a prescription. The sad thing is that pro-CHOICE means having the OPTION to have an abortion – it does not mean you HAVE to get one if you don’t want to raise the baby yourself. At the moment, the US is pro-choice in the sense that abortion is not illegal. If abstinence-only sex-education becomes the only form of sex-ed, we already know it will have no effect, especially since Sarah-Palin-the-pro-life-abstinence-only-advocate’s teenager daughter managed to have sex and get pregnant too.