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Gov Digs in as Foes Attack Pharmacy Rule
Chicago Sun-Times ^ | 4/12/05 | Abdon Pallasch and Dave McKinney

Posted on 04/12/2005 7:41:07 AM PDT by marshmallow

Both sides are preparing for what may turn into a legal battle over Gov. Blagojevich's order that pharmacists dispense contraceptives, even those that some pharmacists say kill embryos.

The Illinois Pharmacists Association asked Blagojevich to rescind his order. State Rep. Ron Stephens, a Downstate pharmacist, said, "I will not abide by it." The conservative Family PAC is urging pharmacists to ignore the order. And Catholic Bishop Thomas Paprocki implored Blagojevich from the pulpit to rescind the order.

The governor is standing firm.

On Monday, he warned Family PAC Director Paul Caprio the state would impose "significant penalties" on any pharmacy that ignores the order.

"In your call to pharmacists urging them to violate the emergency rule I issued, you neglected to remind them of the penalties their employers will face if they deny a woman her right to health care," Blagojevich wrote Caprio. Those penalties range from fines to losing their licenses, Blagojevich said.

(Excerpt) Read more at suntimes.com ...


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To: freeangel; All
I have had the option for years NOT to be involved in abortions.

We were not talking abortions were we.

You all know my position. I am not going to get into a flame war with half of FR. I am poofing from this thread.

21 posted on 04/12/2005 12:33:18 PM PDT by RadioAstronomer
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To: RadioAstronomer
Since when does a pharmacist have the obligation to refuse a legit Doctor's prescrip? (other than a mistake)

When ever their conscience dictates such to them. Show us where by statute they are required to fill ALL prescriptions(other than the kook governor's exec. order.

Guess if the pharmacist did not believe in antibiotics, he/she could refuse to sell those as well.

Yep, and you are more than free to spend your hard earned $$ at any one of dozens of other pharmacies that will sell it to you.

22 posted on 04/12/2005 12:34:44 PM PDT by Godzilla (It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off.)
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To: RadioAstronomer

If pharmacists can withold treatment they deem wrong, can nurse do the same? Hospice workers? Withhold anti-psychotics? Withhold dextrose and saline? Withhold anti-coagulants?

Would it also be ok for pharmacists to replace birth control pills with a placebo?


23 posted on 04/12/2005 12:46:31 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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To: Oberon
If pharmacist A won't dispense a certain drug and pharmacist B will, then pharmacist A has ceded part of the drug market to pharmacist B.

Fine and dandy if you live in place with several pharmacies. If not, well, what?

24 posted on 04/12/2005 12:54:48 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: Doctor Stochastic

Pharmacists are private citizens involved in private businesses; therefore they should be allowed to choose which legal drugs they wish to sell or not sell. If you don't like it find another pharmacy. If these pharmacists were government employees, then they would be obligated to sell what their employer dictates. Health care workers participate in purely moral decisions every single day.


25 posted on 04/12/2005 1:01:38 PM PDT by flying Elvis
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To: atlaw
Fine and dandy if you live in place with several pharmacies. If not, well, what?

It's like living in a place with one restaurant or one gas station. If they won't sell you what you want to buy, you better look somewhere else, or learn to do without.

This idea that every consumer has the inalienable right to convenient medication from the nearest private supplier...where did this kind of socialist thinking come from?

26 posted on 04/12/2005 1:06:37 PM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: Oberon

Prescription medications aren't the equivalent of a chicken fried steak. And I take it you've never been to west Texas.


27 posted on 04/12/2005 1:10:07 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: Doctor Stochastic

The medicines and "treatments" in question are not for illnesses, they are purely elective and are rarely sought as a life saving matter. Should all doctors be required to perform liposuction just because a patient asks for it?


28 posted on 04/12/2005 1:15:37 PM PDT by flying Elvis
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To: atlaw

The internet is full of sites that will sell you what you require. If there is only one doctor in town, should he or she be required to do breast implants and liposuction because you find it inconvenient to travel to another town? Doctors refuse to do elective procedures all the time, pharmacists should be allowed the same right.


29 posted on 04/12/2005 1:20:09 PM PDT by flying Elvis
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To: atlaw
Prescription medications aren't the equivalent of a chicken fried steak.

Says you. Can you explain why they're NOT precisely the same from a rights point of view?

And I take it you've never been to west Texas.

If you want the best surgery, you go to where the best surgery is available, be it Mayo, Johns Hopkins, Duke Medical Center, or where have you...you do not insist that the surgeon come to you. If the latest and greatest can't be had locally, well, that's the price you pay for living where you live. If you want blue-state health care, move to a blue state.

As for me, no, I've never been to West Texas...but you can rest assured that if I ever go, and a pharmacist in Odessa doesn't have something I'm looking for, I won't hold it against him.

30 posted on 04/12/2005 1:21:28 PM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: flying Elvis
Birth control pills are regularly prescribed for menstrual irregularities and endometriosis.

And I suppose you could classify just about any medication as "elective" if you wanted to.
31 posted on 04/12/2005 1:30:43 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: atlaw

This issue is not about birth control pills; they are available at every single county health department in the country, even in west Texas. If you are aware of a county where they are not sold, please let me know, for I would love to open a pharmacy there and make a ton of money. This issue is about morning-after abortion pills which many people have a big problem with.


32 posted on 04/12/2005 1:41:33 PM PDT by flying Elvis
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To: Oberon

If you are the only GP in Two Trees, Texas and your patient is suffering from severe menstrual cramping, I suppose you could just shrug your shoulders and tell her to get in the pick-up and head for Dallas.

Pretty bloody callous, but we have our morals to protect, and we have to stand our ground "from a rights point of view," don't we?


33 posted on 04/12/2005 1:43:39 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: Oberon
There's no reason not to let the free market sort this out.

Fine -- revoke their government-granted privileges (i.e. let anyone sell pharmaceuticals subject to the same fraud and misrepresenation laws as any other goods) and let the market sort it out.

Not a solution they'd accept, methinks....

34 posted on 04/12/2005 1:45:36 PM PDT by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: atlaw
we have to stand our ground "from a rights point of view," don't we?

Yes, as a matter of fact, we do.

And if I'm the only GP in Two Trees, Texas and my patient is suffering from severe menstrual cramping, I can prescribe her any of a number of painkillers up to and including Demerol that will keep her pain-free until someone can get to the nearest pharmacy that carries her godawful must-have morning-after pill...and you can bet it'll be closer than Dallas.

It ain't as extreme a point of view as you're making out, and the solution I outline above is hardly callous...but I don't expect you to concede that. We quit really listening to each other about three posts ago, if we were ever paying attention to one another even then.

My best suggestion to you is to head over to DU, where you'll find others like yourself.

35 posted on 04/12/2005 1:51:59 PM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: steve-b
Fine -- revoke their government-granted privileges (i.e. let anyone sell pharmaceuticals subject to the same fraud and misrepresenation laws as any other goods) and let the market sort it out.

Surgeons can decide what procedures they'll perform. Why is it tantamount to fascism to permit pharmacists the same degree of leeway with regard to the medications they dispense?

You've got to either answer that question, or agree that all OB-GYNs be legally mandated to perform abortions. There's really no middle ground.

36 posted on 04/12/2005 1:55:01 PM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: flying Elvis
The morning after pills that you refer to (and that have been the subject of much of this debate) will not end a pregnancy if a fertilized egg has already implanted in the uterus. They must be taken within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse, however, so the option of shopping for a pharmacy is severely limited.

And explain to me what business it is of the pharmacist why the pills are being sought. Should the pharmacist launch an investigation of the patient to determine whether the unprotected intercourse was the result of rape, date rape, or consensual sex? Will the pharmacist help pay for and raise the resulting baby, or are the high-falutin' moral guidelines only applicable where they are convenient to the conscience and wallet of the moral arbiter?
37 posted on 04/12/2005 1:58:38 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: Oberon

I'm glad you are not a doctor or a pharmacist (and I trust that you are neither).


38 posted on 04/12/2005 2:01:59 PM PDT by atlaw
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To: atlaw
Should the pharmacist launch an investigation of the patient to determine whether the unprotected intercourse was the result of rape, date rape, or consensual sex?

Your run-of-the-mill rescue squad can have a supply of this drug as part of its rape kits without causing anyone any particular inconvenience. From the pharmacist's point of view, on the other hand, it likely doesn't matter why the new life was brought into being...it's still wrong to kill it.

39 posted on 04/12/2005 2:02:30 PM PDT by Oberon (What does it take to make government shrink?)
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To: marshmallow
Being able to euphemisitically refer to the elimination of an unborn child as "health care" has been key to the success of the culture of death.

Don't forget food and water is now medical treatment and it seems to be a good thing to withhold that lately.

40 posted on 04/12/2005 2:05:07 PM PDT by Dataman
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