Contraception: Access Denied

Although most people aren’t aware of it yet, the fight against abortion also includes a fight against all forms of contraception, including The Pill. This connection is being made increasingly evident by the numbers of doctors and pharmacists who refuse to prescribe or distribute contraceptives.

According to Prevention Magazine:

An estimated 12 million American women use hormonal contraceptives, the most popular form of birth control in the United States after sterilization. ... "Where will this all stop?" asks Lacey. "And what if these pharmacists decide they suddenly don't believe in a new lifesaving medicine? I don't think pharmacists should be in a position to decide these things." The members of the antiabortion group Pharmacists for Life International say they have every right to make that kind of decision. "Our job is to enhance life," explains the organization's president, pharmacist Karen Brauer, RPh, who first refused to fill prescriptions for some types of birth control pills in 1989. "We shouldn't have to dispense a medication that we think takes lives."

Anti-Pill doctors and pharmacists say the issue isn't about a woman's right to hormonal contraceptives, but about the right to act according to their beliefs. "I feel chemical contraceptives have the potential to harm an embryo," says Mary Martin, MD, an OB/GYN in private practice in Midwest City, OK. "And I decided, based on moral and ethical grounds, that I simply could no longer prescribe them." She stopped writing prescriptions for hormonal birth control in 1999. OB/GYN Arthur Stehly, of Escondido, CA, who hasn't prescribed contraceptives since 1989, says he feels the same way: "I function better and I sleep better at night knowing I'm not giving the Pill."

[O]ral contraceptives aren't only used to prevent pregnancy. The Pill may cut the risk of ovarian cancer by up to 80% and is used by women at high genetic risk for this hard-to-detect and usually fatal cancer. "There are easily more than 20 noncontraceptive uses for the Pill in common practice," says Giovannina Anthony, MD, an attending physician of obstetrics and gynecology at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. "This drug saves women from surgery for gynecological conditions like endometriosis, fibroids, and severe bleeding and pain."

Most women's doctors agree that contraceptives are an important tool of good medical care. "I have a hard time with people who market themselves as women's health care physicians but who won't prescribe such a basic part of women's health care," says Anne Drapkin Lyerly, MD, a reproductive rights ethicist and an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center. "We're seeing a growing trend among pharmacists and medical practitioners who consider it acceptable to impose their morality on women's bodies. I don't think moral aspects should be a concern. Imagine a pharmacist asking a customer whether his Viagra prescription is to enhance sexual performance in his marriage or in an extramarital affair. Never!"

If you follow the above link, the full article has a lot more detail and information about this issue. It’s very distressing that more and more pharmacists and doctors want to deny women access to basic medical care. It’s even more incredible that legislators across the country are being duped by anti-abortion groups into amending the laws to permit the denial of medical care like this. Such medical “professionals” should be treated just like they would if they refused to prescribe basic pain medication or blood transfusions because of “ethical” or “religious” objections. The article ends with the recommendation that if you find such a “professional,” you publicize what happened loudly and widely — something that I agree with completely.

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