New Jersey Law Requires Pharmacies to Give Plan B
By: Administrative Account | Source: CNSNews.com
November 7, 2007 10:07AM EST

By Nathan Burchfiel
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
November 07, 2007

(CNSNews.com) - New Jersey law now requires pharmacists to provide Plan B, the so-called "morning after pill," or help customers locate a pharmacy that stocks it, even if the pharmacist has a religious or moral objection to the drug. Plan B can sometimes function as an abortifacient by preventing a fertilized egg from attaching itself to the womb.

The law allows pharmacies to refuse to fill a prescription but prohibits them from justifying the refusal with "philosophical, moral or religious beliefs." The law says the decision "shall be based on professional experience, knowledge, or available reference materials."

Abortion provider Planned Parenthood praised the law's enactment, saying that while the group "respects the religious beliefs of individual pharmacists, we strongly believe that a woman should be able to walk into a pharmacy with a valid prescription and walk out with her medication, without lectures, discrimination, or delay."

Cheryl Neas, executive director of Planned Parenthood Affiliates of New Jersey, told Cybercast News Service Tuesday that she isn't concerned that the law's wording might allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on studies that might suggest the morning after pill is unsafe.

"If an individual pharmacist believed that a particular medication wasn't appropriate, the law requires him or her to have another pharmacist fill it or give the patient a prescription back," Neas said, adding that "I don't believe that it does" create a loophole.

"Essentially it requires the pharmacy to have in place a policy or a procedure that ensures the distribution of legally prescribed drugs and devices without delay or discrimination," Neas said. "So that could be having another pharmacist fill the prescription. It could be facilitating getting the drug or device from the pharmacy down the block."

But pro-life groups criticized the law, saying that it restricts the rights of pharmacists to exercise their religious beliefs.

"In a free society, the rights of conscience are recognized," Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International (HLI), said in a statement. "When the state abrogates those rights, forcing citizens to violate their consciences as a condition for employment, then the state is no longer a free society."

Euteneuer labeled New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine and the bill's sponsors as "representatives of the Culture of Death, joining officials in 11 other states with this evil law."

Marie Tasy, executive director of New Jersey Right to Life, told Cybercast News Service that the law "definitely infringes on a person's moral, religious and philosophical beliefs, and it sends a chilling message that if you are a pharmacist, you need not apply in the state of New Jersey."

"Any pharmacist who would say to his boss, 'I have a problem with this particular medication,' would be at risk of being fired," Tasy said. She added that New Jersey has "conscience protection laws for other medical professionals such as doctors and nurses," allowing them to refrain from medical procedures they find morally objectionable.

Tasy said she wasn't confident that a pharmacist could refuse to fill a prescription on professional grounds without using moral justifications.

"If there are studies that show that particular drug [Plan B] has been harmful and there's no moral or philosophical terms attached to it, I guess that would be the case," she said. "But again it's very subjective, so I really don't see that as being very protective."

Neas argued that "the bill does protect individual religious or philosophical beliefs of a pharmacist" because it applies to pharmacies, not individual pharmacists. She said if a pharmacist is opposed to personally dispensing a controversial drug, the pharmacist would be required to help the customer obtain the drug elsewhere.

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