Category: Morning after pill

Pharmacists in ‘conscientious objection’ to morning-after pill

Some are refusing to sell emergency contraception

Times of Malta

Claire Caruana

A number of individual pharmacists are refusing to dispense the morning-after pill on moral grounds, it has emerged, even though the emergency contraceptive is stocked in the pharmacies where they work.

The pharmacists are either directing customers to other pharmacies where they will not have a problem purchasing the pill or else telling them to return to the same pharmacy another time when another “sympathetic” pharmacist will be on duty.

Malta Chamber of Pharmacists president Mary Ann Sant Fournier told The Sunday Times of Malta that like other independent healthcare professionals, pharmacists “have a right to conscientious objection”. . .[Full text]

 

Conscientious objectors – ‘Pharmacists have right to refuse to sell the MAP’

Authority set to issue guidelines

Times of Malta

Claire Caruana

As “independent healthcare professionals”, pharmacists had every right to refuse to sell the morning-after pill if it went against their moral beliefs, Malta Chamber of Pharmacists president Mary Ann Sant Fournier said yesterday.

Ms Sant Fournier’s comments came in the wake of a decision by the Medicines Authority that the contraceptive could be sold over the counter.

“One must emphasise the status that pharmacists enjoy as independent healthcare professionals and their right to conscientious objection should be upheld at all times,” Ms Sant Fournier said when contacted. . . [Full text]

Here’s What Actually Happens When You Fight for Conscience Rights

A family places its trust in God as it battles Washington state for the right to run their pharmacy and grocery store in line with Catholic teachings.

National Catholic Register

Loredana Vuoto

OLYMPIA, Wash. — Every morning, Greg Stormans contemplates a Bible verse perched in a tiny frame above his bathroom sink, which his daughter handwrote: “This is the day which the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

This verse sets the tone for his entire day and life.

“When I first heard this verse, even at a young age, it had an impact on me. It really changed my life and how I view it,” Stormans, one of the owners of Ralph’s Thriftway in Olympiatold CNA.

“Every day when I get up, I remember that the Lord has made it and that I should be happy and grateful. You have to share this and be happy, knowing that God has given you a purpose in life.”

Stormans and his family, who have been operating the small grocery story and pharmacy for the past four generations, had no idea they would be at the center of a firestorm in 2007, when the Washington Pharmacy Commission began to require pharmacies to dispense the potentially abortion-inducing drugs Plan B and ella, and make conscience-based referrals illegal.

Devout Catholics, the Stormans decided that they could not sell abortion-related drugs, because it was against their deepest convictions to sell drugs that “promote death.” . . . [Full text]

 

Doctors who oppose morning-after pill on conscience grounds face qualifications bar

Guidelines confirm that doctors and nurses who oppose controversial emergency contraception on ‘moral or religious’ grounds cannot receive key specialist qualifications

The Telegraph

John Bingham

Doctors and nurses who object to providing controversial emergency contraception on moral or religious grounds are being barred from specialist professional qualifications under official guidelines.

They class Roman Catholics and others motivated by pro-life beliefs as “ineligible” for important qualifications provided by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) even if they complete the training programme.

It led to accusations that the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare, a branch of the RCOG, is unfairly discriminating against medical staff who act on grounds of conscience. [Full Text]

RCOG faculty bars prolife doctors from receiving its degrees and diplomas

 Dr. Peter Saunders*

Doctors and nurses who have a moral objection to prescribing ‘contraceptives’ which act by killing human embryos are to be barred from receiving diplomas in sexual and reproductive health even if they undertake the necessary training according to new guidelines.

Under new rules issued by the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health (FSRH) earlier this year these doctors and nurses are also to be barred from membership of the faculty and from specialty training.

The FSRH is a faculty of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists established on the 26th March 1993 as the Faculty of Family Planning and Reproductive Health Care. In 2007 it changed its name to the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare. [Full Text]