{"id":69,"date":"2007-07-27T14:35:16","date_gmt":"2007-07-27T14:35:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme.php"},"modified":"2007-07-27T14:35:16","modified_gmt":"2007-07-27T14:35:16","slug":"pharmacists-sue-over-requireme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme","title":{"rendered":"Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Associated Press <\/strong><br \/>\nSeattle &#8211; Pharmacists have sued Washington state over a new regulation that requires them to sell emergency contraception, also known as the &#8220;morning-after pill.&#8221;<br \/>\nIn a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into choosing between &#8220;their livelihoods and their deeply held religious and moral beliefs.&#8221;<br \/>\n&#8220;The stakes really couldn&#8217;t be much higher,&#8221; plaintiffs&#8217; attorney Kristen Waggoner said.<br \/>\nThe state ruled earlier this year that druggists who believe emergency contraceptives are tantamount to abortion cannot stand in the way of a patient&#8217;s right to the drugs.<br \/>\nThe state&#8217;s Roman Catholic bishops and other opponents predicted a court challenge after the rule was adopted, saying the state was wrongly forcing pharmacists to administer medical treatments they consider immoral.<br \/>\nDemocratic Gov. Chris Gregoire, who brokered a compromise on the contraceptive rule and pressured the state Board of Pharmacy to adopt it, stood behind the regulation Thursday.<br \/>\n&#8220;Gov. Gregoire feels the Pharmacy Board went through an extensive public process to come to their decision, and she supports them,&#8221; spokesman Lars Erickson said.<br \/>\nThe plaintiffs are pharmacists Rhonda Mesler and Margo Thelen, and Stormans Inc., the owners of Ralph&#8217;s Thriftway in Olympia, a grocery store that includes a pharmacy.<br \/>\nUnder the new state rule, pharmacists with personal objections to a drug can opt out by getting a co-worker to fill an order. But that applies only if the patient is able to get the prescription in the same pharmacy visit.<br \/>\nSold as Plan B, emergency contraception is a high dose of the drug found in many regular birth-control pills. It can lower the risk of pregnancy by as much as 89 percent if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.<br \/>\nThe federal Food and Drug Administration made the morning-after pill available without prescription to adults last year.<br \/>\n<em>Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Associated Press Seattle &#8211; Pharmacists have sued Washington state over a new regulation that requires them to sell emergency contraception, also known as the &#8220;morning-after pill.&#8221; In a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Associated Press Seattle &#8211; Pharmacists have sued Washington state over a new regulation that requires them to sell emergency contraception, also known as the &#8220;morning-after pill.&#8221; In a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-27T14:35:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"akornfeld\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception","og_description":"Associated Press Seattle &#8211; Pharmacists have sued Washington state over a new regulation that requires them to sell emergency contraception, also known as the &#8220;morning-after pill.&#8221; In a lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday, a pharmacy owner and two pharmacists say the rule that took effect Thursday violates their civil rights by forcing them into&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-07-27T14:35:16+00:00","author":"akornfeld","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme","name":"Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-07-27T14:35:16+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-27T14:35:16+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/07\/pharmacists-sue-over-requireme#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Pharmacists Sue Over Requirement to Sell Emergency Contraception"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/da3acea0a48aaeb7e77474c2f29f849a","name":"akornfeld","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/dd2\/dd26f111fd1fab06b546769e3bf834f3x96.jpg","caption":"akornfeld"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/akornfeld"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}