The state has no compelling interest in seeing people are able to get burritos. They do in making sure people are able to get medications. And its not just Plan B, in many states there are wide classes of medications pharmacists are required to carry. In Massachucettes for example, they need to carry “any commonly perscribed medication” to be licensed.
There’s no straw in my satire. None at all. It’s precisely the claim freedom-haters put forth. rat avatar even pulled the “But what if it’s the only one for miles!” card, as if that’s the pharmacy’s problem.
Let’s use the vaginal ultrasound “logic.”
If they don’t want to supply Plan-B, they don’t have to be a pharmacist.
Then the state can provide the medication. It can’t force private citizens to violate their religious beliefs to fulfill the state’s interest.
That’s a really, really, really stupid idea.
Not even touching upon the abuse angle, which from a libertarian standpoint (which is where I’m assuming your coming from) is a non-issue, since the idea is people take personal responsibility for their actions, from from a public health standpoint it’s asinine.
We already have a problem with “super bugs” like MRSA that, before our very eyes, are evolving to become more and more resistant and immune to antibiotics. The average person doesn’t understand this…and they certainly don’t understand when to take antibiotics, for what disease, and which kind. You’d have a LOT of misinformed people buying a shit ton of the wrong medication to help them get over a cold that it won’t help with. It will help a lot more bacterial strains get stronger and stronger, though.
I’ll stop now, since I don’t want to derail this thread.
Thank you for the information, Bricker.
And thanks for making me want tacos for lunch, Chessic.
True. Well, except for the part about equating a potential pregnancy with a craving for burritos. And the part about losing the vending permit. And ignoring the fact that you can buy your own goddamned tortillas and ground beef from any grocery store and make them yourself, whereas nobody can whip up a homemade batch of Plan-B.
Other than those few bales, hardly any straw at all.
This doesn’t really address the judge’s finding.
He points out that pharmacies, in practice, are permitted to not stock required drugs for other reasons, such as fear of robbery, “hassle” with business needs, and the like.
In practice, Washington’s rule doesn’t say that pharmacies must stock Plan B. It says that they can refuse to stock Plan B for all sorts of reasons. Just not religious concerns or conscience. (According to the trial record, anyway).
This is probably a dumb question.
Can there be a law that says, if you accept Medicare and Medicaid (or any other government plans), then you must stock at least drugs a, b, c, etc.? If you’re willing to forgo government plans then you can stock what you want.
I know the law we’re discussing is a state law, and I know that pharmacies are licensed by states, but the federal government can put conditions on their payments can’t they?
For that matter, don’t states administer Medicare and Medicaid? Could state laws place restrictions on pharmacies that accept such payments?
I guess you’d still run into the first amendment issues regardless.
So the “proper” way to do this would be to rescind the conscience clause in the Washington State law. If that were rescinded then this rule wouldn’t even be required and Plan B would be just like every other drug that pharmacies are required to stock in the state.
Then, we have resolved that the issue of who can dispense what is under the rule of law, not individuals. In that case, the objections should amount to nothing.
Yes, I am sorry, I was not responding to your excellent post. (Thank you for the detailed information.)
Certainly isolated pharmacies exist. Here’s one example.
http://www.buy-sellapharmacy.com/component/content/article/38-california/67-ca-4.html
I have know idea what medications that particular pharmacy does or does not carry, but certainly the possibility exists that there are isolated pharmacies that don’t carry certain drugs due to religious or ethical reasons. In fact, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to assume that such stores likely exist.
In any case, given that isolated pharmacies DO exist, shouldn’t their existence, and the possibility that they may decide to be restrictive, be considered when drafting regulations? Do we have to wait for a specific problem to occur before we consider preventing it?
Yes, barring unusual circumstances.
Again, yes. However, they should also have the right to allow blacks if they choose to do so. The state should neither mandate segregration nor forbid voluntary segregation.
As I read this decision, the proper way would be to have a list of “must carry” drugs that is enforced equally across the board. You can’t turn a deliberate blind eye to the pharmacy that refuses to stock Oxycontin because of robbery fears and then land hard on a pharmacy that refuses to stock Plan B for religious reasons.
This is similar to the problem confronted in the case of Tenafly Eruv Association, Inc. v. Borough of Tenafly, New Jersey.
Orthodox Jews living in Tenafly wanted to construct an eruv chatzerot in their neighborhood. An eruv is a demarked area that creates a ritual enclosure; it’s used because observant Jews may not carry items from a private to a public domain on the Sabbath without violating the prohibition against work. By enclosing the neighborhood in a ritual boundary, observant Jews could walk between houses carrying keys or medicine – or babies! - without violating the mitzvah regarding carrying.
To create the eruv residents sought to place strips of black plastic tubing on
utility poles. These were basically identical to the tubing placed there by the actual utilities. But concerned that giving this permission would result in an influx of Orthodox Jews, the Borough withheld permission, and when the Jews went ahead and placed the strips, the Borough ordered them removed, pointing to an ordinance that forbid “…signs, advertisements, or any other matter…” on utility poles in public streets.
The Third Circuit upheld a ruling that although the ordinance was neutral on its face, the Borough had not applied the ordinance in a neutral manner. It noted that the record at trial showed numerous instances of house numbers, lost animal signs, yard sales, and holiday displays, all of which had passed without notice or action from the Borough.
Very good point. Of course, since the regulation is a Washington State one, I’m not sure how it might apply to this pharmacy.
Maybe. I’d say the bigger problem is: given that isolated pharmacies exist, maybe any regulation drafted should truly address the problem of availability of medication.
Makes sense to me.
One final question - would changing the legislation to specifically bar conscience as a valid reason for refusing to stock an approved drug pass muster, in your opinion?
Probably not, unless it did other things, too.
In other words, when a law creates classifications, and those classifications fall on religious grounds, then the law must pass the “strict scrutiny” test. A law that creates classification in other areas would be judged only under the “rational basis” test, where we ask only if the state action was rationally related to a legitimate state goal. If that were the standard here, the state law would survive, because there’s clearly a legitimate state interest in ensuring access to medical supplies and forbidding “conscience” refusals is rationally related to that goal.
Buut when applying strict scrutiny we must ask, instead, if the state law is “narrowly tailored to achieve the stated goal.”
In this instance, if the only thing you did was deny “conscience” refusals, you’d have trouble claiming it was narrowly related to the goal of ensuring access to medication, since you permit all sorts of other reasons to not stock medicines. You’d have to craft and enforce a rule that mandated compliance with a “must stock” list, and allowed few if any exceptions.
You could deny a conscience clause, but then you could say you don’t stock it because you don’t stock it and that’s that.
Will the law force you to stock item and that you can never run out of them.
Will they price-control force-to-stock med?
This is not the same thing. A pharmacist is not refusing to, in this case, serve women by not stocking Plan-B. They are refusing to provide a certain product. The fact that the product they choose to not stock would usually be requested by women does not equate to the pharmacy refusing to serve women.
Now, since you asked, I’m actually okay with businesses refusing to serve someone, much the same way I am okay with people boycotting/protesting those businesses for their practices, if they so choose.