Pharmacists: dispense medication, not judgment

THE Washington Board of Pharmacy should enforce state rules requiring pharmacies to dispense legally prescribed medications and birth control.

Most pharmacists understand their professional obligations. But some with an objection to Plan B emergency contraception want to pick and choose what medicines they will dispense.

The pharmacy board's recent 3-2 vote offers those views unwarranted cover by reversing a three-year-old rule banning pharmacists from refusing to fill prescriptions and dispense birth control. The board hopes to end a lawsuit brought by a group of druggists. But its compromise, allowing women to be turned away as long as they are referred to another pharmacy, is unacceptable.

Moreover, a panel from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year rejected the religious-freedom arguments blocking this state's rules.

The current rule, requiring pharmacists who do not want to fill a prescription to pass the task to someone else at the same store, remains the best solution. It does not subject women to delays or long travel if they live in rural areas.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and the state Department of Health's top official, Mary Selecky, are among many policymakers urging the board to keep the current rule.

"The current rule strikes the correct balance between patient access to medication and valid reasons why a pharmacist might not fill a prescription," Selecky recently wrote to the board. Public comment has been overwhelmingly against changing the rules.

Pharmacists suing the state also argue it would be financially ruinous to force pharmacies to stock every drug covered in state rules.

But they are playing a game of semantics. Their opposition is not really about supplies — druggists out of a medication simply order it — but about abortion rights.

The Plan B pill can prevent fertilization or implantation of an egg if taken within 72 hours of sex. Some pharmacists incorrectly assert that the drug ends life.

Personal beliefs ought not outweigh professional obligations. The state board's 180-degree turnaround in the face of a politically inspired battle ought to be itself reversed. The current rule is fine.