Pharmacies in state dispute survey of Plan B availability

More than 10 percent of the state's 1,190 pharmacies aren't making "Plan B" emergency contraception available to women, because they either won't stock the controversial medication or have at least one pharmacist who refuses to dispense it, a leading abortion-rights group alleges in a report issued Wednesday.

And it's not just rural pharmacies, says the group, NARAL Pro-Choice Washington. More than a dozen pharmacies in Seattle and King County also won't provide the time-sensitive, post-intercourse contraception that is now available without a prescription for most women.

But leaders among the state's pharmacists said the report is misleading, and they questioned NARAL's methods.

The survey was released while the state and pharmacists continue to argue over how much access to Plan B pharmacies should be required to provide.

Some pharmacists believe that Plan B, which is essentially a very high dose of birth-control pills, could cause an abortion by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Abortion-rights advocates say the medicine simply prevents fertilization and that it doesn't affect a pregnant woman.

Some pharmacists argue a right to refuse to dispense medications that violate personal religious or moral convictions. Last year, the state Board of Pharmacy ruled that pharmacies must dispense all legal medication, but an individual pharmacist may refuse as long as there is another pharmacist available to dispense the drug.

But two pharmacists and a pharmacy owner sued, and a federal judge in Tacoma has imposed an injunction, saying the rules appear unconstitutional. For now, pharmacists are allowed to refuse to dispense Plan B so long as they refer a customer to a nearby source of the medication. Motions in the case are set to be heard Friday.

To conduct the survey, NARAL asked volunteers to call pharmacies in Washington and ask whether they could get Plan B there. The callers identified themselves as being from the "Emergency Contraceptive Access Project."

The pharmacies were then grouped into one of three categories: those that didn't stock the medicine, those that did but had at least one pharmacist who wouldn't dispense it, and everyone else.

The surveyors were able to reach only about 80 percent of the state's pharmacies, said Karen Cooper, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice. Some wouldn't answer questions and others refused to return calls.

At a NARAL news conference Wednesday, a Seattle woman, Trina Stout, 23, recounted being turned away at Park's Pharmacy on Northeast Ravenna Boulevard by Seattle's Green Lake. She wasn't a volunteer. She actually needed Plan B.

"The pharmacist was unsympathetic, rude and dismissive of my health-care needs," Stout said.

A man who answered the phone at Park's Wednesday declined to comment.

But representatives of the Washington State Pharmacy Association, a trade group, said NARAL's numbers don't tell the whole story and rejected assertions in the report that some pharmacists "harassed or shamed" women who wanted Plan B.

"I think that's a slanderous, shameful report," said C.J. Kahler of Bellevue, a former president of the association.

Warren Hall, a Centralia pharmacist and the current president, said one of his three pharmacies shows up as not dispensing Plan B because one pharmacist won't dispense the drug. But there is always at least one other on duty who will.

Other pharmacies objected to their designations by NARAL as wrong or misleading.

NARAL identified Harborview Medical Center's Pioneer Square Clinic as not stocking emergency contraception. But it actually does, said both hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson and one of the pharmacists there.

NARAL's Cooper apologized for the error and said the report would be corrected.

A Pacific Medical Centers pharmacy on East Madison Street in Seattle was listed as not stocking the drug. But that's because its average patient age is 68, said the pharmacy director, Kim Johnson.

Carol M. Ostrom: 206-464-2249 or costrom@seattletimes.com