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Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill

By Jeralyn, Section Social Justice
Posted on Mon Oct 24, 2005 at 01:54:43 PM EST
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Crooks and Liars has the details from this Arizona Star article of a rape victim who spent three days trying to get the morning after pill.

C & L says,

Looks like we have another Target on our hands. John has more on them. I thought these Circus Clowns believed abortion was fine if it involved rape?

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    Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill | 56 comments (56 topical)
    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (5.00 / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Hey, thanks for posting this. I contacted a number of mainstream and blogs in hopes that this gets publicity because it is an outrage to the 'enth degree. I cannot tell you how much this enrages me. Keep up the good work and thanks for reading my e-mail.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    "While calling dozens of Tucson pharmacies trying to fill a prescription for emergency contraception, she found that most did not stock the drug. When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections." How is that a mundane story? She found a place that stocked it, but when she got there, they refused to sell it to her because of "religious and moral objections." Also the story says that she could not afford the $70 cost of the pills at Planned Parenthood. So, yes, they do indeed stock it, but charge out the rear for it. I cannot believe a company would empower their employees to make judgment calls like that.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#3)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    I have trouble thinking Planned Parenthood would not give her the pill. I also have trouble that Target, if their management was aware, wouldn't get another pharmacist on duty. Are we sure this is real?? Sounds like an urban myth.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Matt O., you have just be introduced to a couple of the local trolls. Even if they were on hand to witness exactly what had transpired they would still find some way to blame it on the liberal press. Or any other mythological beasty you can think of. PPJ, yeah this did happen. No urban legend here. Just another example of how the right wing Christian circus is playing God with other peoples lives. Exactly opposite of what true Christians would do.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Come on out here to Tucson and find out. I'll take you to the actual Fry's in question myself. We can ask them. I am not sure how Planned Parenthood deals with the morning after pill and those who cannot afford it. In the article it says PP charges $70 for the pills but I think I remember reading that they offer some kind of payment plan? I suppose she just figured she could get it cheaper elsewhere. She is a college student, and I know first hand out here, most of us are broke like a joke. $70 to a college student out here, when they've raised tuition more than a dozen times can but a bit tough on the wallet.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#6)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    You have a right to an abortion and/or emergency contraception. You don't necessarily have a right to others' help in getting it.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    It is the pharmacists' job to fill perscriptions. They are not suppose to judge you in any regard. They put the pill in a bottle and tell you what not to take with it. End of story. Plus, in this story, they were suppose to refer her to a place that would fill it, and she and her friend claim they didn't. So yeah, company policy was that they were suppose to "help in getting it."

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    The pharmacists conduct was absolutely abominable. In a just world he would be fired immediately and his license yanked. He has no right to impose his views on a woman.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#9)
    by sarcastic unnamed one on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Matt O, ohwilleke, you two are new here. Been a fair amount of discussion on this subject. See here and here. It's not so cut and dried as you might think.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#10)
    by Kitt on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    It's not so cut and dried as you might think. It is to me! Fill the prescription or get another job. I've worked in medicine ALL of my adult life and the first pharmacist that gave me sh*t would be the last. I have a freakin' problem doing an MRI on a drunk driver who kills. My JOB is to do the MRI regardless of who the patient may or may not be. And - it is absolutely no one's business why this patient is purchasing the morning after pill. The pharmacist'S "involvement" is to note any other medications the patient may be taking so as not to cause an adverse reaction and then FILL the prescription. Gotta a problem with it - fill it and then take up with your supervisor or management. You do not inconvenience the patient. The bottom line is ALWAYS - P-A-T-I-E-N-T C-A-R-E.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    roy writes:
    You have a right to an abortion and/or emergency contraception. You don't necessarily have a right to others' help in getting it.
    Roy, where is your compassion? When you are knocked down by a hit-and-run driver, will you be so sure that even though you have the right to an ambulance and an emergency operation, you don't necessarily have a right to others' help in getting it. Will that be your attitude when you see someone who is hurt and needs help? If you have ever heard of the parable of the Good Samaritan, you will see where I am going with this analogy. What kind of world do you want to live in? Most of us want a world in which people do not espouse the attitudes you have expressed here. Do YOU believe that those attitudes can ever be justified in a humane and caring society?

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#12)
    by LorettaNall on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:19 PM EST
    Here is what pisses me off about the pro-lifers who wish to enforce their religious beliefs on the rest of us.
    It is the Christian right who squeals about all these perceived "rights of the unborn" but as soon as the "unborn" with all of those supposed rights enter into this world it is the same Christian right who begins to squawl that they have to feed these bastard children that the mother should not have had if she couldn't afford to take care of it.
    Try reconciling that one.
    Also...you never see the Chirstian right lining up to adopt these children that they fought so hard to have someone else bring into the world.
    I smell some serious hypocirscy...but hey...what's new about that?
    Neither abortion nor the morning after pill are compulsory behaviors. If they don't want to have an abortion or take a pill after being raped then they are free not to.
    Down with the right-wing, nut-ball, religious moralists. They have destroyed our once great country and I wish their goddamn rapture would hurry up so the rest of us could live in peace.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#13)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    Cymro, You are making the common mistake of thinking that my support for the freedom to do X implies my support for doing X. I like for pharmacists to dispense drugs without giving guff. I like for paramedics to come to hit-and-run scenes. I like for people to be good samaritans. I don't like the government to force anybody to do all that good stuff.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#14)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    why don't they stock a nice pharmacy full of morning after pills to dispense to their heart's content instead of trying to force other people to violate their own moral beliefs?
    Gee, I dunno, because they're not a pharmacy?

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#15)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    Also, here's the elephant in the corner that the wingnuts love to overlook: I'm a pharmacist with a moral objection to antibiotics. If someone dies of a staph infection due to my "morals", is that good or bad?

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#16)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    sarcastic unwanted one, yeah it is that cut and dry. Do your f@#$ing job, leave your f#%ing morals at home, or otherwise find another line of work. Nobody forced this or any other person to become a pharmacist, and nobody, even in the Bible, said it is ok for Christians to shove their sense of morality down our throats. Keep stepping on peoples rights in the name of a supposed God and eventually they will start pushing back. Come 2006 you and all of your supposed Christian friends will see just how tired the American people are of every single one of you hypocrites.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#17)
    by roy on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    Short version of above: living in a free society means people are free to do things you don't like. Obligatory jibe: haven't Liberals been preaching that at Conservatives for decades?

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#18)
    by roger on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    Cops are given certain powers, but are only allowed to use them in a certain way. Pharmacists are allowed to sell drugs, but only if they do it a certain way. If they refuse, yank their license. And Roy, if the paramedics refuse to treat someone because they are of a different race, how long do you think that they will be a paramedic?

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#19)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    charley, if those who want pharmacists to dispense pills are "trying to force other people to violate their own moral beliefs" then I expect to see you advocating that gun store owners should stop selling guns. After all, people who buy the guns may use them to kill people, and I'm sure killing people is against the moral beliefs of many of those store owners.

    Re: Tucson Rape Victim Denied Morning After Pill (none / 0) (#20)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:20 PM EST
    LorettaNall raises some interesting ideas. I think she mistates the Conservative position however, when she says "as soon as the "unborn" with all of those supposed rights enter into this world it is the same Christian right who begins to squawl that they have to feed these bastard children that the mother should not have had if she couldn't afford to take care of it." The Conservatives believe people should take responsibility for themselves. Ms. Nall seems to believe that no Christians are adopting unwanted babies, which is patently untrue. As a mater of fact, if you visit Utah, you will see white Christian families with adoptive black babies and children, in numbers that exceed any cross-racial adoptions anywhere in the country. Additionally, study after study indicates that Conservative working class Americans give far more to charity than their liberal counterparts (and no, it's not because they're so rich that it doesn't hurt). Ms. Nall also exhibits that gross emotional hatred of religious people and conservatives that seems typical of Left wing secularists; as if this country wasn't in fact BUILT by the religious "nutballs" she curses. That being said, as a Jewish Conservative who believes abortion should be avoided if at all possible, I have to agree that a pharmacist has an obligation to dispense the drugs at his disposal. The story has some odd markings however. First, Planned Parenthood doesn't charge for the morning after pill at all. They request a donation, but that's it. Secondly, the rape angle sounds odd. It makes for higher emotional impact, but I'd be curious to know more factual information. Not that the issue of rape or incest has any true bearing on the value of the life of a child, but i know that that is a typical qualifier in abortion discussions. Finally, and quite parenthetically, there was an odd case of a bus driver in..California I believe, who, as a Vegan, refused to hand out Carl's Junior hamburger coupons to the bus riders as requested by his employer. He was fired, then successfully sued the bus