A-holes

The entire debate about whether pharmacists should be allowed to refuse to dispense certain drugs based on their personal beliefs makes me fucking sick, because there’s just no way to justify revictimizing someone who’s been sexually assaulted by refusing to give them the peace of mind they so desperately need.

After a sexual assault one recent weekend, a young Tucson woman spent three frantic days trying to obtain the drug to prevent a pregnancy, knowing that each passing day lowered the chance the drug would work.

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.

"I was so shocked," said the 20-year-old woman, who, as a victim of sexual assault, is not being named by the Star. "I just did not understand how they could legally refuse to do this."

But many stores are. A 2004 survey of more than 900 Arizona pharmacies found less than half keep emergency contraception drugs in stock, with most saying there is too little demand, but some cite moral reasons, according to the Arizona Family Planning Council.

Someone show me in any religious text where it says anything that could remotely be construed as endorsing this kind of behavior, anything that would indicate it’s more moral to add to someone’s suffering just to keep your conscience clean.

The statistics are creating what advocates say is a frightening situation for some women. But others are glad pharmacists have a choice.

Pro-choice for pharmacists…but not for rape victims. Stellar.

See, here’s the problem, you daft pricks—not everyone in Arizona shares your beliefs, and so subjecting women who don’t to laws rooted in that belief is bullshit. Anyone who doesn’t want to use emergency contraception, doesn’t have to, so changing the laws so that everyone is beholden to your beliefs is ridiculous.

These people have no perspective. Their individual beliefs aren’t more important than a woman’s right to reproductive freedom. The temerity of suggesting that they have all the answers, that they know what’s best for other people—how about we all be left to make those decisions for ourselves?

The thing that makes me really nuts is that there isn’t a shred of evidence that criminalizing abortion, emergency contraception, and/or birth control would actually reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies (or abortions). What does aid in achieving that goal, however, is comprehensive sex education and easy access to contraceptives. Until these jerkoffs get real and start advocating for the latter, I will refuse to believe that they have any genuine interest in what they claim. This isn’t about babies; it’s about women, and being able to control them by taking away their control over their own bodies.