No Birth Control For You! Says Snyder Drugs in Great Falls. |
30th May 2007
I just got an email from Emily Lockwood, the Online Strategies Manager from Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Her email was about the policies of the new owners of Snyder’s Drug store in Great Falls. It seems that a lady went to have her birth control prescription filled. All she got from the pharmacist counter was the following note that reads “Snyder Drugs will no longer carry oral contraceptives.”
It could have been anyone, but this particular example comes from a 49 year old lady who does not use the pills as a contraceptive. When asked ‘why’, one of the new owners told her that the pills are dangerous for women.
Upon hearing this story, I put on my investigative journalism hat (it’s made of tinfoil) and called the pharmacy. I was told that this was the policy and that it had been the choice of the new owners, Stuart Anderson and Kurt and Kori Depner.
Far be it from me to make policy decisions, but isn’t this a bit… insane? Shouldn’t the safety of the drugs in question be left up to the woman, her doctor and the FDA? Did this decision really involve patient safety or was it purely religious ideology? Consider this ad that Anderson signed on to:
As health-care professionals, we call upon the American people to once again reaffirm the right to life for future generations of the unborn and join with us in our efforts to restore respect, dignity and value to each human life-born or unborn.
Now, I support an owners right to run their business in the way they see fit. However, I do take issue with folks hiding a religious agenda behind the guise of ’safety’. Additionally, while it is one thing to say that you do not want to sell certain products because it attracts the kind of business that would drive away your other customers (alcohol, nudy books), this is somehow more insidious as it attempts to say ‘I don’t believe in this in my personal life so I am not going to sell it to you and you are somehow wrong for wanting it’. I take exception with that. We are talking about birth control here, not a bag of slow-roasted puppy heads.
This is outrageous. It does give me a new mission in life, however: to smear, belittle, impugn, boycott and slander Snyder Drugs and to do whatever else is necessary to keep people from shopping there. Please let me know if there are any actions planned.
This is why I don’t shop at Target or use NYC Taxis. Muslims in Target refuse (but is allowed due to our wonderfully racist PC world) to serve people with alcohol, service dogs, bacon, or other pork products. And NYC Taxi Muslims refuse service to blind and other handicap people with dogs. Religion shouldn’t interfere with service, but the public seems to embracing Islam’s refusal to serve, but not their refusal to accept money for that work. I could stand in front of a Target checkout and refuse service to everybody too, thats easy money.
Widowmaker, I agree with the sentiment that it goes both ways. I think that you might want to check back on the events you discuss from time to time. Note that Target moved those Cashiers that wont touch pork to other jobs. In my mind, their religious beliefs compromise their abilities to do their jobs, as such, Target would be right in saying that they can no longer work there if they can’t reposition them. Know what I think the problem is? A lack of bacon. How can you function in this world without bacon???
I don’t know anything about the NYC dog/cabdriver issues.
Speaking of Target…Target is one of the one of the only major pharmacies that has refused to sign Planned Parenthood’s pharmacy policy. Even Walmart has signed on.
It almost seems as if their heart is in the right place, but they’re just misguided. Recent concerns have come up concerning women with heart conditions having those problems made worse by birth control medicine. However, I think you’re right in saying that it should be the doctor’s concern, not the pharmacist’s.
You know, I could buy this argument if it weren’t for one thing: think they still sale Oxycontin and the like? People get addicted to those all the time. They are many hazardous drugs out there, a doctor and patient generally work together to decide if the potential benefit outweighs the potential harm. You are right, that is up to them and not a pharmacist or random drug store owner.
I guess the bottom line is what do we expect from the pharmasist? My expectation is that the pharmasist will dispense the drug prescribed by my doctor unless there is a drug interaction problem. I would then expect the pharmasist to work with me and my doctor to resolve the issue. I hope the folks at Snyder’s called that lady’s doctor to find a “safe” alternative to treat her condition. I’d hate to think they did not really care about her health.
Really good point Ed. What they told me on the phone was that they would recommend another pharmacist that would dispense the birth control, or if they still had it in stock they would dispense it until they ran out of stock. That is when I asked “Is this a supplier issue then?”, they said no, it was the choice of the new owners.
Shane your comment here “I don’t believe in this in my personal life so I am not going to sell it to you and you are somehow wrong for wanting it” hit the nail on the head. This is why I no longer go to K-Mart as well (Target was out due to the bacon, now K-Mart, thank God for Walmart!) K-Mart dropped the selling of popular pistol ammunition for some kind of anti-2nd Amendment agenda. They also hid it in the ruse of “safety”. I do stand with you on this Shane, sell me what I want, and let me be the decider if its wrong or not. ATF determined I can own pistols, but K-Mart says I can’t buy the ammo.
Agreed. However, as I pointed out, Target changed its practice. Wal Mart, on the other hand, once pulled shirts from the shelf that read “Someday a girl will be president” saying that did not represent their family values.
Funny, I stopped shopping at Walmart because they’re generally horrible to their employees.
http://wakeupwalmart.com/facts/
Seriously. If a local retailer doesn’t carry what I’m looking for, I go without.
If it’s not offered (or available for order) by a local business, it’s not worth having. Sure gives me alot of room in my house to do damn near anything I please!
Fuck Walmart. Fuck Best Buy. Fuck Costco. Fuck Lowes, Home Depot, Target, Border’s, Circuit City, Blockbuster, etc. You get the picture.
WE DO NOT NEED THEM!
Without us though, they die. It’s up to us to evolve.
I have to side with the owner of the business on this one: political, religious, or other such beliefs are secondary in this issue. The PRIMARY issue is: it is his business, and he can do as he deems appropriate. If he is willing to live with any negative repercussions of this policy, so be it. But it is, ultimately, his business to operate as he sees fit.
Hear, hear!
Point taken. As such, we have the
rightduty as consumers to take issue and ‘vote with our wallets’ by not patronizing the stores, spread the word and encourage others to do the same.I don’t think that any one here is advocating a law to force them to sell the pill. I am not anyway. What I do think is a major issue is hiding behind the ’safety’ guise.
What’s the issue? Inasmuch as there is some evidence that hormones cause cancer, blood clots, etc. the guy may be misleading but I don’t see anywhere where he’s not within his rights to think (and state) any misdirected or ignorant thing he wants to. Isn’t it like the anti-Smoking zealots that insist that even minor exposure to second hand smoke causes heart disease?
So I assume that your concern is more in the nature of worrying about fundamentalists and their religious/moral prattlings?
Yes Dave, and global warming is something that Al Gore made up. The fact is that this is a case of one Mr Anderson concerning himself with a woman’s reproduction and healthcare issues. He is not concerned about health or else he would not sell the many other drugs that are much worse than any effect from birth control. Even if he is a doctor, which I do not assume he is, he is not her doctor.
Just as it is your right to deny science every time it is a bit inconvenient to you, it is my right to be concerned when I see something like this. I thought that was how the free market was supposed to work Dave. We vote with our wallets, right Dave? That just makes me a hand wringing pussy though, doesn’t it Dave?
A little hostility. But you didn’t address my assumption about your concerns.
BTW, show me where I have denied any science. I double dog dare you.
Yeah, little hostility Dave, a little hostility. I did indeed address your point. I said:
I think you’re dodging the issue. If the guy has problems with birth control, so what? Are you worried about this being a societal trend? What is the evil lurking in the shadows that concerns you. It can’t be “one guy” can it?
As for your hostility… your not so good at it. If you’re going to dress me down, do it!
And given the fact that I have yet to call you directly the “p” word…
I’ll stay off this blog if you wish.
You know what, I really can’t say it any better than woland does below. I will say that I agree with her answer 100%.
You are right, I really am not good at dressing folks down, nor do I have any real desire to ‘dress you down’. No real hostility here.
Considering CaptBob’s argument below and my wife making the same argument all day, I rescind what I said. While we should vote with our wallet on this one, there are many good reasons why licensed pharmacies should be required to sell legally prescribed drugs.
Pharmacists are professionals. Professionals have professional obligations that override our personal ones. As a lawyer, I may have feelings about my clients, but I don’t get to lecture or *lie* to them. “The pill is dangerous to women.” Total rubbish. My doctor and I will decide that, thanks. I take it because it cuts my risk of ovarian cancer, which killed a bunch of my relatives, by *half.* A cousin takes it because she has a condition that would give her osteoporosis at 30 and it acts as hormone replacement. Yeah, there are risks - LIKE ALL DRUGS. Unless these judgmental folks think women are too dumb to talk with our doctors and figure out whether the risks are worth the benefits?
This isn’t like running a restaurant and deciding not to serve broccoli. Telling women to go elsewhere is not ok - in a lot of small towns there’s only one pharmacy, and between inconvenience and shaming, it’s a barrier to people getting proper medical care. Professional licensing boards should require pharmacists to dispense legally prescribed medicines, and lay off the moralizing while they’re at it. Period.
As a professional you have every right to refuse to represent a client. N’est pas? Would it be correct if the government forced you to represent an industy that you have deep moral feelings against? That’s the thing about liberty, it doesn’t always make everyone happy. But I think you’re being disengenuous about the scope of “professional obligations.”
Do you propose that all drug stores sell all drugs in the U.S. pharmacopia?
As for barriers to proper medical care… you think these people can’t get a perscription filled by mail? That’s a red herring. One thing about living in small towns is the entire host of “inconveniences” that one trades off for the lifestyle.
industy–pharmacopia–perscription–
Learn to spell or use smaller words, you friggin’ twit.
It’s always nice to have a spelling teacher on board.
Language ma’m
Well Dave, that’s not really the case for many state-licensed professions.
Take medical practitioners: I am trained, licensed EMT-FR. If I, as a first responder licensed by the State of Montana, come upon someone injured or hurt in the course of my official duties (as in a search and rescue mission authorized by my sheriff), I have an affirmative obligation to render aid to that subject regardless of whether I belive the actions that led them to this condition was illegal or immoral. I have an affirmative duty to render aid to the extent that my licensing allows.
If I am not engaged in my “official duty,” my only obligation to act is to call 911 (under MT’s Good Samaritan law). The affirmative obligation to act depends (in the US) on state legislation.
Your obligation to act and serve in a professional capacity depends on the licensing law that applies to your specific profession– again, according to how the principles of state-sanctioned cartel and common carriage apply to that particular profession.
Attorneys have solved this by setting up a system where by individual attorneys have the right to refuse service, but there are funds (and time) set aside to provide court mandated service for people that are refused service by private practitioners (Legal Aid for civil cases, court-appointed and publically funded attorney’s for criminal).
In the case of pharmacists, there is no similar “out” mechanism providing for discretion on the part of individual pharmacists. I suspect that there are legal grounds to take a pharmacist or licensed pharmacy to court for refusing to fill a lawful prescription, both criminal and civil. However, I suspect that in this case, the subject would be constrained by financial resources from persuing those options.
I make my living as a computer “professional” in a private business and am not licensed to practice (but I do have a state license to operate under a fictitious name). This allows me to say “I won’t work with you because I don’t believe in your goals/who you are/your hair is blonde.”
If I were a licensed practitioner granted cartel or monopoly rights, I wouldn’t necessarily have the legal right to make this choice, (e.g. an ER doctor).
You haven’t proved a monopoly or a cartel in this case.
Secondly, as an EMT you likely do work for a monopoly or a cartel. I smell apples and oragnes.
If you dispense prescription medications without a license, you will be charged with a crime. The licenses are issued by the state to people with select credentials, who are approved after review by a board. Not everyone who applies becomes approved. This creates an enforced restriction on who can provide prescription medications, thus creating a legal cartel (” cartel is a group of formally independent producers whose goal is to increase their collective profits by means of price fixing, limiting supply, or other restrictive practices.”) I think the cartel definition is quite appopriate.
EMT’s operate in exactly the same manner, but without the individual review.
I do advocate laws to force pharmacists to sell drugs that are legally prescribed. Pharmacists are not physicians, nor are they moral guides. They are licensed by the state to fill orders drawn up by licensed doctors and operate as a legal cartel.
It should be illegal to not dispense legally prescribed medications. Alternatively, pharmaceutical licensing laws need to open up to allow over-the-counter sales of most prescribed drugs, thus removing the impact of the cartel. You can bet that drug prices would fall if pharmacists were dispensed with and you could by them direct from the manufacturer or at your local Town Pump along with your 32oz coffee and tank of gas.
If you as a business person feel you cannot do business with everyone, you shouldn’t be in that business.
Finally, it is neither ethnical, nor moral, to act as a self-appointed arbiter of right and wrong for other people. It is assholical, and clearly that’s what this case is about.
When you put it in those terms, I might flip flop on what I said. You make a very strong argument here and I want to add one thing to it:
This Western Snyders was in Great Falls, there are plenty of other drug stores there, but what if this happens in Treasure County? What happens then?
Anyone see the irony here?
Not irony, paradox. One must live with it.
Whatever you say Bob. Just make sure you tell those moralizing bastards what’s right and wrong about selling or not selling whatever.
I think pharmacies might have to be tagged with “common carrier” status to prevent little Jerry Falwell’s from dictating public health policy. If you want to be a pharmacist, you’re going to have to abide by and respect the doctor-patient relationship and stay the hell out of their lives. Otherwise, make your store a candy store and stay out of the drug business.
Thanks, Shane, for publicizing this.
The real issue here is not concern for women’s health — it is control of their reproductive organs. Believe it or not, if you scratch the surface of the anti-abortion crowd, you will find they are also anti-birth control.
Just a few articles:
“Access Denied,” Prevention magazine.
“The battle to ban birth control,” Salon.
Lets set up a state commission of business enforcement. That commission could decide what businesses sell and to whom. The principles could be mason jar, that moonbeam (Larry) in Great Falls, Matt Singe r, and just about everyone else that believes they should be able to make those decisions for business owners. Hey, dimwits. Find another drug store.
It is called the Montana Board of Pharmacy. Been around for a while. Works as a part of the structure of corporate organization and regulation that has been around in some form or another since the 1600’s.
The point being that if you’re granted monopoly status, you need to accept common carrier status as well.
But don’t let reality get in the way of cheap snark.
So what’s the MT Board of Pharmacy’s stand on something like this, then? O_o I think the real sticking point is the “owner’s choice” answer. I think a better explaination from said owners would be best before anyone gets too rabid about the topic.
Said in typical Any Rand style. Did you read her stuff? (I have, and many times over. She’s a pathological genius!)
She doesn’t give a damn about the individual, for as much lip-service as she pays to the concept.
She is pretty clear that it’s up to the mega-conglomerate-multi-national-monopoly to rule the government, and rule the world, people be damned.
You are aware of course that William Kristol (founder of PNAC) takes every chance he gets to hype her rhetoric, and is a long-standing member of the Ayn Rand Institution…
I can only hope your name & comment were a statement made in irony!
Granted monopoly status? Please enlighten us unwashed?
These are the same arguments I use against the anti 2nd Amendment crowd. K-Mart sells guns and ammo, therefor I should be able to buy an AR-15 from them as well as 9mm ammo, but I can’t. It comes down to my constitutional right to own a gun not to be infringed and K-Mart (Walmart and even our local Sportsman’s Surplus) breaks that by not selling every gun and every model. Wait…a store that sells guns doesn’t have to carry EVERY gun? Whoa whoa, Pizza Hut doesn’t have have my favorite topping, lets boycott.
Drugstores are a bit different than gun stores and pizza places. If you can’t see the difference, then there isn’t a lot I can say to convince you of otherwise.
I see no problem whatsoever in mandating that one licensed to sell prescription drugs to the public be required to fill all prescriptions ordered by a doctor. Public obligation should go with privilege granted. Free market extremists be damned, the public does have rights that govern here.
Back to the professional licensing issue. Do you have the obligation to work for any client the State of Montana tells you to like, say, Montana Right To Life or some political action committee you hate? I find this notion so bizaar. It’s not as if there is a monopoly on Rx sales here and consumers don’t have a huge range of sources. Do you people think the market is anywhere near failure? And I wonder what’s so “free market extremist” about allowing people to engage in selling what they choose to.
Sheesh! Does the government have to be in every aspect of our businesses?
It is two things: One, the right to sell drugs carries with it a responsibility to serve the public. This is manifest in agreements that pharmacies have that at least one will be open every hour of the day, and it’s not a stretch to say that pharmacists ought to be mandated to carry the drugs that the public needs in exchange for that privilege of selling to them at a profit. 2) It’s interference in a privileged contract between a doctor and a patient. Who the hell cares what the druggist thinks about what my doctor prescribed for me. Just fill my damned prescription.
In my line of work, I have the right to refuse to offer service to anyone. But I dare say that public will survive without my services. That’s quite different than with drugs, where people’s health and well being depend on the pharmacist doing his job.
I say that the public will survive with a few crack-pot pharmacies refusing to sell birth control just as easily as they can do without your services. This is (again) a red herring. There’s abundant compitition and access.
Secondly, where is it agreed that one pharmacy will be open everyhour of the day? The Montana Statues says:
Perhaps there are local agreements in places but I can’t find it in the law.
And I don’t see where there is any interference between doctor and patient. Drug stores are not monopolies that have control over drug supplies.
Don’t you people have biggger issues in the world to fret about? Talk about making an issue of a non-issue.
If it’s such a non-issue, then why post to this subject Dave? Apparently, you seem to think it’s an issue too…
No, I think the issue is the left’s never ending desire to regulate. I know you might get easily confused.
If it’s of no importance, why respond? I contend you find it important. No need to be snipy, Dave. That’s a fact - you’re repsonding because you do find it worth while to talk about, or to fret over as you say.
Take that at face value.
Why is it that liberals continually tell me what I believe. At face value, I fret over pernicious regulation. Is that so difficult to believe. And you’re making critical mistake here. The non-issue I mentioned was “access” to oral birth control - not the debate at hand.
Geez - he goes to the Montana Code - I was just talking about my time in Billings where one drug store was always open by agreement. But if they wanted to pass a law … wouldn’t bother me.
If I want to take a drug my doctor prescribes, and the pharmacist says no I cannot have it, that seems like interference to me. Plain and simple.
And most Montana towns likely have but one drug outlet. We’re a rural kind of place. I don’t know how widespread this crackpot movement is, but I do know that evangelical Christians make up a large percentage of our population - 40+%. I do know they tend to think alike and act in unison. This could well be more than a few crackpot pharmacies. It’s hardly a non-issue, though I don’t know what is yet to come from these fruitcakes.
And we can actually multi-task our issues. We can talk about this, and other stuff too!
We’re all in for a good laugh if the same thing happens to Synder Drugs as did the Pickle Barrel, a large increase in business.
Give the woman a damn pill for crying out loud!
Salon justed posted a story about this: Pharmacy protects women from contraception.
Oh, and Dave Budge: I hardly think access to medication is a “non-issue.”
But that’s the point. No one here has offered any evidence that this is a pernicious problem anywhere. Show me any evidence that there is a growing movement so large that it prevents the sale of oral contraception and I’ll be on board with all of you. But I don’t see any proof of that.
What I see is a bunch of folks svitzing over an overblown fear. I call’em as I see ‘em.
I believe that the same people own two drugstores. Maybe their goal is to buy all the drug stores one at a time and then eradicate the pill altogether. Stranger things have happened
Seriously, when should we get concerned? When we there are 3 stores not selling the pill? 15 stores? 30% of them? 80%? You let us know when we can get alarmed.
It’s kind of like porn. I can’t define it but I know it when I see it.
I’m going to have to blog the shit out this over at my place. This is just too rich to ignore.
‘non-issue’ my arse.
it’s totally sexist - free markets, libertarian whatever aside. it’s sexist. strip away the cloying ‘i love my mommy’ crap that was in that ad, pair it with the ‘i know what’s good for you, little lady’ attitude and you have a big whopping helping of sexism - topped off with a soupcon of ignorant asshattery.
contraception is only one reason to take the pill - we are also prescribed it to address uneven menstrual cycles, dangerously heavy menstrual cycles, really bad acne, and fibroids. i can’t believe men in this country still think denying access to the Pill is like denying access to a freaking vitamin.
Paita - From a previous discussion Dave’s comment from his site said ” There’s a big stink abrewin’ over at Left In The West over the fact that a drug store in G.F. refuses to sell birth control. I think that’s silly, but I don’t think there’s a case to be made that selling anything should be compulsory.
The left, however, seems to be in the business of telling business what it should and should not sell, the “fair” price for which such should be sold, and the cost of labor from which it is produced. Reminds me of Goebbels:
I absolutely insist on protecting private property… we must encourage private initiative”.[30] Nevertheless, he wanted property to be regulated to make sure “benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual”
Craig’s comment to this was “Seems simple enough to me: If Snyder’s won’t fill the prescription, try CVS or Osco, or Walgreens, and so on. End of story, with no excessive wringing of hands.”
But don’t forget his own self-description on himself under his author description was “If he could start his life all over again, Dave would be a gourmet chef - but there’s no looking back for a guy that old.
So I am left wondering is that maybe “I” am too old to form a conclusion to all of this
SO, as I said give the damn woman the pill!
You win the award for “You don’t have to have a point to have a point” Michael. No one is blocking the sale to women except, as far as I can tell, one owner.
Are you all afraid the the Christians are going to gang up and buy all of the pharmacies in the country? ForChristSakes! I think I’ve died and gone to hyperbole hell.
Although a raving liberal, I’m not entirely immune to the private-property rights argument. For example, I think bar owners ought to be able to decide whether their bars are smoking or non-. (And I’m an EX-smoker!)
But, if you’re in the business to sell pharmaceuticals, then, well, you ought to sell pharmaceuticals. All of them. Not just the ones you personally approve of.
Well, should then every pharmacy be require to have a compounding license (where the pharmacist, as part of there pharmacy degree requires, compounds and encapsulates various drugs.) There are only two in Missoula (my wife takes a special compounded formula of natural progesterone) and all the others opt out due to the expense and liability. Such blanket statements are rediculous.
But you people just don’t get it. If I had a pharmacy I would sell everything I could legally sell, but there’s this little issue of liberty. Who are you to force me to sell anything? Who gives you the right to impose your sence of morality on me over mine? This is the same as fundamentalist trying to outlaw birth control as far as I’m concerned and you simply can’t have it both ways.
When the are larger public issues at stake. You libertarians in denial rarely see beyond the individual and his rights. You’re rather limited in outlook.
Yep, we do think that individual liberty is the conerstone of just society. Not simply when it suites you.
Collectivism breeds fascism, Mark. But if you can show me any real evidence that there s a problem with accesss I might look to some alternatives - not yours but I’m sure there is middle ground.
The problem is, you can’t show me such evidence and your looking down your nose at my argument is every bit as “limited in outlook” as anything I’ve said here.
No Dave, corporatism breeds fascism. Check the history books.
OK, Mark, let’s look at Germany in 1933 (unless you make the argument that germany wasn’t fascist, which I suppose could be a matter of semantics.) But I’ll make another assertion that won’t be subject to such semantics:
Collectivism causes tyrany - and I assume you don’t have to check the history books.
Now, what about evidence to restricted access. Are you going to avoid the meat of the matter?
Fascism is defined as marriage between corporation and state, and is a source of tyranny. Collectivism gave us the USSR, certainly authoritarian if not fascist. Is that your point in a nutshell?
Now, let’s talk about selling birth control to the general public, interfering in the doctor-patient relationship, Christians who seem to lean towards a religious state, call it what you will, and whether or not one pharmacy represents a threat, etc etc etc. You sort of got off topic.
Good grief - can you think a little smaller? Have you fallen into the slippery slope fallacy - any government is bad? Isn’t that a little …. out there on the fringes?
Dave-
So what if the two pharmacies in Missoula decided that your wife’s progesterone, which is in most birth contorl, is now harmful to her and they will no longer provide it? I’m assuming your wife is taking this progesterone for a medical reason and she has discussed the risks with her medical provider. How would she feel?
There are only two pharmacies in Great Falls that provide compounded bio-identical hormones (which, again, have the SAME hormones as birth control)- One of which is owned by Stuart Anderson. Is he also going to decide that these drugs are against his moral beliefs?
this whole situation is ri-fricking-diculous and I hope Mr. Anderson realizes the magnitude of his “moral” actions.
I don’t care if he does. We can get the meds through the mail. You all sound as if you live in a cave.