And Again…
March 31, 2004
|
Posted by Aubrey Turner
Sometimes it’s possible to forget that Texas is the “buckle of the Bible Belt” until you get slapped upside the head with another reminder.
A CVS pharmacist refused to fill a woman’s birth-control-pill prescription this week, the second time this year that a Metroplex-area druggist has withheld a prescribed contraceptive because of personal beliefs.
Julee Lacey, 32, a Keller district first-grade teacher with two young children, said she was astounded when the pharmacist came to the drive-in window of the CVS on Precinct Line Road on Sunday night and refused to fill what Lacey believed was a routine prescription that she had had filled many times.
“She told me she did not personally believe in birth control and said that’s why she wasn’t going to fill the prescription,” Lacey said. “She told me there was a Walgreens down the street I could go to that could help me. I told her I didn’t have the time to go there and set up a new account, and she said she couldn’t help me.”
It turns out that CVS has a policy in place to deal with this, but the pharmacist in question ignored that policy (she was supposed to hand the prescription off to another pharmacist on duty).
It irks me when I see people going out of their way to impose their personal beliefs on others. Of course, a private company may choose to sell or not sell any particular item. However, in this case it wasn’t the company, but the personal beliefs of one of its employees. If this pharmacist feels so strongly about the issue, then maybe she should go start her own pharmacy instead.
Ms. Lacey also brought up an interesting point concerning the possible detriment that this pharmacist’s actions could have brought about.
“She had no idea why I was getting birth control. There are so many reasons people get it that aren’t even for birth control—cysts on ovaries and even endometriosis. She didn’t know anything about my history.”
It looks like CVS is trying to make it right with the customer by delivering the prescription to Ms. Lacey’s house free of charge. They also apologized. However, this is still going to give them something of a publicity black eye.
Categories: Miscellaneous
I have to disagree on this one.
I am thrilled that someone still has the gumption to stand up for their rights.
Ass Greg Knapp has said (KLIF.COM) it is fully possible this Pharmacist researched her options until she found one that allowed her to deny filling scripts she did not agree with.
Birth Control would be a privledge not a right, and if there was a CVS near me I might start shoping there.
As a customer, you do not have a right over the beliefs of a retailer for any reason imho.
Cinomed—you’re missing the point. CVS wanted to do business with her—the pharmacist violated his/her agreement with CVS by not following company policy.
If that pharmacist doesn’t like the kind of business that CVS does, the answer is simple—quit.
Cinomed—Phelps beat me to what I was going to say. In fact, I said it in the original post. CVS has a corporate policy to fill prescriptions for customers, and if a pharmicist doesn’t agree then they have a policy to handle that. If this particular pharmacist doesn’t want to handle this type of thing, then she shouldn’t be working for a company that does (or at least she should have followed their policy).
Of course if she’d followed the policy she wouldn’t be able to push her beliefs on others.
What is next? Is there a defense for “I don’t believe in the use of artificial drugs and will only fill prescriptions that were not created in a lab”? CVS should be okay to shop at shortly when they fire that employee. And no, it’s not a violation of the pharmicist’s civil rights to fire her for violating a company work policy she agreed to in order to work there.
I still don’t think not doing something that is a small percentage of your job due to personal beliefs is a bad thing.
The libertarian in me says “You go girl!”, The pharmasist has every right not to do something she does not believe in, while still doing 90%+ of what she does like which I assume is helping people get well with medicine.
It is a sticky issue I am sure, but I side with CVS and the Pharmacist.
And I would also assume that this was the only one on duty at the moment, otherwise by policy she would have handed off the script.
And Outlaw3, she was following procedure as per CVS.
It looked like she may have been OK in refusing, but she didn’t call the other pharmacy to have it filled:
DeAngelis said a CVS pharmacist who won’t fill a prescription is required by company policy to refer the prescription to another pharmacist on duty or contact another pharmacy and find someone willing to fill it.
Lacey said the pharmacist did neither.
Therefore, she violated CVS policy.
What bugs me here is that a customer of a chain like CVS expects uniformity when dealing with them. CVS’s corporate policy is to fill these kinds of prescriptions. This means that while the company may take resonable efforts to accomodate someone’s personal objections, when all is said and done the prescription must be filled.
If I was in charge of hiring at CVS, I might start trying to find ways to avoid hiring people like this if it caused too much trouble for the company. If this pharmacist can’t fulfill the basic requirements of her job, she shouldn’t be working there.
It’s no different than me trying to get a job with Handgun Control Inc and then telling them that I can’t help them pass out anti-gun literature. I shouldn’t be working for them if I can’t do the job. And I wouldn’t expect them to hire me.
I still disagree with you on this.
Fundamentally, you should not be forced to do something that you do not believe is right at your job.
Yes CVS could lose a customer, yes CVS could fire her for not doing what she was supposed to (Calling another store and stuff)
Yes a CVS manager could try to not hire people that have strong feelings, though that may be religous discrimination.
But Fundamentally, a person, should not have to do something they disagree with, as I said before being a pharmasist that does not believe in a small percentage of perscription drugs is ok.
Comparing it to getting a job that entirly contradict your beliefs:
Gun Nut working for VPC
Pacifist in the Armed Services
Pro Lifer at Abortion Clinic
Those are extreme and I believe different that this case.
I would settle with this,
As and American Citizen, the pharmasist is allowed to NOT perform her job when it condradicts her beliefs.
There my very well be repurcusions, but I beleive the pharmasist was right.
Now leave it to the courts to bend her and CVS over with no KY.
I think we have a fundamental disagreement in our assumptions. Mine is that a person should not take a job if he/she cannot perform the tasks required. Specifically, there is no right to have a job and no right to NOT perform a job and still retain that job.
If someone has a right to refuse tasks that are a fundamental part of the job, that would violate the basic rights of the employer to contract for labor (and might could be viewed as theft; i.e. payment for services NOT rendered). If something is so fundamentally wrong that you can’t do it, then you shouldn’t be in a job where you are required to do so. But nothing here could be considered forcing someone to do something they think is wrong. If they think the action is wrong, then they shouldn’t take the job.