Va. pharmacy follows faith, no birth control sales

[onehandle]

Source: AP

CHANTILLY, Va. – A new drug store at a Virginia strip mall is putting its faith in an unconventional business plan: No candy. No sodas. And no birth control. Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy is among at least seven pharmacies across the nation that are refusing as a matter of faith to sell contraceptives of any kind, even if a person has a prescription.

States across the country have been wrestling with the issue of pharmacists who refuse on religious grounds to dispense birth control or morning-after pills, and some have enacted laws requiring drug stores to fill the prescriptions. In Virginia, though, pharmacists can turn away any prescription for any reason.

"I am grateful to be able to practice," pharmacy manager Robert Semler said, "where my conscience will never be violated and my faith does not have to be checked at the door each morning."
Semler ran a similar pharmacy before opening the new store, which is not far from Dulles International Airport.

The store only sells items that are health-related, including vitamins, skin care products and over-the-counter medications.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081022/ap_on_re_us/no_contraceptives_pharmacy

[Vinca]

1. Hope he's open to adopting all the unwanted babies his policy might create. nt

[Poseidan]

2. cool

Free religion and the free market. Let's exercise more free rights, by creating a betting-pool on how soon the pharmacy will go out of business.

[fasttense]

3. Wow, now there's a business plan for though economic times.

Alienate half your customer base and refuse to provide products and services that your customers want and need. :sarcasm:

I bet they don't last long.

[PennDem]

4. You betcha

they'll fill all the viagra prescriptions that come through the door.

[bad_robbie]

8. It's not clear that they fill prescriptions at all

The article mentions the guy's other store, which only sells over-the-counter medications, but it isn't clear if the new store fills any prescriptions.

Catholics are particularly foolish when it comes to their ban on birth control (not that they're alone -- they just codify everything to make themselves easier to mock). They don't seem to make any exceptions, even ones that could certainly be argued as "pro-life". Like artificial contraception to protect women from pregnancy who would be at high risk of mortality or morbidity if they carried or attempted to deliver a baby. How would killing a woman and a fetus be better than not conceiving at all? Or what about women with health conditions that make it difficult to conceive? If they want to have a baby, their doctors might recommend that they use a particular type of "pill" for several months or years to get their hormone levels more conducive to conception. Where's your pope now, Mr. pharmacy guy?

And furthermore, if Catholics don't want to buy contraceptives, there are many options available. Many existing stores already don't sell them, like furniture stores and pet shops. You could go there on days you want to not buy them. Or stay home. Or visit a regular pharmacy, but not buy proscribed items! No, it's clear that the real intent is to poke their fingers in the eyes of the rest of the "sinful" world and scold us for trying to bring equality to the sexes.

Idiots. Their biblical justification is laughable, too. Even a 12-year-old would recognize that they got the wrong lesson from the Onan story.

So, yes. If they fill any prescriptions, I bet you're right, PennDem, that they sell Viagra.

[Mad_Dem_X]

10. Exactly what I thought

Bet they have no qualms about dispensing boner medicine for men. F'ing despicable.

[pipi_k]

17. Probably....

But then, female moose, sheep, cows, and pigs being boinked by half-crazed men running around with four hour erections wouldn't need birth control anyway

:evilgrin:

[leftchick]

5. I knew I had read about this not long ago

from WaPo in June 2008....

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/15/AR2008061502180.html?hpid=topnews



Robert Semler will run DMC Pharmacy, set to open in Chantilly.


'Pro-Life' Drugstores Market Beliefs
No Contraceptives For Chantilly Shop

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 16, 2008; A01

When DMC Pharmacy opens this summer on Route 50 in Chantilly, the shelves will be stocked with allergy remedies, pain relievers, antiseptic ointments and almost everything else sold in any drugstore. But anyone who wants condoms, birth control pills or the Plan B emergency contraceptive will be turned away.

That's because the drugstore, located in a typical shopping plaza featuring a Ruby Tuesday, a Papa John's and a Kmart, will be a "pro-life pharmacy" -- meaning, among other things, that it will eschew all contraceptives.

The pharmacy is one of a small but growing number of drugstores around the country that have become the latest front in a conflict pitting patients' rights against those of health-care workers who assert a "right of conscience" to refuse to provide care or products that they find objectionable.

"The United States was founded on the idea that people act on their conscience -- that they have a sense of right and wrong and do what they think is right and moral," said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Society, a Chicago public-interest law firm that is defending a pharmacist who was fined and reprimanded for refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills. "Every pharmacist has the right to do the same thing," Brejcha said.

But critics say the stores could create dangerous obstacles for women seeking legal, safe and widely used birth control methods.

"I'm very, very troubled by this," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. "Contraception is essential for women's health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women's health."


Here is their website..... http://www.divinemercycare.org/ :scared:

[Blue_Tires]

12. lol..great sig

[Best_man23]

13. I can see this extending to other medicines

Say, medicines that come on the market as a result of stem cell research.

I'll keep my pharmacy business with those using sound pharmacological and medical practices.

[Marrah_G]

6. So what about women who take birth control pills for other medical reasons?

Under that pharmacies thought process they would rather see my daughter sterilized permanently from Ovarian cysts (she had 2 surgeries and lost a fallopian tube before age 15) then sell her the birth control pills that help stop them from forming.

Dmbasses.

[pipi_k]

19. You're right!!!

there was a time, back in 1975, when I had to take bc pills because of hormonal issues that had me bleeding severely every day for three months following the birth of my last child.

I didn't take them because I wanted to....I took them because I had to, or else have a hysterectomy at the age of 22.


In any case, I hope that pharmacy lasts as long as a piss puddle on a hot sidewalk.

[BlueIris]

20. Or the implication that preventing unintended or unwanted pregnancy isn't a valid medical use of BC.

Holy shit are people ignorant.

[MountainLaurel]

21. They would tell her to pray away her cysts

Or that the problems are her punishment for Eve's sin.

[Marrah_G]

22. Sick isn't it?

Such a disturbing fascination with other peoples reproductive organs.

[KnaveRupe]

7. I am opening a Christian Science drugstore.

We will refuse, as a matter of conscience, to sell any drugs whatsoever.

Really keeps the cost of inventory down.

[silverlib]

9. And I'll keep my faith

in the pharmacy down the street who respects its customers and serves them based on the decisions of good science and good doctors.

[boilinmad]

11. Maybe this is Palin's new....

....."Dum-Dum The Pharmacist".

[tll]

14. oh please (uh-gain)

There are certainly Jewish-owned grocery stores that sell pork products and many Amish manage to accept a ride in an automobile without bursting into flames.

If it's such a problem to lay your bare hands on a pack of bc, find somebody else to physically dispense the product, go practice in some place where you only have to serve the likeminded... or get into a new line of work. Let's review Mr. Christian: "your freedom extends only as far as the next person."

I'm done. I'm done. I'm done. I've said the above a million times yet the subject never fails to set me off.

[sellitman]

15. He should of opened a Church not a Pharmacy.

Stupid bastards!

[Turbineguy]

16. Hmmm.... that might be a good location for

a Sex Shop.

With a pink, flashing neon dildo holding up the "open" sign.

[hamsterjill]

18. No candy. No sodas. And no birth control

should mean "no business".

Heavens this country is moving backwards! President Obama is going to have a big job ahead of him trying to change archaic attitudes like this.

[AnneD]

26. It's called natural selection...

survival of the fittest...OH. But Wait. That's to close to Darwin's theory and they don't believe in that:rofl:

[Gormy Cuss]

23. As long as the state requires him to post a notice on the front door, I have no problem with this.

Well actually I do, but if the state is willing to let a pharmacist be licensed to dispense on the drugs he/she finds morally acceptable then it owes it to the public to make it clear that the store refuses to dispense these drugs and to list them all by name in a prominent display at the front of the store and in front of the pharmacy counter.

[progressivebydesign]

24. another man, unable to become pregnant himself, preaching what WOMEN should do with their bodies.

My favorite thing about these people, is how MANY of them in these churches who are screwing each other behind their spouse's back. I live in an area with lots of chuches full of happy little families who sit there week after week and talk about moral decay, and those evil fornicators. Of course, in the past year, I've had several neighbors (all members of the same born-again church) getting divorced because of... well.. infidelity (and at least one was a husband leaving for another man.), and another couple was because of years of physical abuse.

Don't they LOVE to tell everyone ELSE how to live.. while they themselves, live hypocritical little lives.

Hope this store fails miserably.

[baldguy]

25. If they don't dispense pharmaceuticals prescribed by physicians

then they can't call themselves a pharmacy

[noonwitch]

27. We'll see how well his business does when CVS opens across the street

CVS has candy, condoms, and you can get your birth control prescription filled.

Alas, no drug stores have soda counters anymore, unless there are still a few small, locally-owned places.

[hughee99]

28. Too late, there's another 9 pharmacies within a mile of this place...

and one is a CVS.

http://local.yahoo.com/VA/Chantilly/Health+Beauty/Pharmacies

[customerserviceguy]

29. Yes, he's catering to the fundie market

but isn't that his right? As for the no sodas and no candy rule, I remember when drug stores sold cigarettes, did anybody here object when they decided not to carry them anymore?

I'd never ridicule a vegan restaurant into carrying meat or dairy products, if they have the right to excercise their consciences, why doesn't this guy? The market will bear out whether its a smart decision or not. The free publicity he's getting off this story is probably going to tip things into his favor.

[jmowreader]

30. How much you want to bet he DOES sell cigarettes, though?

I never figured that out--drugstores, which sell things designed to heal, probably make most of their profit selling cigarettes.

If pharmacists are going to open these "pro-life" pharmacies, they really need a symbol on the door so those of us who would prefer to frequent pharmacies where the pharmacists do their jobs can know they can't buy contraceptives in the store. How about a pharmacy symbol superimposed over a Jesus fish?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

31. At least people don't have to drive too far from there to find a reliable pharmacy...

The people I feel for are the ones who live in the middle of nowhere with only one pharmacy; and it's fundyholic.