Last fall, a prescription for Methergine, a drug that stops uterine bleeding, was called in to an Idaho Walgreens. The pharmacist, suspicious that the woman's uncontrolled bleeding may have been the result of an abortion, refused to fill the prescription. The pharmacist refused to even refer the woman to a pharmacy who would fill her prescription, leaving her alone, bleeding, and lost.

Incredibly, this behavior is legal because of Idaho's new conscience clause law that allows health care professionals to opt out of providing certain types of reproductive health care, including emergency contraceptives and abortion care.

This law needs to be repealed because it allows pharmacists and health care professionals to refuse to dispense contraceptives and thus increases chances of unintended pregnancy, Idahoans themselves dislike the law (62% versus the 35% who favor it), and it offers no protections for patients who are refused medication. Furthermore, in this example, where the drug was neither an abortifacient or a contraceptive, the law is open to abuses by pharmacists who can actually put women's lives in danger.

When the law was first signed last year, the governor promised to reconsider the law if it were being abused. Ask him to follow through with that promise and repeal Idaho Senate Bill 1353.

Photo credit: eMagineArt.com