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idaho legislature

‘Pharmacist Conscience’ Bill Back in Idaho Legislature

By Sharon Fisher, 1-29-10

It’s ba-aaack.

Last year’s attempt at implementing a “pharmacist conscience” bill, which would enable pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions based on their personal ethics, died in the Senate’s Health and Welfare committee.

This year’s, which is limited to “abortion and contraceptives” but is extended to all health care professionals, is starting out in the Senate, but in State Affairs, and solves few of the problems with last year’s bill.

Criticisms of last year’s bill, which would have allowed pharmacists to refuse to dispense any medication based on ethical or moral reasons, included potential problems with a lack of medication, no requirement for a referral, no requirement for a 24-hour prescription to give the person a chance to find another pharmacist, and potential problems for employers.

In addition, last year it was pointed out that pharmacists can already refuse to dispense based on conscience, according to the American Pharmacists Association; however, in that code of ethics, the pharmacist is also required to refer the patient to another pharmacist—something that was missing both in last year’s bill and this one.

Without such a referral, someone in a rural area with only one pharmacy or health care provider, or who is under pressure to take medication within a specified time—such as the “morning after” Plan B contraception, which must be taken within a couple of days of unprotected intercourse—could find themselves out of luck.

While this year’s bill is nominally limited to medications such as Plan B, as well as chemical abortifacients such as RU-486, it could be applied to many kinds of routine birth control—including many birth control pills—because of the way it is phrased: “dispensation of an abortifacient drug or drugs that may act as abortifacients.” That is because some birth control medications and devices act by preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo in the uterine wall—which could be defined as an ‘abortifacient.’

“While the language has been tweaked a bit, the goal is clearly the same...to interrupt or prevent access to contraception and emergency contraception,” said Stacy Freeburn Falkner, public affairs field organizer for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest, in Boise, which is advocating against the bill.  “One needs look no further than the individual responsible for both versions of the bill, David Ripley, an anti-choice extremist and founder of Idaho Chooses Life.”

The bill also includes no protection for employers, Falkner said. Last year’s bill had similar issues, Representative Grant Burgoyne (D-Boise), an employment attorney, had said then, such as that pharmacists weren’t required to notify their employers of their decision, that they could make the decision on the spur of the moment, and that it would require employers to inquire about employees’ religious and ethical beliefs. This year’s bill requires written notice to the employer, but no advance notice.

Falkner believed that another factor in this year’s bill is to create “dog-whistle” legislation, in an election year. “The pressure is on in Idaho for conservatives to “out-conserve” one another,” she said. She also believes that to be the reason why the bill is in State Affairs this year, which has a reputation for being more conservative than Health & Welfare—a committee which, incidentally, is headed by a woman in each legislative body.

Interestingly, Assistant Minority Leader James Ruchti (D-Pocatello) who voted against the bill last year, is listed as a co-sponsor this year for the bill, which was brought forth by Senator Chuck Winder (R-Boise). Falkner pointed out, however, that no female legislators had signed on as co-sponsors.

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