BMJ  2005;331:11 (2 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7507.11-b

News

American Medical Association fights pharmacists who won't dispense contraceptives

Janice Hopkins Tanne

New York

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A battle is looming in the United States between doctors and the pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, birth control pills, and other drugs on grounds of conscience. "The [American Medical Association] has called for a meeting with pharmacists and others to get a national consensus about how this problem is to be handled," Peter Carmel, a paediatric neurosurgeon at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and a trustee of the association, told the BMJ.

"This is a problem of some urgency. We are all upset when our patients can't get a legal prescription filled," he said. In some states, he said, a substantial minority of pharmacists—perhaps even as many as half—are refusing to fill emergency contraception prescriptions. The "conscience clause" arose to protect health workers who did not want to be involved in abortion when the Roe v Wade decision made abortion . . . [Full text of this article]

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Rapid Responses:

Read all Rapid Responses

Emergency contraceptives in the US
Ellen C G Grant
bmj.com, 2 Jul 2005 [Full text]
refusal to dispense painkillers
Alice L Wood
bmj.com, 1 Jul 2005 [Full text]
Conscience
Thaddeus C Whiting
bmj.com, 4 Jul 2005 [Full text]
conscience?
James G Howe
bmj.com, 5 Jul 2005 [Full text]
Re: conscience?
Peter KK Au-Yeung
bmj.com, 6 Jul 2005 [Full text]
Ethical objections.
Jeremy Cox
bmj.com, 6 Jul 2005 [Full text]
Re: Conscience
Raymond Seidler
bmj.com, 7 Jul 2005 [Full text]
Re: Re: Conscience
Jean-Francois Leblanc
bmj.com, 12 Jul 2005 [Full text]
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