Virginia Pharmacy Proudly Refuses To Stock Birth Control

The common refrain at stores of even moderate decorum is no shirt, no shoes, no service. Well, a Virginia pharmacy has a far more insidious mantra: "No candy. No sodas. And no birth control." According to the AP the Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy in Chantilly, Virginia is the seventh pharmacy in the United States to be certified as birth control free by the group Pharmacists for Life International, though they estimate "perhaps hundreds of other pharmacies have similar policies."

So what's the big deal, you may think, this pharmacy is in the D.C. area, competing against thousands of pharmacies that do dispense birth control. But, as former Planned Parenthood lawyer Roberta Riley points out, "in parts of Montana, women must drive 80 miles to find a pharmacy willing to sell contraception," because so many pharmacists are practicing their "consciences."

What's more, as Tarina Keene, executive director of the Virginia chapter of NARAL notes, "If this emboldens other pharmacies in other parts of the state, it could really affect low-income and rural women in terms of access." But isn't denying women their prescriptions illegal? Well, it depends on where you live.

According to the AP, a Wisconsin state appeals court upheld sanctions against a pharmacist who wouldn't give a woman her birth control and wouldn't transfer the woman's prescriptions elsewhere (yay Wisconsin!). But according to Riley, who writes forWomen's E-news, a "ruling, issued in late 2007 by a lower court and now on appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, allows people who run pharmacies to refuse to dispense birth control based on their belief it kills the unborn." The Ninth Circuit Court covers California and the Pacific Northwest, as well as Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Arizona, but it's headquartered in San Francisco, so fingers crossed that the pinko liberals will not allow pharmacists to continue refusing women their prescriptions.

What's most troubling about the Divine Mercy Care Pharmacy is that according to NARAL Virginia, the Birth Control Protection Act has failed to pass in the state for six years running, so refusing women their valid prescriptions is currently legal. To download the NARAL petition click here, or if you happen to live near Chantilly, drive by and give the Divine Mercy Care folks your divine middle finger.

Va. Pharmacy Follows Faith, No Birth Control Sales [AP via Yahoo News]
McCain Is Party to Secret War on Contraception [Women's E-News]

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