MSNBC has a story that four pharmacists in Illinois are suing Walgreens because they were fired for refusing to fulfil prescriptions for the "morning-after" pill:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
The four are represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal group founded by Christian evangelist Pat Robertson.
The suit, filed Friday in Madison County, Illinois, charges that the company violated the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act, which allows health care providers to opt out of procedures they object to on moral grounds.
"It couldn't be any clearer," ACLJ attorney Francis Manion said in a statement. "In punishing these pharmacists for asserting a right protected by the Conscience Act, Walgreens broke the law."
Now, i'm not sure if there is any precident on this issue, but I would think that it would be very difficult to equate the taking of a prescription with a "procedure."
I guess that would depend on how Illinois law defines "procedure" but it hardly seem obvious to me.
Also, who is exactly a "health care provider" in this instance? Ok, I can take that a pharmacy would be considered a health care provider since they dispence drug (though i could even see how this could be a stretch) but are individual pharmasists health care providers?
Say you have a group of doctors in the same practice. Is each individual doctor considered to be their own "health care provider" or just the practice in general?
If part of the pharmasist's contract to work at Walgreens is to dispense any prescription that a customer requests, then couldn't contract law trump this "conscience act"?
This just seems to be a desperate attempt to try to force the morning after pill fill refusal question into the courts.