Whose rights are right?

Senate Bill 3, which recently passed through the Indiana State Senate and is now on to a vote in the House, adds a refusal statute to the Indiana Health Code that permits pharmacists to refuse dispensing drugs they believe cause abortion or euthanasia. \nThe bill reads as follows: \n“No pharmacist may be required to dispense a drug or medical device if the pharmacist believes that the drug or medical device would be used to:\n(1) cause an abortion.”\nNote the wording of the bill includes the word “believe.” This bill attempts to protect religious freedom of expression; what it ends up doing, however, is restricting access to birth control. \nSome religious people believe emergency contraception causes abortion; some even believe regular birth control pills cause abortion. As a result, this refusal clause does not require pharmicists to fill prescriptions for birth control or dispense emergency contraception. \nIn its essence, then, this bill revolves around that loathsome and impossible question, “When does life begin?”\nCrucially, the bill contains no requirement for the refusing pharmacist to give the prescription back to the customer after she is refused, nor does it stipulate that the prescription (or request, in the case of over-the-counter emergency contraceptives) be transferred to another pharmacist or pharmacy to fill. \nAt its worst, a refusal statute means a woman may lose access to birth control altogether. In rural places, a woman might only be able to get to one or two pharmacies. If she is refused her request or prescription, she might become pregnant and seek an abortion. \nAt its best, a refusal statute will cause undue burden on a woman seeking birth control or EC. She might lose her prescription to a zealous pharmacist who believes passing it on to be filled elsewhere still makes him/her complicit with providing abortion services. Or the customer might just be inconvenienced by having to travel to look for a pharmacist to fill her prescription.\nWorkers should have religious freedom of expression on the job, which might include wearing/refusing to wear certain types of clothing, or taking time off for a religious holiday. But workers should also be obligated to perform the “essential duties” of their jobs. Pharmacists’ essential duty is to dispense drugs and devices; refusing to do so is refusing the essential duty of their job. \nThe right of women to access reproductive health care is protected by the right to privacy as interpreted in the court cases Griswold v. Connecticut, which made contraception legal for married couples, Eisenstadt v. Baird, which extended contraception rights to unmarried individuals, and Roe v. Wade, which prevented laws banning abortion. \nIn order to protect women’s rights, it would be best not to have any refusal statutes at all. \nBut given the anti-choice political climate, the Indiana House should amend the bill to include a requirement that the pharmacist return the prescription to the customer and/or require the pharmacist to send it on to be filled elsewhere.