Judge upholds druggists’ right to refuse Plan B
TACOMA – Pharmacists and drug store owners in Washington can still refuse to sell the “morning-after pill” if they have religious objections to the emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Friday.
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton’s decision, a defeat for Gov. Chris Gregoire, is the latest twist in long-running legal and political battles over the pill, which is sold as Plan B.
The pill is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills and can dramatically lower the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.
It prevents ovulation or fertilization of an egg; it also may prevent the egg from implanting into the uterus, though some research suggests that’s unlikely.
Critics consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.
Rules adopted by the state last year said a patient’s right to purchase Plan B trumped any pharmacist’s or drug store owner’s objections to the pill’s interference with potential pregnancy.
Two druggists and an Olympia pharmacy owner sued over the rules last summer, saying their constitutional religious rights were being violated.
They asked for an exemption to the rule while the lawsuit was in motion. But Leighton went further, suspending the rules statewide because of the potential for “irreparable injury” to constitutional rights.
On Friday, Leighton refused the state’s request to reinstate the Plan B sales rules for everyone but the plaintiffs.
In back-and-forth questioning with lawyers during Friday’s hearing, Leighton said he sensed that wrangling over the issue is driven by bitterness between the two sides, and not by desire for good health care policy.
“I do get the impression that this is a solvable problem, and it’s not an issue that anyone wants to have solved,” Leighton said.
Leighton also denied a state request to hold up the underlying lawsuit while the injunction is appealed, although the judge predicted the case could wind its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Although state lawyers suggested otherwise on Friday, Plan B was squarely at the center of the state’s decision to implement the pharmacy rules.
Gregoire, a Democrat, applied public pressure to the Pharmacy Board, warning that she would replace board members who didn’t follow her wishes on the issue. She later worked out the compromise rule that was approved by the Pharmacy Board.
Individual pharmacists were given a limited way around selling Plan B: passing the prescription to another druggist in the same store, provided the patient’s order was filled without delay. But that left no option for a lone pharmacist, or for the owner of a pharmacy who also has religious objections to a particular drug.