Rachel Peterson went to a pharmacy in Michigan to fill a prescription. Peterson was pregnant with twins, but had a miscarriage for one of the twins. The other fetus would sadly share the same fate. To avoid prolonging the miscarriage, Peterson was going to take medicine to make the process get over with quicker and she could start to recover from everything.

However, a pharmacist at Meijer had other ideas. The pharmacist refused to fill the prescription. According to Peterson:

“He said that he was a good Catholic male and that he couldn’t in good conscience give me this medication because it’s used for abortions, and he could not prescribe that. When I divulged to him that the fetus was no longer viable, and that … I needed to progress the situation further, he said, ‘Well, that’s your word and I don’t believe you,’ and he refused to fill it.”

Wow. And not only did this guy refuse to fill the prescription himself, he didn’t pass on the order to another pharmacist!

Meijer spokeswoman Christina Fecher avoided going into details about what will happen with the pharmacist, but did say:

“We recognize the right of a pharmacist to abstain from filling a prescription based on his or her religious beliefs, but the pharmacist is required to have another Meijer pharmacist fill the prescription or, if no other pharmacist is available at that time, to transfer the script to another pharmacy convenient to the customer. This is consistent with guidelines spelled out in the American Pharmacists Association policy manual.”

Seems like a very reasonable policy and it’s amazing this pharmacist refused to do any of that. The ACLU is urging disciplinary action against this man as prescribing the same drug for a man with stomach ulcers wouldn’t have been an issue.

I hope they win the case. No one forced this guy to be a pharmacist and he had a very clear out if he really could not fill this prescription.

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