Sign Petition to Pataki - OTC Morning After Pill

[HockeyMom]

http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/contactpatakiUPPA/step1.tcl

[BamaLefty]

1. Good.

Pataki is pathetic.

Here is a link to what he's doing btw: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8788641/

[cal04]

2. Thank You HockeyMom

I will email it to the people I know

[SeanQuinn]

3. Done. nt

[MercutioATC]

4. Isn't the "morning-after pill" hormone-based?

If so, isn't it kinda like birth control pills?

Don't you need a prescription for birth control pills?

It seems like a valid reason not to make them OTC.

[Baltimore]

5. Illinois

In Illinois we are not yet so progressive that we have OTC morning-after pills, but Governor Blagojevich has made it against the law to refuse to fill a prescription for Plan B. He said, "I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a movement in this country to deny women the right to birth control. These prescriptions will be filled promptly, no excuses, no lectures."

[MercutioATC]

7. THAT, I agree with. A valid prescription should always be filled

immediately unless the pharmacist has a reason to believe that there is a risk to the health of the patient (at which point, they should contact the doctor and clear the matter up).

[iverglas]

9. I just love stuff like that!

He said, "I have a sneaking suspicion that there is a movement in this country to deny women the right to birth control. These prescriptions will be filled promptly, no excuses, no lectures."

Up here in Canada, even the right wing leadership has to express their / their party's commitment to womens' reproductive rights in election campaigns these days -- and that's a sight to see too, I can tell you. Paul Martin, Liberal leader, making impassioned statements about how his (neo-liberal, corporatist) party will NEVER tolerate any violation of women's rights, and the smarmy Stephen Harper, so-called Conservative leader, saying "me too" ... while his rabble go around saying quite different, of course.

But to see someone come so right out and tell it like it so is -- south of the border even -- that's just dandy. That guy deserves fan mail, not just for what he did, but for what he said.

Refusal by a pharmacist of a lawful, medically indicated service or product for any reason other than the client/patient's best interests, in a matter that it is within the pharmacist's professional competence to determine, is a violation of professional ethics, and those professional ethics are imposed and enforced by statute. There's just nothing more needs to be said.

Well, unless you feel like holding their real agenda up to the light. ;)

[MockSwede]

10. Actually, there is more to be said.

IF pharmacist does not want to participate in process due to personal moral or ethical believe, he/she may refuse to do so and then has the professional responsibility to forward patient to participating pharmacist/pharmacy. Just like nurses and doctors cannot be forced to prescribe/participate/perform abortions/euthanasia/contraception.

[iverglas]

12. gee, would that be your opinion?

IF pharmacist does not want to participate in process due to personal moral or ethical believe, he/she may refuse to do so and then has the professional responsibility to forward patient to participating pharmacist/pharmacy.

That would be the same opinion as you expressed here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=217&topic_id=2587&mesg_id=2671
and I replied to that same day. Guess it was just easier to reply to my post in this thread, which was kinda a toss-off prompted by my appreciation of the particular thing said by a politician, than to address the actual points I made and questions I raised about your opinion there.

Wanna give it a shot some day?

[iverglas]

13. and looking a little farther back

You've been touting this line for a while.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=106x10327

ANY licensed medical professional, including pharmacists, have the legal right, always to decline to fill a prescription in their good judgment, even if the prescriber 'wants' them to have it. There must be good cause, however.

But in this case, a pharmacist also has the right to refuse to participate in provision of this medication because of their personal moral beliefs.

Again, this seems to be your opinion. Of course, it's an opinion shared by a few others, some of whom have managed to bully professional governing bodies into accepting it.

None of this makes the opinion consistent with the overriding rules of professional conduct -- and the laws that impose standards of professional conduct.

If the pharmacist refuses to fill such a medication on personal moral grounds, you'll find that (s)he will refer the patient to another pharmacist or facility so that the patient can obtain the medication.

Actually, I think YOU'll find that this is not universally true by a long shot.

Karen Brauer, whom one might credit with starting this whole hoo-hah in the United States, very definitely did NOT do any such thing. The requirement that pharmacists do this appears to have been part of the bargain struck when professional bodies were bullied into permitting some of their members to violate their codes of conduct by refusing to fill prescriptions when there was no valid reason that fell within their professional purview for doing so.

You will find nurses that work for obstetrician and gynecologists that will assist with all other procedures in the office or hospital but will not participate in any abortion procedures.

And that would be kind of up to their employers, who are entirely at liberty to assign their employees to whatever tasks they choose to assign them to -- as long as doing so does not result in denying needed professional services to patients to whom the employers have held themselves out as service providers.

You will find physicians and nurses and pharmacists that will not participate in end-of-life procedures (aka euthanasia); ...

Yeah ... and I wonder whether that might actually be because "end-of-life procedures (aka euthanasia)" are actually ILLEGAL procedures, and it is in fact contrary to the codes of conduct of the professionals who do participate in them to do so. Apple:orange.

[MockSwede]

11. Hormones

Yep, it's hormones. Just like OC's. Higher dose and different use, that's all. Most time physicians prescribe two Ovral every 12 hours for 2 doses to do the same thing. Plan B isn't available generally, low usage, but Ovral is readily available in most pharmacies.

[cal04]

6. article in Newsday, I didn't know there was a repub group that supports

abortion rights. This is new to me.

Supporters of the legislation immediately claimed the governor's veto plan was the product of his flirtation with a run for the 2008 GOP presidential nod and his desire to appeal to conservatives nationally who dominate the nominating process.

"It's unfortunate that as he looks to run for president he would toss away his principled legacy for sheer political expediency," said Kelli Conlin, executive director of the National Abortion Rights Action League's Pro-Choice New York affiliate. "It's obviously a flip-flop on his part." "He was the first governor in the nation to make RU-486 abortions covered under Medicaid," Conlin said. "He made no cutoff for age whatsoever."

A Republican group that supports abortion rights, which has about 10,000 members in New York and close ties to Pataki, called on the governor to change his mind. "We urge Governor Pataki, a member of our organization's national advisory committee, to reconsider his veto and to make his decision based upon science, not political games and aspirations," said Jen Wylegala, executive director of the New York chapter of the Republican Majority for Choice. State Sen. Nicholas Spano, a Westchester County Republican who sponsored the measure in his chamber, told a White Plains news conference that he found Quinn's description of the legislation as "politically expedient" to be "wrong, unfortunate and frankly offensive."

"I was surprised by the governor's reason for a veto, given that under existing law, minors already have access to a far worse alternative than taking a pill to prevent an unwanted pregnancy," added state Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, another Republican supporter of the bill, in a prepared statement.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/newyork/politics/ny-bc-ny--pataki-morningaft0801aug01,0,6193817.story?coll=nyc-homepage-breaking2

[HockeyMom]

8. Sponsored by a Republican, passed by a Republican Controlled

State Legislature. Pataki is only doing this to get support from the Right to Lifers in his Presidential bid.

From my other post:

The NY State Senator Nichols Spano, who sponsored the OTC Morning After Pill Legislation, is a Catholic. The last quote says it all. This is what he said:

- snip -


Spano, who is Roman Catholic, called the bill "one of the most difficult bills we've seen in the Senate in decades."

"We have to remember the alternative to denying a young person with the opportunity of buying this pill is an abortion, and young people 12, 13, 14 years old can walk in and get an abortion in New York state," Spano said an interview.

"It creates many conflicts with my own religious teachings and background," Spano said. "But I was elected a senator, not a cardinal.

-snip -