In theory, the concept is simple: a woman walks into a pharmacy with a birth-control prescription from her doctor and should walk out with the medication – without intimidation, without delay, without a run-around.  But in reality, there is a growing movement of pharmacists refusing to fill women’s legally prescribed birth-control prescriptions.  Some pharmacists even go so far as to lecture women, humiliate them in public, or refuse to hand back the prescription after they refuse to fill it. 

We must guarantee women’s access to their legally prescribed medications because telling women to simply “go elsewhere” is not just an inconvenience, it is impossible. For the nearly 98 percent of women who will use some form of birth control during their reproductive lives, birth control is a basic form of health care. Pharmacies have an ethical obligation to honor valid, legal prescriptions and avoid jeopardizing their patients' health.

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