Story originally printed in the La Crosse Tribune or online at www.lacrossetribune.com

Published - Saturday, May 03, 2008

Pharmacist went too far in the name of religious beliefs

A pharmacist who refused to fill a birth-control prescription because of his religious beliefs deserves to be disciplined by Wisconsin pharmacy regulators.

Neil Noesen, a St. Paul man who was involved in confrontations about his refusal to dispense birth control pills in Onalaska, Menomonie and in Minnesota, was disciplined by the Wisconsin Department of Regulation and Licensing’s Pharmacy Examining Board for a 2002 incident in a Kmart pharmacy in Menomonie, Wis.

Noesen refused to dispense birth-control pills to a college student and also refused to refer the prescription to another pharmacy, preventing her from filling it with another pharmacist.

The examining board upheld a finding by an administrative law judge that he violated standards of care by not allowing the woman an alternative way to get her prescription filled.

He was ordered by take an ethics course and pay $21,000 in costs from the legal process. He is appealing that ruling to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, although it is not clear that the court will actually take the case.

Refusing to fill birth control or any other prescription because of religious beliefs is one thing, but not even being willing to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy or pharmacist goes over the line.

Pharmacists have no business putting themselves between a patient and doctor in the way that Noesen did. There may be a need to accommodate someone’s religious beliefs on the job. The prescription could be filled by another pharmacist, or transferred to another pharmacy.

But refusing to facilitate that process goes over the line, and that is why the regulators were right to do what they did.

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