To think if a pharmacist refuses to dispense medication due to religious or personal beliefs

[Soubriquet]

They shouldn’t be a pharmacist.

I mean, the morning after pill is healthcare. Your personal or religious beliefs shouldn’t come into this.

I said probably. This thread currently has fewer than 300 posts and only a handful are from people who have experienced this. The vast majority of women have never needed the MAP and the number of pharmacists who won’t dispense it is miniscule. As I said, you’re vastly exaggerating the scale of the problem.

Interesting response thank you. Rather than spend your time counting the number of posts, why don't you try reading a few? Perhaps start with the poor woman who was raped and had to have a termination due to not being able to get the map? That was a particularly harrowing one.

I am very sceptical that 1000s of women are suffering unnecessarily because of this given most pharmacists will dispense but if you have any facts demonstrating that they are perhaps link?

Is the post on this thread. Did she inform the pharmaceutical regulator as there certainly should be an investigation.

And I am sceptical that this is only a " double digits" issue as well, given the size of the UK and the geographical spread of its population. Do you have a source to suggest otherwise? Obviously, no one can state with any certainty how big the size of the problem is, we can only go by experience and anecdotal evidence.

Yes the post is on here. I can't speak for the poster. But these types of scenarios are not uncommon I suspect.

Why would there be a source showing there isn't a problem? People only usually investigate if they think there is. If you want to go on anecdotal evidence, I have worked with 100s of pharmacists over the years and have have only known one that that wouldn't dispense the MAP. The fact that it appears in a newspaper when a pharmacist refuses to dispense also suggests it is quite rare. In no case has anyone claimed that it meant they could get it on time but if that does happen it should be reported to the regulator.

I can't find the post. Do you have the poster name?

The post is on page 11, somewhere towards the bottom. And it was a doctor in this case, not a pharmacist. Horrendous to read.

I can see it now. The GP surgery didn't prescribe but the pharmacy did and they advised them of this. The poster just couldn't get to the pharmacy on time before it closed and then couldn't go the next day because of work. So not actually anything to do with pharmacists refusing to to give out the MAP.

Not horrendous at all. It was a GP who apparently refused to prescribe the pill for dysmenorrhea. The poster found another doctor who would.

Yes it was the gp who refused to prescribe in this case, but the outcome remained the same. If you read further I'm in her post, there was a bit more to it than simply not being able to make it on time to the pharmacist ( no car, risk of losing her job for time off), not to mention the fact she had just gone through the trauma of rape... I'm not very comfortable with discussing another posters experience tbh, so I'm not sure what else you're trying to derive from this? Whether it be a gp or pharmacist, it highlights there is a fundamental problem when a woman is forced into this situation .

Not horrendous at all?! What on earth

I suspect we’re talking about different posts.

The main problem in that situation was that the poster couldn't get time off work. Even if the GP had been willing to prescribe she probably would have had to wait until the next day and she said she couldn't get time off work then. Regardless it has nothing to do with pharmacists.

We'll have to agree to disagree then. As I see it, The main problem was the gp who refused to prescribe in the first place. If he had done his/her job without bias, all of the follow on was preventable.

The follow on wasn't preventable (assuming it wasn't a dispensing practice) as even if the GP had prescribed the poster couldn't make it to a chemist to get it dispensed. The practice should make it clear on their website that they might not prescribe the MAP but that again had nothing to do with pharmacists.

Again, we'll have to agree to disagree. Regardless of whether it was a dispensing practice, the time taken up by navigating the gps refusal impacted on the posters ability to get the map from an alternative source. I'm not sure why you keep reiterating the point that it's nothing to do with pharmacists. Contrary to the thread title, I still think it's valid to include gps in the discussion as both groups have prescribing/ dispensing roles. In my personal case, which I talked about some way back in the thread, it WAS a pharmacist who refused my request.

I don't think it is valid because they are different professions and the way they are accessed is different. For example, people can usually only access one GP whereas they can access multiple pharmacies including online.
I also don't think it possible to force people to be involved with what they consider to be abortion and actually trying to force health care professionals could backfire. Abortion isn't available on demand in the UK.

The MAP is considered to be abortion?! Do pharmacists not learn about the reproductive cycle at uni? Or if not, a quick Google search will tell you, the map has absolutely nothing to do with abortion!

I think it is because it can prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. You would have to ask someone who refuses to prescribe or dispense it the exact reason why though.

Pro-life organisations still push the line that the MAP may prevent a fertilised egg from being implanted = early abortion in their eyes.

I don't think there are any that come straight out and say that it does, but they use "may" a lot.

It's a shame that some professionals who don't consider abortion to be compatible with their religious beliefs and thus won't prescribe/dispense the MAP aren't more curious about how the MAP works. It could set their minds at rest and improve services for women.

Sadly, some of them will inadvertently be part of the chain of events that ends up in a needless abortion if the woman can't get the MAP in time and conceives.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Worryingly, it's made the refusal even harder to accept - these are medical professionals who should know more than most about the biology of a woman's body, and reproduction!

I think they know about the biology. Regardless of whether it is called abortion, they presumably believe that life begins when the egg is fertilised.

But the MAP works by preventing the fertilisation of the egg, or delaying the release of an egg. There is no way of knowing if the sperm has actually fertilized the egg; hence calling it an abortion pill is way off the mark. If pharmacists actually don't know this then that's quite concerning.