Panel urged to support access to birth control

By Chet Brokaw, The Associated Press | Friday, January 25, 2008

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PIERRE -- Pharmacists should be required to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, a state legislative committee was told Friday.

Sarah Patrick, an epidemiologist and professor at the University of South Dakota medical school, said when a woman's doctor prescribes birth control pills or other medication, she should be allowed to get the prescription filled.

"My relationship is with my health care provider. My health care provider knows my health history. They know my record. They've discussed this with me," Patrick said. "My pharmacist is somebody I see for two minutes when I go in to fill the prescription my physician wrote for me."

Patrick, testifying as a private citizen, said she supports SB164, which seeks to make sure pharmacies must provide people with legal birth control and contraceptives.

A state law now allows pharmacists to refuse to dispense medication if they believe it would cause an abortion or be used in suicide. The bill says pharmacists cannot use that abortion law to refuse to dispense birth control.

A hearing had been scheduled on the bill Friday in the Senate Health Committee. But the panel's chairman, Sen. Tom Hansen, R-Huron, announced at the start of the meeting he was delaying the hearing on the bill until Monday at the request of an opponent.

Patrick was allowed to testify because she had traveled to Pierre for Friday's meeting and could not return on Monday.

She said nearly half of all U.S. pregnancies are not intended by both parents. Unintended pregnancies can result in health problems for a woman and a child, she said.

Patrick said she belongs to the American Public Health Association, which has adopted a resolution that says women should be allowed to fill prescriptions without interference by pharmacists who object to contraception.

"Clearly, if we want to reduce unintended pregnancies to improve the health of South Dakotans, we will need to support access to FDA-approved birth control methods to all who choose to use them," Patrick said.

The bill's main sponsor, Sen. Ed Olson, R-Mitchell, said the bill would make it clear that the law allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense medication they believe could cause an abortion cannot be used to deny access to birth control.

"It singles out birth control from the abortion statutes, basically saying birth control is not abortion," Olson said.

A pharmacist should not be allowed to refuse to fill a birth control prescription, he said.

"It just says you can't make it difficult for families to plan when they have a kid, how they spread them out," Olson said.