Whaddya Know, We CAN Make Our Own Decisions!

According to an article I saw on Feministing, South Dakota's state Senate ruled that pharmacists cannot refuse to dispense birth control. The state has a law allowing pharmacists to refuse to dispense pills they believe will be used for suicide or an abortion, but the decision ruled that this does not cover birth control. Emergency contraception wasn't mentioned.

My only issue here is allowing them to refuse medication that could cause an abortion. I am assuming this means that mifepristone (RU-486, "the abortion pill," or whatever you prefer to call it) is not dispensed through regular pharmacies. I would assume you get the pill on-site at the clinic or doctor's office if you need an abortion (I'm not sure of the procedure; I've never had one and if I did it probably wouldn't be in South Dakota). This makes me think that "miscarriage" would be a better term in the law than "abortion." I mean, if a woman needs to fill a prescription that will cause an abortion she is choosing to have, the pharmacist should not have the right to deny her. But I cam imagine that if a woman was pregnant and planning to carry to term, she would be appreciative of the warning that a prescription she was filling could cause miscarriage.

Unless, of course, they left the term "abortion" on purpose. That way the people who are so misguided/misinformed/brainwashed that they STILL think emergency contraception is an abortion (it isn't) could impose their beliefs/misguided notions on women.