Target took a stand on emergency contraception. In a media statement dated November 10th, 2005 Target said: “In the rare event that a pharmacist’s beliefs conflict with filling a guest’s prescription for the emergency contraceptive Plan B, our policy requires our pharmacists to take responsibility for ensuring that the guest’s prescription is filled in a timely and respectful manner, either by another Target pharmacist or a different pharmacy. The emergency contraceptive Plan B is the only medication for which this policy applies.”
While that official policy may seem reasonable it puts a tremendous amount of burden on a customer holding a valid prescription. Further, you need to understand that this has a huge impact in small rural towns where the choice is often Wal Mart (which won’t fill the prescription at all) and Target (who might refer a customer to another location, which may be very far away). In reality that this leaves many rural people without much of a choice.
There is the convenience and the practicality charge and then there is the potential abuse, in the form of allegations that they actually just flat out have refused to fill prescriptions. The far right is now using this issue to further erode reproductive freedom as several states led by conservatives governors and legislatures have back legislation to allow pharamacists to refuse filling such prescriptions. Once again, this will leave the poor and the rural without true reproductive freedom.
This is just another example of the Target corporation not supporting the values of the Davis community.
—Doug Paul Davis reporting
Doug.. excellent blog. I disagree with your premise that “this may seem reasonable”. Pharamcists are licenced by the State to perform a service to the community, in this case,dispensing legal, MD-approved medicines. Target is encouraging them to ignore their professional responsibilies in favor of their personal beliefs. The campaign on measure K has exposed Target policies , i.e. a clone of Wal-Mart, that have up until now been able to escape Wal-Mart’s notoriety.
Doug.. excellent blog. I disagree with your premise that “this may seem reasonable”. Pharamcists are licenced by the State to perform a service to the community, in this case,dispensing legal, MD-approved medicines. Target is encouraging them to ignore their professional responsibilies in favor of their personal beliefs. The campaign on measure K has exposed Target policies , i.e. a clone of Wal-Mart, that have up until now been able to escape Wal-Mart’s notoriety.
Doug.. excellent blog. I disagree with your premise that “this may seem reasonable”. Pharamcists are licenced by the State to perform a service to the community, in this case,dispensing legal, MD-approved medicines. Target is encouraging them to ignore their professional responsibilies in favor of their personal beliefs. The campaign on measure K has exposed Target policies , i.e. a clone of Wal-Mart, that have up until now been able to escape Wal-Mart’s notoriety.
Doug.. excellent blog. I disagree with your premise that “this may seem reasonable”. Pharamcists are licenced by the State to perform a service to the community, in this case,dispensing legal, MD-approved medicines. Target is encouraging them to ignore their professional responsibilies in favor of their personal beliefs. The campaign on measure K has exposed Target policies , i.e. a clone of Wal-Mart, that have up until now been able to escape Wal-Mart’s notoriety.
Davisite: Obviously I was playing that to those who may have sympathy for that position and then arguing against that point. I agree with you that it is not reasonable, hence the blog. And that there are very dangerous implications of allowing Pharmacists to subjectively disregard their professional obligations for personal opinion.
As you said–Target is basically a clone of Wal-Mart, a little smaller in terms of scope and a little more careful in terms of disguise. I’ve been trying to chip away at that perception week.
Anyway, I think we are in agreement, I just nuanced it in an attempt to dispell those who may say: “well, what’s wrong with that?”
Davisite: Obviously I was playing that to those who may have sympathy for that position and then arguing against that point. I agree with you that it is not reasonable, hence the blog. And that there are very dangerous implications of allowing Pharmacists to subjectively disregard their professional obligations for personal opinion.
As you said–Target is basically a clone of Wal-Mart, a little smaller in terms of scope and a little more careful in terms of disguise. I’ve been trying to chip away at that perception week.
Anyway, I think we are in agreement, I just nuanced it in an attempt to dispell those who may say: “well, what’s wrong with that?”
Davisite: Obviously I was playing that to those who may have sympathy for that position and then arguing against that point. I agree with you that it is not reasonable, hence the blog. And that there are very dangerous implications of allowing Pharmacists to subjectively disregard their professional obligations for personal opinion.
As you said–Target is basically a clone of Wal-Mart, a little smaller in terms of scope and a little more careful in terms of disguise. I’ve been trying to chip away at that perception week.
Anyway, I think we are in agreement, I just nuanced it in an attempt to dispell those who may say: “well, what’s wrong with that?”
Davisite: Obviously I was playing that to those who may have sympathy for that position and then arguing against that point. I agree with you that it is not reasonable, hence the blog. And that there are very dangerous implications of allowing Pharmacists to subjectively disregard their professional obligations for personal opinion.
As you said–Target is basically a clone of Wal-Mart, a little smaller in terms of scope and a little more careful in terms of disguise. I’ve been trying to chip away at that perception week.
Anyway, I think we are in agreement, I just nuanced it in an attempt to dispell those who may say: “well, what’s wrong with that?”