[Pflienews] PharmFacts E-News Update: WI appeals rules against Conscience Rights, chilling effect seen

[PFLI PharmAid Center]

*PharmFacts E-News Update -- 25 Mar 2008 AD

*


  Court upholds sanctions for [heroic] pharmacist who didn't provide
  [abortifacient] pills


    By ROBERT IMRIE Associated Press Writer
    The Associated Press - Wednesday, March 26, 2008


WAUSAU, Wis.

A state appeals court upheld sanctions Tuesday against a pharmacist who 
refused to dispense birth control pills to a college student and 
wouldn't transfer her prescription elsewhere.

The 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled the punishment the state 
Pharmacy Examining Board handed down against pharmacist Neil Noesen did 
not violate any of his state constitutional rights, specifically his 
"right of conscience" to religiously oppose birth control.

"Noesen abandoned even the steps necessary to perform in a minimally 
competent manner under any standard of care," the three-judge panel 
said. The decision upheld a ruling by Barron County Circuit Judge James 
Babler.

Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin hailed the ruling as important for 
women's access to reproductive health care.

According to court records, Noesen was working as a substitute 
pharmacist at a Menomonie Kmart in 2002 when a University of 
Wisconsin-Stout student came in to refill her birth control pills.

Noesen testified he asked her whether she would use the pills for 
contraception and she answered yes. He advised her of his objection and 
refused to fill the prescription or tell her how or where she could get 
it refilled.

The woman was able to get the prescription filled two days later after 
missing the first dose of the medication, court records said. She filed 
a complaint with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing.

Noesen, 34, of St. Paul, Minn., told state regulators that he is a 
devout Roman Catholic and refused to refill the prescription or release 
it to another pharmacy because he didn't want to commit a sin by 
"impairing the fertility of a human being."

The Pharmacy Examining Board ruled in 2005 that Noesen failed to carry 
out his professional responsibility to get the woman's prescription to 
someone else if he wouldn't fill it himself.

His actions threatened the woman with an unwanted pregnancy and made her 
fearful of becoming pregnant, the board determined.

The board reprimanded Noesen, who was licensed by the state in 1999, and 
ordered him to attend ethics classes. He was allowed to keep his license 
as long as he informs all future employers in writing that he won't 
dispense birth control pills and outlines the steps he will take to make 
sure a patient has access to medication.

The board also found Noesen liable for the cost of the proceedings 
against him - about $20,000 - but the appeals court Tuesday ordered the 
board to reconsider that decision.

Noesen said the discipline he received "critically devastated" his 
business as a traveling pharmacist because some pharmacies refused to 
hire him and he lost his liability insurance, court records said.

His attorneys in Chicago, Thomas Brejcha and Paul Linton, did not 
immediately return telephone messages Tuesday. There was no telephone 
listing for Noesen in St. Paul.

Nicole Safar, an attorney for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, which 
participated in the appeal, said the ruling was one of the first 
published decisions in the country on the issue.

In the past five years, there's been a growing number of pharmacists 
opposed to dispensing birth control pills, Safar said. Women rarely file 
formal complaints because they don't want to publicize their personal 
health histories.

"They go to the next place or do what they need to do," she said.

___

On the Net:

Wisconsin Court of Appeals: http://www.courts.state.wi.us


------------------------------------------------------------------------

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dispense or counsel for chemicals which violate their sincerely held 
religious, moral or ethical beliefs.  For more info see:
http://www.pfli.org/main.php?pfli=conscienceclausefaq

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