Of the many challenges to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, one of the most successful was initiated by arts and crafts giant Hobby Lobby. The company, which is owned and controlled by a relatively small group of individuals, argued that the provisions included in Obamacare which require it to provide contraceptive coverage to employees violated the owners’ rights to freedom of religion. The owners of Hobby Lobby had their hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, the Supreme Court is set to decide whether or not to hear a similar case involving pharmacists in the State of Washington.
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to announce this week whether or not it will take a case which centers on a regulation in the State of Washington which prohibits pharmacists from declining to fill prescriptions due to their religious convictions.
According to the Washington Board of Pharmacy, under the current rules pharmacists in the State may refuse to fill prescriptions that would violate their religious convictions as long as the pharmacy in which they work immediately ensures that the patient’s a prescription is filled. For example, if there were two pharmacists on duty in a pharmacy, one pharmacist could decline to fill the prescription due to religious reasons and instead ask his or her coworker to do it. But according to the plaintiff in the cases, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, oftentimes there is only one pharmacist on duty at a time, which may make passing the prescription on to a different pharmacist for fulfillment impossible.
The plaintiffs in the case, two pharmacists and a family owned pharmacy, have expressed religious objections to the prescribing medications such as emergency contraceptives. They have received support from several national and state pharmacy associations which say that the Washington rule may negatively affect a pharmacy’s ability to decide which medications to offer, and that the rule even goes as far as reducing a pharmacist’s ability to conscientiously abstain from certain actions.
Ultimately, the makeup of the Supreme Court may impact the decision on this case.
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