Would McCain Support Pro-Life Pharmaicies?

You walk into a pharmacy and pass the pain relievers, deodorants, and shampoos. But when you get to the spot where the condoms normally are shelved, there's nothing. And don't even think about asking to fill a prescription for birth control pills -- you'll get turned away and frowned upon in no time.

Where are you? A "pro-choice" pharmacy.

A story in yesterday's Washington Post [1] chronicles the growing movement of "pro-life" pharmacies -- pharmacies that choose not to stock condoms and not to fill prescriptions for the "morning-after" pill, birth control pills and other standard varieties of contraception. The pharmacists and owners of these stores claim that they have the right to not stock products that they find objectionable, and that using standard contraception is tantamount to having an abortion. According to the article [1],

The most common, widely publicized conflicts have involved pharmacists who refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, morning-after pills and other forms of contraception. They say they believe that such methods can cause what amounts to an abortion and that the contraceptives promote promiscuity, divorce, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and other societal woes. The result has been confrontations that have left women traumatized and resulted in pharmacists being fired, fined or reprimanded.

At first glance, this seems somewhat acceptable -- after all, stores have the right to stock the products that they like, and there are usually other pharmacies available. But it's not that simple. These pharmacies don't advertise their "pro-life" status, and when a woman walks in to a pharmacy to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill, the last thing she needs is to be told that she's killing a fetus and get yelled at about her lifestyle choices. There have been instances of pharmacists ripping up prescriptions for birth control pills (because, yes, says the Pharmacists for Life International [2] website, the "pill kills") and humiliating women seeking contraception. "Rape victims could end up in a pharmacy not understanding this pharmacy will not meet their needs," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center in the Post. "We've seen an alarming development of pharmacists over the last several years refusing to fill prescriptions, and sometimes even taking the prescription from the woman and refusing to give it back to her so she can fill it in another pharmacy." These pharmacies could be especially problematic in rural areas of the country, where there are not always alternatives.

After reading this article on Monday, I had a sinking feeling that it sounded vaguely familiar. Although I've never been in a pro-life pharmacy, last week I watched several videos from Brave New Films [3] about the "McCain Clinic" -- spoofs on what a women's clinic would be like if McCain were president. In one, a customer asks for information on STDs and the pharmacist hands her a flyer with the words "DON'T HAVE SEX." In another, the receptionist hands a woman a blank sheet of paper with her "birth control options."

So is McCain's record on reproductive rights really as bad as Brave New Films makes it out to be? He hasn't started any "McCain clinics" staffed with annoying, fingernail-tapping receptionists, but he has accumulated an impressively bad voting record, and proudly bragged [4] that he's received a score of zero from NARAL [5]. A bit of McCain's voting record from a terrific article [6] by Arianna Huffington:

He has repeatedly voted to deny low-income women access to abortion care except in cases of rape, incest, or danger to the mother's life (although McCain is now wavering on trying to put these exceptions into the party platform).

He voted to shut down the Title X family-planning program, which provides millions of women with health care services ranging from birth control to breast cancer screenings.

He voted against legislation that established criminal and civil penalties for those who use threats and violence to keep women from gaining access to reproductive health clinics.

He voted to uphold the policy that bans overseas health clinics from receiving aid from America if they use their own funds to provide legal abortion services or even adopt a pro-choice position.

Given this voting record, I suspect that McCain would support these pro-life pharmacies. And on the subject of those pro-life pharmacies, apparently some of them stock Viagra. Anyone else see the irony here?