Pharmacist in Michigan Refuses Medicine to Woman Having Miscarriage

A woman in Michigan says she was left 'humiliated' at the lowest moment of her life after a pharmacist denied the medicine she needed after suffering a miscarriage. 

Rachel Peterson, 35, says she wants the Petoskey pharmacist disciplined and for the company he works for to implement a new policy that handles how pharmacists should handle religious and moral objections to dispensing medication the Detroit Free Press reported. 

Peterson says she went to the Meijer store to fill a prescription for a drug called misoprostol (brand name Cytotec) in July, but the pharmacist there refused to serve her based on his personal religious views.

According to the complaint, the Meijer pharmacist on duty refused to fill Peterson's prescription, saying that as a "good Catholic male," he could not "in good conscience fill the prescription" because he believed she would use it to prematurely end a pregnancy. 

When she told the pharmacist her doctor found no signs of life from the fetus and confirmed the early pregnancy loss, he accused her of lying and that he couldn't take her word for it. 

Peterson says the pharmacist also refused to transfer her prescription to another pharmacy. 

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration lists misoprostol as being used to prevent stomach ulcers. The drug has also been been approved by the FDA to aid women in the completion of a miscarriage and treat postpartum hemorrhaging. When combined with another drug, misoprostol can be used to induce an abortion. 

Merissa Kovach, a strategist for the ACLU chapter in Michigan said if Peterson had been a man looking to get the exact same medication, she wouldn't have been turned away by the pharmacist. 

“All women should be able to go to a Meijer Pharmacy to obtain the medicine they need without fear of discrimination,” said Kovach. “Our client clearly was a victim of sex discrimination. Had the customer been a man prescribed the same medication, that is also commonly used to treat ulcers, the pharmacist would have filled it.”

"Rachel was denied this [medication] based on the personal beliefs of this pharmacist and then also because she’s a woman," Kovach points out. "Unfortunately in Michigan, we don’t have an explicit state law that goes so far as to protect patients like Rachel."

"When you’re at one of the lowest moments of your life,  you don’t expect this sort of demeaning treatment,” said Rachel Peterson. “A pharmacy should not be able to deny patients medication prescribed by their doctors based on the personal beliefs of a particular employee."

Photo: Getty Images


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