A Michigan pharmacist refused to provide a woman medicine to help complete her miscarriage because of his own religious views. Now Rachel Peterson (below) and the ACLU have sent a letter to the grocery chain Meijer (where he’s employed) to make sure no woman has to go through that again.
An Ionia woman is demanding that Meijer discipline a Petoskey pharmacist and implement a company-wide policy for how pharmacists should handle religious and moral objections to dispensing medication after she was denied a prescription to help complete a miscarriage.
Rachel Peterson, 35, alleges a pharmacist at the Meijer store on Lears Road in Petoskey refused to fill her prescription for a drug called misoprostol (brand name Cytotec) in July because of his personal religious views. She says he also refused to transfer the prescription to another pharmacy.
Misoprostol can be used to prevent stomach ulcers and also can be used to induce labor during pregnancy, to aid in the completion of a miscarriage and in the treatment of postpartum hemorrhage. When combined with another drug, it can be used to induce an abortion.
A woman who was likely vulnerable and suffering through an extremely traumatic experience was essentially told to suffer even more by a pharmacist who thinks abortion, even in the case of a miscarriage, is somehow an insult to God. It’s even more damning that he refused to let someone else do the job he was refusing to do.
