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Court compromise reached in 'morning after' pill case

Posted October 09, 2007 11:00 pm

Dean Olsen

Pharmacies could avoid state discipline, even if they employ pharmacists with moral objections to emergency contraception, under a proposed federal court settlement modifying the Illinois rule that requires pharmacies to immediately fill prescriptions for "morning after" pills.

Through a proposed new option, pharmacies would be allowed to work by phone or fax with an off-site pharmacist - one without moral objections to emergency contraception - to process a patient's prescription.

The settlement says a pharmacy technician or store manager would be allowed to sell the patient the medicine so she wouldn't have to go elsewhere.

Pharmacies still would be required to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, commonly sold under the name Plan B, if the medicine is in stock.

But the settlement, filed this week in Springfield's U.S. District Court, would give pharmacies another way to avoid fines or the loss of operating licenses even if they employ pharmacists who believe that Plan B is a form of abortion and would refuse to dispense the drug.

The proposed change in a pharmacy rule originally enacted by Gov. Rod Blagojevich in April 2005 is part of an agreement worked out between the Blagojevich administration, Deerfield-based Walgreen Co. and seven pharmacists.

"It changes the rule significantly, in that, for the first time, the state now at least recognizes the existence of objecting pharmacists and attempts by this amendment to deal with the problem that that causes," Francis Manion, a Kentucky lawyer representing the pharmacists, said Tuesday.

Plan B, a concentrated dose of the same compounds used in conventional birth-control pills, is up to 90 percent effective if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex.

The governor's rule was designed to prevent pharmacies from denying women the medicine when pharmacists had moral objections.

Like conventional birth-control pills, Plan B most often works by preventing an unfertilized egg from being released by the ovaries.

But the medicine also can work by temporarily changing the lining of the uterus to prevent implantation of an egg after it has been fertilized - thereby creating a moral dilemma for some pharmacists.

Five of the pharmacists represented by Manion had lost their jobs with Walgreen's in southern Illinois and the Chicago area when they refused to promise that they would dispense Plan B if asked. They continue to seek monetary damages against the company in separate lawsuits.

Walgreen spokeswoman Tiffani Bruce called the proposed federal settlement "fair for all parties involved."

Robyn Ziegler, spokeswoman for Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office, which is representing the state in the case, said the proposal "helps to ensure that women are protected, as the law intended."

Pam Sutherland, Springfield-based president of the Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said the organization can "live with the settlement because the woman doesn't even have to leave the pharmacy to get the medicine."

The settlement would affect females 17 and younger who obtain prescriptions for emergency contraception.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration decided in 2006 that customers 18 and older no longer need prescriptions for Plan B.

The federal court settlement wouldn't become final until March, and it hinges on the proposed changes in the emergency-contraception rule being approved by the legislature's Joint Committee on Administrative Rules.

The Blagojevich administration plans to request the changes from the committee, a bipartisan panel of 12 state representatives and senators.

The state had filed official complaints against Walgreen pharmacies in West Peoria and Chicago, and an Osco Drug pharmacy in St. Charles, for not filling emergency contraception prescriptions after the rule took effect.

The Osco pharmacy paid a $37,000 fine to settle the complaint. The proposed federal lawsuit settlement calls for the pending complaints against the Walgreen pharmacies to be dropped.

Dean Olsen can be reached at (217) 788-1543 or dean.olsen@sj-r.com.

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