Law on denying meds due to ethical beliefs

An Arizona woman says she was denied her medication because she says the pharmacist who assisted her allegedly denied the prescription because of his religious beliefs.

This is just one of many incidents in which someone was denied service due to their views. Earlier this year the Supreme Court ruled against a cake shop owner who wouldn’t make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple because of his beliefs.

Nicole Arteaga went to Walgreens to pick up her Misoprostol prescription, to assist her in her miscarriage, and that’s when she felt humiliated after the pharmacist wouldn’t hand it to her.

“I tried to explain what was going on and why the doctor had sent it and he still had said no, not gonna fill this, not gonna happen,” Arteaga said.

Arteaga is concerned the pharmacist may be denying other women the right to these types of contraceptives but according to Arizona State law what the pharmacist did wasn’t illegal.

We spoke to a local attorney, who explains what the Arizona Revised Statutes Annotated A.R.S 26-2154 law entails.

“If they have a moral or religious objection to abortion they have the right to refuse, to distribute any kind of abortion type medication, birth control or anything of that nature, as long as they express their objection and give the patient back their actual prescription,” Ryan Hengl with the Law Offices of Ryan C.Hengl in Yuma said.

Walgreens responded to the incident on Twitter by explaining their policy regarding the situation.

Arteaga posted her experience online because she felt humiliated and now she wants to see change.

“Their needs to be change in the policies they have in place , maybe educate the pharmacist on how to better handle situations like this where their beliefs aren’t compromised and the customer can still get what they need,” said Arteaga.

Walgreens is additional training to all of their pharmacists on how to appropriately handle these situations in accordance with their policy.