Anyone who thought that the SCOTUS’s decision in Dobbs was the “end” of anything in relegating women to third-class citizenship was naive to a fault because the GOP has only begun its assault on women’s rights. As but one example, Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter insists that pharmacists should have the right to deny filling prescriptions for abortifacients.
Carter spoke to hate group leader Tony Perkins of the FRC and said:
“Some of these medications are used for legitimate reasons, there’s no question of about that. People are still going to be able to get those medications.
“They’re still going to be able to get their arthritis medication if it’s being used for arthritis. They are still going to be able to get the medications that are written and prescribed for them if it’s to be used for that purpose.
“A pharmacist should have the right to deny filling a prescription if they know it’s going to be used for an abortion and if they morally object to that.”
Much more below the tweet:
“A pharmacist should have the right to deny filling a prescription if they know it’s going to be used for an abortion and if they morally object to that.” @RepBuddyCarter on protecting pro-life pharmacists w/ @tperkins.
Full interview at https://t.co/Go9RIM4JF1. pic.twitter.com/1lxJ2s5GQb
— Family Research Council (@FRCdc) July 15, 2022
Women’s access to these medications has always been an issue with regard to the right to privacy, healthcare, and equality, but it is obviously even more at the forefront now. The federal government has issued warnings to pharmacies across the United States that they will be violating civil rights laws if they refuse to fill these prescriptions, and the government does have a hammer to enforce that mandate. Medicare and Medicaid make up perhaps the biggest single source of payments to any pharmacy, and a pharmacy found to violate woman’s rights could lose its eligibility to receive payments through the system.
Indeed, HHS put out the following warning last week:
“The guidance makes clear that as recipients of federal financial assistance, including Medicare and Medicaid payments, pharmacies are prohibited under law from discriminating based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability in their programs and activities. This includes supplying prescribed medications; making determinations regarding the suitability of prescribed medications for a patient, and advising a patient about prescribed medications and how to take them.”
Of course, just as Congress removed federal funding from any organization that provided abortion services, Congress could change the law regarding Medicare and Medicaid if Republicans take control this coming year, and that fact should be shouted from the mountain tops or people like Carter most certainly will change the law.
Interestingly, Rep. Carter is a pharmacist himself and owns a pharmacy in Savannah, Georgia. The “pro-life” Congressman made quite a bit of money a decade ago supplying a lot of opioids to his customers:
@RepBuddyCarter is a small town pharmacist who sold a lot of opioids.
From 2006 to 2014 Carter’s Pharmacy sold 2,876,010 opioid pills.
The population of Pooler, GA in 2014 was 20,646.https://t.co/naoYh2Wu97 pic.twitter.com/xZaDg778WB— Boot (@Boot60776351) July 16, 2022
@JasonMiciak believes a day without learning is a day not lived. He is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is a Canadian-born dual citizen who spent his teen and college years in the Pacific Northwest and has since lived in seven states. He now enjoys life as a single dad of a young girl, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast. He loves crafting his flower pots, cooking, and currently studies philosophy of science, religion, and non-math principles behind quantum mechanics and cosmology. Please feel free to contact for speaking engagements or any concerns.
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