Seattle, USA - Pharmacists in Washington no longer will be required to dispense "morning-after" birth control pills if they have religious objections, at least for the time being.
The latest move in a legal and political battle came Thursday when U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton in Seattle issued a preliminary injunction saying that pharmacists can refuse to sell the morning-after pill if they refer the customer to another, nearby source.
The order will remain in effect at least until a lawsuit in the case goes to trial, scheduled for October.
Sold as "Plan B," the drug can dramatically lower the risk of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. It is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills.
Critics consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.
Under pressure from Gov. Chris Gregoire, state regulators earlier this year ruled that druggists couldn't withhold any prescription because of their personal objections.
Two pharmacists and a drugstore owner sued the state over the new rules in July, saying their civil rights were violated by the move. They had asked the judge to halt forced sales of Plan B while the lawsuit is in play.
Leighton ruled that "because the regulations appear to intentionally place a significant burden on the free exercise of religion for those who believe life begins at conception," the government must prove that it has a compelling interest to impose such a rule.
Leighton did not accept the state's assertion that the regulations serve the compelling interests of promoting access to Plan B in a timely manner and preventing sex discrimination.
"The evidence ... convinces the court that the interests promoted by the regulations have more to do with convenience and heartfelt feelings than with actual access to certain medications. Patients understandably may not want to drive farther than the closest pharmacy and they do not want to be made to feel bad when they get there. These interests are certainly legitimate, but they are not compelling interests of the kind necessary to justify the substantial burden placed on the free exercise of religion."
Jim Ramseth has spent 40 years as a pharmacist in Covington. He celebrated Thursday's ruling, saying: "Wow. This is big for our profession. We are professionals that use our whole ethical being to make our decisions. They could force you to dispense (Plan B). If our freedom of religion or conscience is prohibited, that's against what our country was built on."
Leighton's decision was based on his determination that the two pharmacists and the drug store company that sued the state were likely to win at trial on the religious freedom issue.
But Kelly Reese, an attorney for Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, expressed confidence Thursday that when the "full range of evidence" is presented to the judge at trial in October, he will agree that the rule is constitutional.
"This rule simply states the obvious, which is that pharmacies need to ensure that patients get access to needed medications," Reese said. "This is not targeting religion."
Lawyers with Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and the Northwest Women's Law Center represent seven individuals who intervened in the lawsuit on the side of retaining the rule.
Attorney Kristen Waggoner represents Storman's Stores, which had refused to stock Plan B, as well as two individual pharmacists who do not want to dispense the medication.
Said Waggoner: "I think the court made a clear holding that the government should not be forcing people to violate their sincerely held religious beliefs simply to appease an agenda."
Waggoner said the judge clearly recognized "that the state was targeting pharmacists with religious objections (to Plan B) and that the state did not have a compelling interest to support that kind of discrimination."
The effect of the ruling, Waggoner said, is that "any pharmacist and pharmacy owners who object to Plan B and who refuse and refer cannot have the rule enforced against them pending trial" in October.
Women's groups, abortion-rights advocates and Gregoire have consistently opposed the approach that it would be OK to refuse to dispense Plan B as long as women are referred to another pharmacy that will sell them the drug.
They have argued that women who seek emergency contraception must get the pills as quickly as possible for them to work.