A Minnesota woman is suing a couple of pharmacies who declined to fill her prescription for the morning after pill ella. The pharmacists in both the ironically-named Thrifty White Pharmacy in McGregor, MN and a CVS pharmacy, 20 miles away from the woman's home, denied her prescription on the basis of their "personal", i.e. religious beliefs. While Minnesota law allows that, it also requires pharmacists to assist the customer in locating a pharmacy that would fill the prescription, something that neither one did.
What makes this story particularly onerous is that the woman's search for a cooperating pharmacy was done in the middle of a white out snowstorm:
"On Jan. 22, Anderson strapped her young son into his car seat and drove to the Walgreens. By then, snowflakes had begun to fall and the temperature dropped to the single digits. The lawsuit describes “white out” conditions as Anderson drove to and from Brainerd, on a treacherous a three-hour round trip.
'I had to take my 2½-year-old out in the snowstorm, wind, blowing snow, freezing temperatures to drive to Brainerd just to get my prescription,' Anderson told WCCO."Put simply, two self-righteous "pro-life" pharmacists not only didn't assist the woman in locating a cooperating pharmacy as the law requires, but sent the woman and her toddler child out in a snowstorm to find someone who would fill the prescription, which was done after a 100 mile round-trip car ride. The pharmacist at CVS actually lied that the pharmacy where she eventually had her prescription filled didn't have ella in stock.
We hope she collects big on damages not only failing to assist her, but endangering her and her child.
