University of Wisconsin Law School Professor R. Alta Charo testified in the Wisconsin State Senate on March 5, 2008, in support of a bill confirming the obligation of pharmacists to fill prescriptions regardless of their own personal religious or moral views.

The bill, S.B. 232, reinforces existing Wisconsin law, which defines pharmacists’ authority. The bill can be found at http://www.legis.state.wi.us/2007/data/SB232hst.html .

In her testimony, Charo said, "There are many documented instances throughout the country of pharmacists refusing to fill contraception prescriptions... A pharmacist’s commitment to refrain from endangering a patient’s health, welfare or safety is unconditional. There is no exception that allows a pharmacist to endanger a patient’s health in the name of his or her own personal or religious beliefs."

Charo has written at length on the issue of "conscious refusals" by medical professionals. Her 2007 article "Health Care Provider Refusals to Treat, Prescribe, Refer and Inform: Professionalism and Conscience," published by the American Constitution Society, can be read at http://www.acslaw.org/node/4214 .

Charo is the Warren P. Knowles Professor of Law and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin Law School and School of Medicine and Public Health. From1996 to 2001, she was a presidential appointee to the National Bioethics Advisory Commission.

To learn more about her work, see http://law.wisc.edu/profiles/index.php?iEmployeeID=107 .

Submitted by on March 5, 2008

This article appears in the categories: Articles