| If you — or a woman you care about — need Plan B® emergency contraception, will you be able to get it? The answer to that question is far from certain, with an ongoing legal challenge to Washington State Board of Pharmacy rules that require pharmacies to dispense valid requests for legal medications without hassle or delay, and with many pharmacists not knowing enough about Plan B.
Emergency contraception, also called Plan B or the morning-after pill, is a high-dose version of the regular birth control pill, effective for up to 72 hours after unprotected sex. The sooner it is taken, the more effective it is at preventing pregnancy. It has no effect if the woman is already pregnant. In August 2006, the Food and Drug Administration approved it for behind-the-counter sale without a prescription to women aged 18 and older.
NARAL Pro-Choice Washington launched the Emergency Contraception Access Project in October to determine the availability of Plan B for women across the state. We compiled a list of all the pharmacies statewide and recruited volunteers to survey them via phone regarding whether they stock Plan B, how much it costs, whether they know that Plan B is covered by Medicaid, and other questions about availability. Our volunteers attempted to contact all of the pharmacies in the state and were able to complete surveys for over 80 percent of them. What we found was astonishing: more than 10 percent of surveyed pharmacies either do not stock Plan B or have at least one pharmacist on staff who refuses to dispense it. All results are available on our website and reflect the responses our volunteers got from the pharmacists and pharmacy staff who participated.
As some observers have noticed, our survey indicates that a woman can get Plan B at the majority of pharmacies across the state. That is great news. I am proud to say that by and large, pharmacists in our state have been leaders in making emergency contraception available to more women. NARAL Pro-Choice Washington has provided signs for these pharmacies to display that let women know Plan B is available there. We also sent a letter thanking the pharmacies for providing this important and time-sensitive medication.
Nevertheless, 10 percent is still too high a percentage of pharmacies not providing Plan B to the women who need it. In some cases, the lack of access is due to the personal beliefs of pharmacists or pharmacy owners; Kevin Stormans, the owner of the Ralph’s Thriftway in Olympia and who refuses to stock Plan B, is a prime example.
Through the course of our survey we also discovered confusion and misinformation among pharmacists and pharmacy staff about what Plan B is, who can dispense it, and who can access it. Many pharmacists mistakenly believed they need a special license to dispense Plan B. And entirely too many pharmacists, more than 12 percent, were unaware Medicaid covers prescription and non-prescription requests for it. The lack of knowledge among pharmacists about Plan B is a direct barrier to access for countless women across the state.
Non-stocking and non-dispensing pharmacies can be found statewide, from rural areas to many within the city of Seattle. Whether it means traveling across the county, across town, or across the street, no woman should be forced to hunt down a pharmacy that will provide her with emergency contraception. Plan B is birth control, and birth control is women’s basic health care. No pharmacist or pharmacy owner should stand between any patient and the medication she or he needs. Every woman deserves to be able to access Plan B and regular birth control when and where she needs it, without hassle, delay, or judgment.
Ten percent of all the pharmacies in the state might not seem like such a large number until you actually need Plan B. For the woman who has to spend the time and money traveling from one pharmacy to the next — if she is indeed lucky enough to have both those resources at her disposal — it can feel like an impossibly huge number. That is why NARAL Pro-Choice Washington will continue working to expand knowledge about, and access to, emergency contraception for all women.
Ed. note: On Fri., Feb. 15, Judge Ronald Leighton declined to stay an injunction on two state Pharmacy Board rules that require pharmacies to fill prescriptions for Plan B on-site. Leighton is a Bush appointee to the U.S. District Court. |
