Some New Hampshire Pharmacists Won’t Sell Morning After Pills

State   |   Steven Ertelt   |   Aug 19, 2005   |   9:00AM   |   WASHINGTON, DC

Some New Hampshire Pharmacists Won’t Sell Morning After Pills Email this article
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by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
August 19, 2005

Concord, NH (LifeNews.com) — New Hampshire is one of a handful of states that already allow pharmacists to sell the morning after pill over the counter without a doctor’s prescription. However, many pharmacists say they don’t plan on taking part in the new OTC program and they worry about health concerns for women using the sometimes abortion-causing drug.

Pharmacist Deborah Kirsch doesn’t mind filling a prescription for the Plan B pills from a physician, but she won’t sell the drugs to women who come to her store, Modern Pharmacy in Concord.

"What if some poor girl got pregnant and had a malformed baby," Kirsch told the Concord monitor newspaper. "I don’t want to be in the middle of that."

"I don’t trust the law to protect me from liability," Kirsch said. "Why should we be able to do it for this one drug, but not for any other drugs?"

The state law starting the new program went into effect Monday and it allows women over the age of 16 to buy the drugs without first consulting a doctor. The Board of Pharmacy is expected to put the new rules in place and organize training for pharmacists wanting to participate. But, their class sizes may be low.

David Rochefort, a pharmacist at the Sullivan Drug Store in Lancaster doesn’t carry the morning after pill and has no plans to change that policy. He said he has moral and religious reasons for not selling it.

"A lot of customers say they’re just trying to be responsible," Rochefort said. "If a person is being responsible they would have taken measures prior to engaging in that kind of behavior."

Don Messina, a pharmacist at the Care Pharmacy of Epsom fills morning after pill prescriptions now, but will not sell it over the counter.

"There are too many problems with it and someone should be watching who’s taking it," he told the Monitor. "What if a woman takes it and there’s side effects and she ends up bleeding in the ER?"