The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a complaint on Tuesday against three pharmacists in upstate New York claiming that the pharmacists "refused to fill prescriptions for refill doses of emergency contraception," the Associated Press reports. What is particularly striking about this case -- as opposed to the run-of-the-mill pharmacists who refuse to fill E.C. -- is that the women needed refills.
The pharmacists apparently had no religious or moral objections to E.C. the first time around; it was that second time that proved the women's behavior was "irresponsible" as Andrea Barcomb, a CVS supervisor, put it to the AP. (Actually, it seems to us that taking preventive measures as soon as possible to avoid unwanted pregnancy is the very definition of responsibility.) As Elisabeth Benjamin, director of NYCLU's Reproductive Rights program, told the AP, "these refusals seem to just be based solely on moralistic assumptions of women's sexuality."