Conscience Clauses for Pharmacists: The Struggle to Balance Conscience Rights with the Rights of Patients and Institutions
![handle is hein.journals/wlr2005 and id is 1625 raw text is: CONSCIENCE CLAUSES FOR PHARMACISTS: THE
STRUGGLE TO BALANCE CONSCIENCE RIGHTS WITH
THE RIGHTS OF PATIENTS AND INSTITUTIONS
MATTHEW WHITE*
I. INTRODUCTION
On Saturday, July 6, 2002, a pharmacist named Neil Noesen filled
in for a vacationing pharmacist at a Menominee, Wisconsin K-Mart
pharmacy.' When Mr. Noesen agreed to fill in at the pharmacy, he
agreed with the managing pharmacist that he would not fill
prescriptions for contraceptives because of his religious beliefs.2 On
that particular Saturday, however, Mr. Noesen was working at the
pharmacy alone, so when Amanda Phiede came in with a prescription
for birth control pills, the stage was set for a confrontation.3
When Ms. Phiede asked Mr. Noesen to fill her prescription, he
asked her why she was taking the pills.4 Ms. Phiede answered that the
pills were being taken for contraceptive purposes, and accordingly, Mr.
Noesen refused to dispense the pills.' Ms. Phiede went to a nearby
Wal-Mart and asked that they fill the prescription.6 When the Wal-
Mart pharmacist called Mr. Noesen to have the prescription
transferred, Mr. Noesen refused, saying later, it would be a sin to
induce another to sin.7 Mr. Noesen was the only pharmacist on duty
the following day as well and again refused to release the prescription
* B.A., University of Wisconsin, 2002; J.D., University of Wisconsin Law
School, 2006. Thank you to my family for their love and support, and to my wife
Sharon for her immense patience, her constant juggling, and her sense of humor,
without which I could never have achieved so much. I would also like to thank my
friends and colleagues on the Wisconsin Law Review for their help in crafting and
revising this Comment.
1. Anita Weier, Patient, Pharmacist Collide; Birth Control Pill Conflict
Shows Dilemma, CAP. TIMES (Madison, Wis.), Mar. 16, 2004, at IA [hereinafter
Weier, Patient.
2. Id.
3. Anita Weier, Rx License Is on the Line in Birth Pill Fight; Pharmacist
Refused to Fill Woman's Order, CAP. TIMES (Madison, Wis.), Oct. 12, 2004, at IA
[hereinafter Weier, Rx License].
4. Weier, Patient, supra note 1, at 1A.
5. Id.
6. Id.
7. Weier, Rx License, supra note 3, at 1A.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/wlr2005&div=49&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Conscience Clauses for Pharmacists: The Struggle to Balance Conscience Rights with the Rights of Patients and Institutions
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