Plan B: How State Laws Changed WalMart's National Policies
After Massachusetts last month ordered Wal-Mart to stock the "Plan B" emergency contraception pill, Wal-Mart this past Friday announced that, effective March 20, all Wal-Mart pharmacies nationwide will carry emergency contraception, reversing the companies previous policy-- part of a trend of Wal-Mart changing its national policies in response to state laws.
Illinois also requires pharmacies to stock the prescription drug and the emerging trend in state laws made Wal-Mart change its policy:
"We expect more states to require us to sell emergency contraceptives in the months ahead," said Ron Chomiuk, vice president of pharmacy for Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart. "Because of this, and the fact that this is an FDA-approved product, we feel it is difficult to justify being the country's only major pharmacy chain not selling it."
Adding to the pressure was an announcement last Thursday by Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal that the insurance plan for 188,000 state employees and retirees should no longer cover prescriptions at Wal-Mart unless the retail giant agrees to stock emergency contraception pills.
This victory reflects the power that states wield to change the policies of even the largest company in the country. This is also reflected in Wal-Mart's scrambling in recent weeks to upgrade health benefits for its employees as states move increasingly to require large companies to provide health benefits. And in many cases, workers denied overtime or minimum wages by Wal-Mart have used more favorable state labor laws to bring lawsuits against the company-- putting pressure on the firm to improve conditions.
The lesson from the various Wal-Mart campaigns is clear-- progressives don't have to wait for action on Capitol Hill to fight for and win national victories.
Crossposted from PLAN.
What of the states that require perscriptions for Plan B and let pharmacists choose not to fulfill the prescriptions on ethical grounds? Is it really a national victory?
But I agree with the present composition of the Supreme Court, more and more issues important to progressives are going to be fought state-by-state.
"War is a Racket." Brig. Gen. Smedley D. Butler
March 7, 2006 8:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
That may be a problem, but an irony could be that Wal-Mart, because of the size of its pharmacies, could become the place of choice for those seeking emergency contraception, since with multiple pharmacists on call, it's more likely that there will be at least one available with no religious objections to handing over the prescription.
March 7, 2006 9:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the requirements that I would like to see fought for is that pharmacists who refuse to fill a doctor's perscription must send a notification to the doctor who ordered the drugs.
The effects of civil disobedience need to run uphill. "Civil disobedience" carried out against the less powerful is simply bullying.
March 7, 2006 10:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't there some sort of code of conduct for pharmacists? They are just employees and should not be able to make health decisions on their own. If a person comes in with a valid prescription they should just fill it. If they have moral objections to various medications then perhaps they should be in a different profession.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
March 7, 2006 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
sn't there some sort of code of conduct for pharmacists? They are just employees and should not be able to make health decisions on their own. If a person comes in with a valid prescription they should just fill it. If they have moral objections to various medications then perhaps they should be in a different profession.
So much for the "party of Civil Rights"...."If you don't like riding in the back of the bus....find another bus!" You guys and your moral relativism crack me up, and you don't even realize you're doing it most of the time.
March 8, 2006 2:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
It may surprise you to know, but corporations are not democratic organizations. Workers do what they are told subject to the law and whatever labor contracts are in place. This has nothing to do with "civil rights". Us bleeding heart liberals would love to see some workplace democracy. Imagine the workers being able to vote on the CEO's salary and perks. Imagine what would happen if workers who have made a career at a company actually had some input into the future business plans of the firm instead of some CEO that parachutes in for a few years and then leaves with his golden parachute.
Oh! We don't have to imagine, we can just look at how well worker's councils work in Europe to see. Better working conditions, and no looting by the top management. And, so far, no Enrons or WorldComs either.
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
March 8, 2006 5:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
SFC,
You're self-servingly comparing apples and oranges here. Your "bus" analogy applies not to the pharmacists, but to the women whose reasonable expectation of receiving legal medicines without subjective prejudice or judgement is violated by those pharmacists who refuse their requests. They are the ones being told to find a different bus, by members of the health-care industry who have no inherent right to personally interpret which laws they will follow, and which they will ignore.
It is not "moral relativism" to insist on a uniform code of conduct from those who've chosen certain professions in our society. What if your pharmacist refuses to dispense ibuprofin for pain, because he personally believes aspirin is better for you, whether you're personally allergic or not? What if your local druggist refuses to fill your insulin prescription, believing that your diabetes is a manifestation of "God's will" and, therefore, prayer is your best recourse?
How about your local sheriff, who was raised to believe that African-Americans deserve to be beaten during routine questioning, and exercizes that belief on the job? Or the County Magistrate, whose personal view is that the star quarterback has the right to date-rape every now and then, just to let off a little steam? Or the President, who contends that sometimes torture is a good thing, depending on his subjective interpretation of a given situation?
Hyperbole, you say? Hardly - if your contention is that we have no right to expect uniform conduct from pharmacists when asked to fill legal prescriptions and dispense government approved medicines to law abiding U.S. citizens.
Your comment is nothing but a cheap shot, an obfuscation of the issue at hand. It is not the "civil right" of a pharmacist or policeman or judge or even president to impose subjective, misguided, harmful personal prejudice on the dutiful fulfillment of his chosen profession.
The only "moral relativism" on display here is coming from you and your ilk. Have faith, though - the town of Ave Maria will be opening soon in Florida. Once you've moved there, you'll be free to oppose women's civil and reproductive rights, based on selective Biblical interpretation, to your heart's content.
March 8, 2006 5:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
If pharmacists who have moral objections to birth control can refuse to fill birth control prescriptions and still preserve their jobs, shouldn't Boeing engineers who have moral objections to war be allowed to refuse to work on defense department projects and still keep their jobs? In fact, shouldn't we all be allowed to tell our employers "no" whenever they ask us to do things we are morally opposed to and still receive our paychecks? Bet that idea will fly with the Chamber of Commerce . . .
March 8, 2006 6:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
Absolutely, as long as you are willing to face the reprecussions from your "employer." It's not the employer imposing the action, it's the legislatures. I'm just wondering if the ACLU is going to jump to the defense of a pharmasist who opposes "The morning after pill" as fast as they jump to help out NAMBLA members.
March 8, 2006 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
So, supposing that a pharmacist refuses to fill a prescription and gets fired for it, to turn this around, where do you stand on that? And more broadly, the ACLU may or may not take the case, but do you expect conservative commentators and the like to say hey, it's an at-will employment country, so what's the big deal?
March 9, 2006 11:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think we can assume that PS was trying to make an analogy where the force of law gave all workers the right to express their moral stance towards certain duties that may arise during the course of work. Thus the worker would not face reprecussions- just as certain states protect this right in instance of pharmacists moral or religious objections to birth control.
I thought it was an illuminating thought experiment. What would the consequences of this sort of right be if universally applied to everyone's moral conscience in the workplace?
March 9, 2006 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
You work at the leave of your employer. If it is legal (which it is) and the employer says sell them, you sell them or find another job. If wal mart doesn't want to carry them, then that is their choice, the don't sell alchohol and can't be forced to, they don't sell some magazines, that I have a "Constitutional Right" to purchase and read, but I can't sue them (well I could but that's ridiculous). If you want to "force" wal-mart to sell the "morning after pill" then lead a boycot, it's not the place of the legislature to tell everyone what they have to do if it's against their religious principles. They can't force a Christian Scientist to vaccinate thier child, even though there are obvious benefits, so where do you draw the line?
March 9, 2006 4:23 PM | Reply | Permalink