Albertsons agrees to respect pharmacists’ right of conscience

Employer will honor religious liberty of its pharmacists despite Illinois governor’s "emergency rule" challenged by ADF and CLS

Good for them. This is a victory for reality and the Natural Law.

Albertsons Corporation agreed to accommodate its pharmacists’ right to refuse to fill prescriptions that violate their religious or moral beliefs. The accommodation came on the heels of a lawsuit filed by attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund and Christian Legal Society against the employer and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on behalf of pharmacist David Scimio.

"The right of conscience is an important component of religious liberty. Pharmacists should not be forced to fill prescriptions for the 'morning after' abortion pill if it violates their conscience," said Chief Litigation Counsel Steven H. Aden of CLS’s Center for Law and Religious Freedom.

"We applaud the decision by Albertsons to restore to Mr. Scimio and other Albertsons pharmacists the same rights they had prior to the governor’s action and allow them to be true to their beliefs about the sanctity of human life," Aden said.

Shortly after ADF and CLS filed suit, Albertsons distributed a memo to all of its Illinois pharmacists stating that it would accommodate their pharmacists' right of conscience by permitting them to refer prescriptions to which they conscientiously object to another Albertsons pharmacist or to a competitor to be filled within two hours.

ADF and CLS attorneys filed the case, Scimio v. Blagojevich, in Illinois state court April 15 on behalf of Scimio, a pharmacist who objects to filling prescriptions for abortifacients on religious grounds. Blagojevich’s "emergency rule" stating that a pharmacist "must dispense... without delay" contraceptives, including so-called "emergency" contraceptives such as the "morning after" pill, prompted the suit, which ADF and CLS will voluntarily dismiss at a hearing in the case today.

"Given Governor Blagojevich’s claim that the emergency rule applies only to pharmacies and not pharmacists themselves, we expect that he will agree that Albertsons' desire to respect the convictions of its pharmacists is legitimate under the law," Aden said.

For more on this, see my previous posts here and here.