Atheocracy: Forcing pharmacists to sell Plan B

The controversy began in 2006 when the State Board of Pharmacy unanimously supported a rule protecting conscience for pharmacy workers. The Board voted in favor of a regulation allowing pharmacists with religious objections to refrain from dispensing Plan B and to refer patients to nearby suppliers. Governor Christine Gregoire soon learned about the protection, publicly threatened to fire the Board’s members, and even called them late at night to lobby them. She replaced several Board members, publicly threatened to remove others, and personally joined in a boycott of the family-owned pharmacy. Matters escalated when the State’s Human Rights Commission insinuated that Board members could be held personally liable under gender discrimination laws if they supported the regulation.
Buckling under these pressures, the Board decided to reconsider the issue and instead adopted a regulation requiring pharmacies to stock and dispense the medication even when doing so violates their conscience. The Board adopted this regulation even though it admitted it found no evidence that anyone in the state had ever been unable to obtain Plan B (or any other time-sensitive medication) due to religious objections.
The Becket Fund’s clients then filed suit to prevent the new regulation from forcing them out of their profession. They argued that forcing pharmacists to dispense Plan B in violation of their religious beliefs violated their Constitutional right to the free exercise of religion.