It's Good To Be Persecuted: Pharmacist Refuses to Give Student Birth Control

Just when you think you've heard it all....comes this article.

Apparently, a former K-Mart pharmacist by the name of Neil Noesen in Madison, Wisconsin refused to fill a birth-control pill prescription for a University of Wisconsin-Stout student, Amanda Phiede, on the basis that it would be a "sin" for him, as a devout Roman Catholic, to do so. He also refused to transfer the prescription.

On October 11, he had to testify in front of a judge at a disciplinary hearing, which is hearing the accusation of "unprofessional conduct" from the Department of Regulation and Licensing. The judge will make a recommendation to the exam board as to what punishment, if any, should be given to this nutbag extraordinaire.

A few points:

1) The pharmacist said: "I could have trouble sleeping at night, I could be suffering from the worst kind of pain. Spiritual pain." Of course, that's THE worst pain....I mean, nothing compared to the pain of CHILDBIRTH the student was trying to avoid. And that baby would certainly have kept HER up from sleeping at night! And why on Earth should his percieved "spiritual pain" prevent HER from getting a legally-obtained prescription? Talk about imposing your religious views on someone else!

2) Didn't this nutbag go to school? Didn't he have to learn about various medications and their uses? Did he not realize that A) he'd have to fill birth control pills and B) the Pill can be used for other purposes than birth control? What, did he skip class that day? Would learning about the Pill cause him "spiritual pain," so he slept in instead?

3) The nutbag's attorney, fellow nutbag Krystal Williams-Orby, said Noesen should not be punished as "any punishment would violate his constitutional right to religious expression." What a crock of shit. Your rights end where someone else's begin; he had NO right to impose HIS religious expression on a complete stranger.

4) The nutbag also claims that he is being "harassed" by Department lawyer John Zwieg. I am so motherfucking sick and tired of every last person on Earth who undergoes even the smallest amount of annoyance---especially when they themselves caused the fucking problem in the first place---claiming they are being "harassed" simply because people aren't rushing to bend over and take their bullshit up the tailpipe.

5) Noessen also said at the hearing: "It's good for a person to be persecuted. Really, it helps you grow in your faith." It's GOOD to be persecuted? First of all, Mr. Nutbag, you are NOT being persecuted. You're being investigated and hopefully punished under the guidelines of your profession for failing to do your job. That is NOT persecution. Secondly, what do you call what you did to Miss Phiede? You discriminated against her for not sharing your religious beliefs. You PERSECUTED her! Moron. I can't imagine how this idiot would respond to REAL persecution and harassment. His head would probably spin around and fall off.

6) Having taken the Pill before I had my tubal ligation, I know a thing or two about how they work. This was a renewal prescription, which means Miss Pheide had been taking them at least a month before. Let's say it was just one month before. Now, you have to wait 30 days before the Pill is truly effective. That means if she waited to refill until she needed to take the next Pill, or the day before she needed it (a pharmacy manager at K-Mart filled her prescription the day after Nutbag's meltdown), she might have missed a day, meaning she'd have to double-up and wait another 30 days before it was truly effective. I'd be pretty pissed off about that, quite frankly. Now, what if she was sensitive to hormones? Missing a day could cause unpleasant side-effects. And what if she wasn't taking them for birth control at all, but for other hormonal problems? I myself started taking the Pill five years before I had sex, because I had irregular, painful periods. If that was the case with Miss Phiede, she was being denied the Pill she desperately needed to control those symptoms by a man who has ZERO idea what it's like to have them, and who was judging her to be "immoral" and sexually active when it may not have been the case. Not to mention that my next point...

7) Who the fuck told this nutbag is was ANY of his business why this woman was taking the Pill? He is not a doctor. It's not his job to decide who gets medication and who doesn't. According to the article, Noesen asked Miss Phiede if the Pill was for contraception, and then denied it to her when she said it was. I would have SCREAMED for a manager right then and there. It is NONE of ANY pharmacist's business why I take any damned medication (and believe me, I take quite a few). It's also not his place to deny her medication. Who the fuck did he think he was? He's not entitled to her gynocological or sexual history. His job is to fill bottles with little pills...and in the case of birth control pills, he doesn't even have to do THAT. All he has to do is check the damned container to make sure it's the right medication, charge her and MOVE ON to the next customer. I think he may have skipped more than one day in pharm school if he thought he had ANY right to deny ANYONE medication for ANY reason, least of all because he doesn't personally approve. What would be next? A Scientologist cashier refusing to sell a child's Tylenol because he doesn't believe in medicating children? A Jehovah's Witness refusing to give blood thinners to a transfusion patient? A Jew refusing to give cholesterol meds to a man who eats three BLT's a day? This is why we draw the line, folks. It's why pharmacists are NOT doctors, and why we DON'T impose our religious views on anyone else in this country.

8) John Zweig said: "The additional risk of pregnancy should not have been imposed on her by someone else." Absolutely. Not to mention the embarassment of being denied pills (I'm sure she wasn't the only person at K-Mart that day) for being sexually active and not being of the same religious beliefs as the nutbag, the denial of a prescription transferral (which was basically Mr. Nutbag's way of making sure that she couldn't get the Pill from him or anyone else), and the just overall inappropriateness of the entire situation.

Noesen was fired from K-Mart for his behavior, and rightly so. Let's hope the judge recommends SERIOUS punishment for Mr. Noesen. His license should be revoked, and he should never be allowed to play doctor---or God---to anyone ever again.