Tacoma Federal District Court Judge Ronald Leighton has stayed (meaning suspended) the emergency contraception trial until the Washington Board of Pharmacy finishes its new round of rulemaking.
“The Board of Pharmacy has begun a rule-making process that if completed as currently contemplated would resolve the legal issues in this case,” Leighton wrote in this morning’s ruling.
The trial, which had been set to start July 26, was going to be a faceoff between women’s rights groups and religious pharmacists over the the question of whether pharmacies had to fill emergency contraception prescriptions.
Currently, Washington pharmacy board rules require pharmacies to fill those scrips. However, the pharmacy board, contemplating a settlement with the dissident pharmacists who refuse to do so on religious grounds, has proposed scaling back the rules so that pharmacies can refer patients to other pharmacies.
“The people of Washington already know why the existing rule is important, but because the state seems to have forgotten, here’s a quick reminder,” Lisa Stone, executive director of Legal Voice (formerly the Northwest Women’s Law Center), begins. “Women need access to birth control; sexual assault survivors need immediate access to emergency contraception; patients with HIV need access to critical anti-viral medications; all people need access to their time-sensitive medications, like anti-depressants and antibiotics; and no one should be entitled to impose their personal beliefs on a patient,”
My previous coverage, including a copy of the letter that G0v. Chris Gregoire’s lawyers sent to Attorney General Rob McKenna’s lawyers (McKenna’s lawyers recommended the new standards and the stay without consulting Gregoire), is here and here.
Judge Leighton’s order for a stay says that “the nature of the issue presented in this case guarantees that a final judicial resolution will come only from an appellate court.”
Too bad for women’s groups that he stayed the trial, because the appellate court—the 9th Circuit in this instance—had preliminarily ruled in favor of the existing pharmacy board standards.
“The state has abandoned patients in Washington, but we have not,” Stone concludes. “We will continue the fight to prevent the rules governing patient access to medications from being gutted, and we will win, even if it takes another five years.”
Kristen Waggoner, the attorney for the plaintiffs—a small group of religious pharmacists including Ralph’s Pharmacy in Olympia, owned by Stormans, Inc., says the stay is a victory. “While the board still has to go through the rulemaking process, the board has stated clearly [in its request for the stay] that they believe a facilitated referral serves the patient’s interest, including when a pharmacist has a conscientious objection.”
She adds, “The pharmacists, who practice pharmacy, know what’s best—not the activists,” she says referring to Stone. “[The activists] are not about serving the patient’s interest, but about serving a political agenda.”
Was it also a victory because the 9th Circuit initially ruled against the pharmacists? Did Waggoner dodge a bullet by potentially getting a settlement?
No, says Waggoner. She points out that the 9th Circuit issued its decision on the lower court’s injunction before the complete case had been heard. Waggoner tells PubliCola that having now done discovery, she would have been able to present evidence that the state allows exemptions from filling scrips for business reasons, such drug prices and administrative costs. “The state can’t make allowances for business reasons, but not religious reasons. That’s unconstitutional,” she says.
