CV NEWS FEED // A federal court recently affirmed that pharmacies are free to operate according to their religious beliefs and do not have to dispense chemical abortion drugs against their wills.
On April 5 the federal court declared the case “moot,” and asserted that the Pharmacy Guidance does not force or require pharmaceutical companies to dispense or fill prescriptions for drugs that violated the company’s religious beliefs.
The case, State of Texas and Mayo Pharmacy v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has been ongoing since approximately late 2022.
Non-profit legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom hailed the ruling as a clear statement protecting pharmacy companies’ freedom of religious beliefs from the “overstep” of federal agencies’ authority.
“Unelected bureaucrats can’t force Americans to dispense abortion-inducing drugs against their conscience,” stated Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Counsel Matt Bowman. “HHS changed its pharmacy abortion guidance after the court ruled in favor of religious pharmacies in July.”
In 2022, less than a month after the overturning of Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a document titled, “Pharmacy Guidance Ensure Access to Comprehensive Reproductive Health Care Services.”
The state of Texas and Mayo Pharmacy, Inc. sued HHS and the other defendants six months after the document was issued, “alleging the Pharmacy Guidance required pharmacies to dispense abortion-inducing drugs as a condition of receiving federal financial assistance like Medicare and Medicaid funds,” the ruling reads.
“Specifically, Texas claimed the Pharmacy Guidance sought to preempt its state laws prohibiting abortion, while Mayo claimed a requirement to dispense drugs for abortion purposes violated its sincerely held religious beliefs,” the ruling notes.
Methotrexate was the specified abortion-inducing drug that Mayo argued it would be forced to dispense under the current Pharmacy Guidance.
As the case continued through last year, the HHS retitled the document to: “Obligations under Federal Civil Rights Laws to Ensure Nondiscriminatory Access to Health Care at Pharmacies,” and revised the text.
ADF Senior Counsel Bowman stated that “the court made it clear that the guidance can’t require pharmacies to dispense abortion drugs or violate their religious beliefs.”
“The ruling also indicated that the court will likely stop any future attempts by HHS to use this guidance to open a burdensome investigation against our client, Mayo Pharmacy in North Dakota, or pharmacies in Texas if they decline to dispense abortion drugs,” Bowman concluded.
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