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Sexually Speaking
By Rachel Reynolds ’07
COPY EDITOR

Welcome back! I hope everyone has had a great summer and is enjoying being back at the Briar. Carrie Bradshaw's editors didn't like her “American girl in Paris” concept, but luckily for me, our editors have allowed me to write the sex column from the Firth of Forth on the Scottish coast, where I will be studying for the semester at St. Andrews University. In this climate, where the necessary parkas, hats, and boots belie the faintest traces of sexual dimorphism, I will do my best to stay attuned to what goes on beneath the surface.

This month's column, however, concerns a situation in the States that I started reading about last spring, and that troubles me greatly. Reports have come in across the nation of pharmacists refusing to fill legal, valid prescriptions for emergency contraception and even for the pill, on the grounds that it offends their religious sensibilities dictating that sex is an act that should be reserved solely for procreation. Even more appalling, many states now sanction this action, providing lists of “controversial” medications that pharmacists can choose not to fill, and of course the pill and E.C. make the top of that list.

These stories are deeply disturbing, from a woman in Washington D.C. whose pharmacist gave her anti-abortion pamphlets instead of filling her E.C. prescription (E.C. is NOT an abortifacient, just a large dose of the pill, which works by preventing ovulation long enough for the sperm to die inside the body) if the woman has already ovulated, she might be out of luck); to a pharmacist in Washington State who refused a woman using the pill to treat ovarian cysts. A New York woman was raped, issued an E.C. prescription by her doctor, and hung up on by a pharmacist when she called to ask if she could get her medication through his pharmacy. And a woman in West Virginia was taken aside by the pharmacist and told that her birth control would cause miscarriages and birth defects, after being refused her prescription (source: plannedparenthood.org).

In urban areas, a pharmacist's refusal to provide E.C. and the pill, though outrageous, is not usually a barrier for women seeking their medication, as they have public transportation and other sources from which to purchase it. But in suburban and rural areas there are fewer pharmacies, and many women, especially those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, do not have the means to access regular transportation to pharmacies that are farther away. This limits their ability to protect their bodies from the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy.

Pharmacists, like doctors, are required to complete a four-year course of study for their degree, and must be licensed by the state to practice. Should Jehovah's Witnesses be permitted to become doctors but refuse to give blood transfusions under the shield that their faith forbids it? Even though I am devoutly pro-choice, I can appreciate the bitter truth that prompts so many people to support the anti-choice movement: abortion is a terrible thing. Birth control prevents abortions. This is not a subtle, complex argument: birth control prevents abortions. When pharmacists inhibit women from making responsible decisions, they elevate their own opinions about what sex ought to be above a woman's right to prevent the need for choice.

In lieu of our usual monthly pick-up line; a pick-up line rebuttal:
Man: "How do you like your eggs in the morning?"
Woman: "Unfertilized."

Rachel Reynolds writes monthly for The Sweet Briar Voice on matters of sex and sexuality.
Feel free to contact her at reynolds07@sbc.edu.