Without access to comprehensive reproductive health services, women’s health and well-being is threatened.  Global health efforts focus on providing more access to quality and comprehensive health services in developing countries.   We should look in our own backyard.  Right here in Washington State, new legal action is limiting access to emergency contraception.  Right here in Washington State, pharmacists are currently allowed to refuse to dispense emergency contraception based on religious belief.  This places an undue burden on adolescents and young adults, poor women and those living in small towns.  Emergency contraception should be available to women who are victims of rape.  All women should have access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.

 

Please read the attached document written by my colleague Roz Solomon at Uplift International.  It explains the background and legal case that is ongoing.  The current legal case in Tacoma Federal District Court is a test case for the Arizona-based Alliance for Defense Fund and it will go to the US Supreme Court.   

 

Planned Parenthood, The NW Women’s Law Center and the ACLU are filing amicus curie (friend of the court) briefs to accompany the briefs being filed by the other defendants (the State Board of Pharmacy, etc.).  Filing friend-of-the-court briefs is very common. The briefs will address the following issues:             

 

• The impact of “refuse & refer” on sexual assault and the availability of emergency contraception. 
• The impact of “refuse & refer” on the health system and the practice of medicine
• Freedom of religion and religious practice

 

Finally, you can voice your opinion by signing an amicus curie brief.

 

 

Beth

 

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere"--Martin Luther King, Jr., 1963 from Birmingham jail, Alabama

 

Beth E. Rivin, M.D., M.P.H.

Program Director,

Global Health and Justice Project

Research Associate Professor, School of Law

Adjunct Research Associate Professor, Health Services, SPHCM

Office:  William H. Gates Hall room 446

University of Washington, Seattle, WA  USA

Phone:  206-616-3674

Fax:  206-543-5671

www.law.washington.edu/HealthLaw/GHJ