In its push to make sure babies continue to be aborted across the country, Joe Biden’s Health and Human Services (HHS) is warning pharmacies across the U.S. that failure to dispense medicine — including abortion-inducing pills — violates civil rights laws.
The warning comes after reports that some pharmacies are not filling abortion pill prescriptions in some states after the U.S. Supreme Court gutted Roe v. Wade’s federal abortion protections.
”We are committed to ensuring that everyone can access health care, free of discrimination,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a press release issued by the agency. “This includes access to prescription medications for reproductive health and other types of care.”
Taxpayer funded National Public Radio (NPR), which advocates for abortion on demand, reported on the development:
The guidance to pharmacies says an example of such discrimination would be if a pharmacist refused to dispense prescriptions for mifepristone and misoprostol to a patient who had a first-trimester miscarriage. These drugs are used “to assist with the passing of the miscarriage,” according to HHS. But they are also used for medication abortions early in pregnancy — and such abortions are now banned in some states.
The Department aimed its guidance at the roughly 60,000 retail pharmacies in the U.S., reminding them that because they receive federal funding through several programs such as Medicare and Medicaid, they cannot discriminate based on race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability; further they may not discriminate based on current pregnancy, past pregnancy, potential or intended pregnancy, and medical conditions related to pregnancy or childbirth.
NPR reported that HHS issued guidance based on news stories that said some drugs were not being dispensed related to abortion but would not comment specifically about the incidents mentioned in the news stories about pharmacies in a number of states.
With the reversal of Roe v. Wade, many states now ban abortion or restrict it based on weeks of gestation.
The High Court’s ruling means that abortion laws return to the purview of state lawmakers.
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