Why would they refuse?

Brittany Brown is a Butler University senior who took some time off from studying for her Spanish and math midterms on a recent Saturday afternoon to collect signatures on a petition.

Butler student Brittany Brown collects signatures.

Before knocking on the next door, she adjusts her clipboard and moves the pen from one hand to the other. It’s a cold winter day, and the large pink sticker with the Planned Parenthood logo on her down jacket is the only bright spot against a very gray landscape.

“Hi!” Brown says cheerfully to a rather skeptical woman opening her front door. “I’m a volunteer with Planned Parenthood. We’re talking to people in your neighborhood about the issue of pharmacists refusing to fill women’s prescriptions for birth control. Are you familiar with this problem?”

Like most of the residents, this woman has not heard of the legislation introduced in the Indiana General Assembly and 13 other states this year that would allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense certain medications based on moral objections.

As Brown explains about refusal clauses and legislation, the woman at the door looks perplexed. “Why would they refuse?” she asks.

“Um, for religious reasons and moral reasons, I guess,” Brown says.
“Hand me the petition,” the woman says reaching for the clipboard. “I’m a Christian, and I can’t think of any reason a Christian pharmacist can’t do their job.”

In a few short hours, Brown and the dozens of other volunteers canvassing the Butler-Tarkington area will have collected nearly 100 signatures on petitions against this proposed legislation.

These volunteers are the nearly 50 women from around the state who have come to Indianapolis to participate in Planned Parenthood’s “Live Action Camp” co-sponsored by the Butler student feminist organization Demia.

For two days the group is being trained in grass-roots activism techniques focusing on women’s reproductive rights. Splitting their time between a classroom environment and hands-on activism, all participants gain experience and promote women’s reproductive health care rights.

Taking turns at each technique, the groups divide their time between phone banking calls to pharmacies around the state, knocking on doors for petition signatures, standing in the cold holding signs as part of a Burma Shave campaign and posting provocative flyers in as many public places as possible.

For some of the participants, the activism is personal. Several students from Earlham College are fighting back against the local Richmond pharmacy and the pharmacist who won’t fill contraception prescriptions for unmarried women.
“That’s nothing compared to some of the stories we hear,” says Jordan Fitzgerald, field manager for the Responsible Choices campaign.

Fitzgerald, based in Washington, D.C., travels all over the country “training grass-roots activists how to fight back against opponents of a woman’s right to reproductive choices.”

For all of the participants, the activism is particularly relevant given the large number of anti-abortion bills introduced this legislative session.
In addition to Senate Bill 48 that allows pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for moral reasons, numerous other bills aimed at restricting reproductive health care and intimidating women seeking abortions have been introduced.

Currently, only one of the anti-abortion pieces of legislation appears viable for passage this session. Senate Bill 76 requires abortion providers to offer an ultrasound so the mother can hear the heartbeat of a fetus before an abortion, and House Bill 1675 requires abortion providers to inform a woman that anesthesia is available for the fetus during the abortion procedure. The combined bills are expected by many to pass as one.

But supporters of reproductive rights and health care feel no sense of security or relief that the other bills have stalled.

“The governor has said he will try and eliminate all optional coverage under Medicaid. Meanwhile, at the federal level, there is a proposal to define birth control as optional coverage. If that happens, 60 percent of our clients would be affected,” said Planned Parenthood’s Jennifer Jorczak.

In another turn, Attorney General Steve Carter’s office has demanded that Planned Parenthood turn over the confidential patient records for nearly 100 women at over 20 clinics throughout the state.

In early March, an agent of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit of the office of the Indiana attorney general entered Planned Parenthood health centers in Bloomington, Franklin and Lafayette and demanded medical information for specific clients who had received reproductive health services. Records for eight patients were turned over to the agent.

Last week the director of the Indiana Medicaid Fraud Control Unit informed Planned Parenthood the Attorney General’s Office was requesting an additional 73 records from 19 additional clinics. According to Planned Parenthood CEO Betty Cockrum, no explanation has been provided for the basis of the records seizure.

The Indiana Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court on Monday on behalf of Planned Parenthood to block the attorney general’s seizure of confidential medical records.

“The Fraud Control Unit’s searches and seizures appear to be beyond its statutory authorization, thus violating Indiana law,” says ICLU Legal Director Kenneth J. Falk.

“To the extent that the attorney general’s agents have exceeded these boundaries, they are engaging in searches and seizures which violate both the Fourth Amendment rights of Planned Parenthood and the privacy rights, protected by the 14th amendment, of Planned Parenthood’s patients.”

The ICLU has asked that the attorney general be prevented from seizing any more records from Planned Parenthood and return all copies and records it has obtained to date.

The case has been assigned to Superior Court Judge John Hanley, but no hearing has yet been scheduled.