A teenaged girl in New Mexico was refused a prescription because the pharmacist working at her local Walgreens cited personal beliefs. The medications in question included a pain-reliever, an anti-anxiety medication and Misoprostol, the generic name for a drug that is used to treat stomach ulcers, and also used to prep the cervix before an IUD is placed, especially in women that have never been pregnant. The combination is also colloquially known as “the abortion pill.”

The girl’s mother then contacted the ACLU and the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico and Southwest Women’s Law Center filed against the pharmacist for sex discrimination. If the girl had been a man, the prescription likely would have been filled because the drug is used to treat stomach ulcers.

Not that it’s any of anybody’s business but the teen in question, but her mother told a newspaper that the IUD was being placed to control severe period symptoms, a common reason for birth control prescriptions in women that may or may not be sexually active.

After receiving the news, the mother drove an hour in traffic to another Walgreen’s to get the prescription filled but became increasingly upset about the incident. She eventually returned to the original Walgreen’s to confront the pharmacist who told her that he had refused to fill it on personal beliefs because he had “a pretty good idea” what the use was for.

It’s not the first such case that has made headlines in New Mexico. In 2012, a married woman in her 30s made the news when she sued a pharmacist for refusing to fill her birth control prescription. Now, the women are commiserating over the fact that progress has yet to be made.

Walgreen’s officials are said to be working on the issue to educate their staff on how to handle similar issues in the future.

In the meantime, until pharmacists move out of the Dark Ages, the ACLU can be found at https://www.aclu.org.

_{[Image via Shutterstock]}