In summer 2002, a woman filed a complaint against Madison pharmacist Neil Noesen for refusing to fill or transfer her birth control prescription.

According to Matt Sande, director of legislative affairs for Pro-Life Wisconsin, Noesen refused to fill the order because he is morally opposed to the use of such drugs. The woman who brought forth the suit was an undergraduate student at the University of Wisconsin-Stout, said Sande, who attended Noesen's court hearings.

Lisa Boyce, vice president for public affairs at Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, is worried such instances could be a growing movement among pharmacists.

"We see this as a disturbing trend that can really have dire ramifications on women's health and lives," she said. Women have a right to receive medication prescribed to them, she said.

However, Sande said the rights of pharmacists to express their own personal beliefs must also be considered.

"In the Noesen case, refusing to dispense the prescription was an exercise of his freedom of religion, and should be protected under the First Amendment," Sande said.

He said Pro-Life Wisconsin is pushing the Pharmacist Conscious Clause, a bill introduced to Wisconsin legislature in 2003 that would help ensure pharmacists' rights to refuse prescriptions they are morally opposed to.

"Right now there are no clear protections under Wisconsin law," Sande said.

While there are not clear-cut laws, there are guidelines pharmacists usually follow, according to Susan Winckler, vice president of policy and communication for the American Pharmacists Association.

"The APhA's policy is that pharmacists should be able to step away from prescriptions but not obstruct the patient from obtaining them," Winckler said.

Michael Polzin, a spokesman for Walgreens, said if a pharmacist does refuse to fill a prescription, he or she has an obligation to refer the patient to someone else who will fill it.

"That way we're able to respect the pharmacist's beliefs while at the same time aiding the patient," he said.

Some groups argue pharmacists should not be able to refuse filling prescriptions even if a referral is offered.

"Any pharmacist who denies a woman medication prescribed to her violates a code of conduct to do no harm to the patient," Boyce said.

Boyce stressed that pharmacists who refuse to fill birth control prescriptions are putting women at risk when they are trying to be responsible about their sexuality.

"Their job is not to pass judgment on an individual," she said.

Jeffrey Fox, a pharmacist at Walgreens, 1600 W. Wisconsin Ave., said pharmacists who do refuse to fill certain prescriptions can avoid trouble if they are upfront about their beliefs and refer the patient somewhere else quickly.

"What you definitely don't want is the pharmacist preaching to the patient," Fox said. "Just say I'm sorry, I'm not comfortable filling this."

Boyce said the discomfort of a pharmacist is not relative to providing a woman with proper health care.

She added that many women take birth control pills for reasons other than preventing pregnancy, including to regulate menstrual cycles and cramping and to control acne.

"The pharmacist really doesn't have the right to ask for a justification of why someone is taking medication," she said.

Kelly Kummerow, a sophomore in the College of Communication, has been taking birth control pills for five years to regulate her menstral cycle and has never had a pharmacist refuse to fill her prescription.

"If I was denied, it would really be a problem," she said. Without her medication, Kummerow said, she would suffer extreme discomfort.

Sande pointed out that a pharmacist refusing to dispense birth control pills is not much different than a physician refusing to perform an abortion.

"Right now in Wisconsin, there are conscious rights protections surrounding abortion procedures for surgeons and physicians," Sande said. He said pharmacists deserve the same protections.

While having a prescription order refused is a possibility, Polzin stressed that patients should not be worried about obtaining a prescription.

"There have been a couple of instances," he said. "But it's really very rare that this even comes up."