A pharmacist at a Walgreens in Peoria, Arizona, allegedly refused to distribute abortion pills to a woman who had come in to pick up her prescription, citing “ethical” reasons that prevented him from providing the medication in good faith.
Nicole Mone Arteaga alleges that pharmacist Brian Hreniuc refused to give her the medication and made her share her story in front of the line that had assembled behind her, Newsweek reported Sunday.
“I stood at the mercy of this pharmacist explaining my situation in front of my 7-year-old, and five customers standing behind,” Arteaga wrote in a Friday Facebook post.
After Arteaga discovered she was pregnant, her doctor closely monitored the first few months of her pregnancy because she previously miscarried, according to Newsweek.
“Unfortunately on Tuesday we found out the baby’s development had stopped and I ultimately will have a miscarriage,” Arteaga wrote on Facebook.
“[The doctor] gave me two options: D&C or prescription medication,” Arteaga also wrote, referring to the option to have a dilation and evacuation abortion or to evacuate the unborn baby via abortion-inducing drugs. “I opted for prescription.”
“He has no idea what its like to want nothing more than to carry a child to full term and be unable to do so,” Arteaga also wrote on Facebook. “I left Walgreens in tears, ashamed and feeling humiliated by a man who knows nothing of my struggles but feels it is his right to deny medication prescribed to me by my doctor.” (RELATED: Arkansas Effectively Banned Pill-Induced Abortions, And The Supremes Won’t Stop It)
Pharmacists can “step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection,” according to a statement from Walgreens, Newsweek reported. In this case, the pharmacist must refer the prescription to another pharmacist or manager who can meet the customer’s needs.
Arteaga updated her post on Saturday, indicating that Hreniuc “ultimately had it transferred to another location that had it in stock after I had left upset.” Arteaga picked up the medication from that location with no problem.
Walgreens also said it “reached out to the patient and apologised for how the situation was handled.”
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