Senators Tester & Walsh Take Action (Again) In Light Of U.S. Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby Decision

You may remember two weeks ago when Senators Tester and Walsh introduced the Protect Women's Health from Corporate Interference Act to prevent employers from making healthcare decisions for their employees, but a minority of Senators blocked the bill.

Now Tester and Walsh are backing legislation, the Access to Birth Control Act, that would prevent pharmacies from discriminating against Montana women by denying them the sale of contraceptives.  The Senators point to independent research by the Institute of Medicine that found access to contraceptive care is an important piece of women’s overall preventive health care.

Senator Tester:

“Making sure women have access to the care they need is always important, but especially in the wake of the Hobby Lobby decision,” Tester said.  “The choice about contraceptives should be left up to a woman and her doctor.  This bill keeps pharmacists from controlling a woman’s private decision and increases her access to care.”

Senator Walsh:

“Individuals deserve to make their own healthcare decisions and not be compelled to make different choices simply due to where they live,” Walsh said.  “Allowing women access to the best contraceptive choice a woman and her doctor have decided on is an essential part of ensuring women have complete access to preventive healthcare options.”

Tester and Walsh’s bill also prevents pharmacy employees from intimidating, threatening or deceiving a customer to keep them from receiving contraception.

Under the bill, pharmacies that do not carry contraception will not be required to do so, but those who do carry it must provide it to all customers with the required prescription from their doctors, without discrimination.  A pharmacy employee may still refuse to provide a contraceptive if the customer does not have a prescription.

With the Hobby Lobby decision, the Supreme Court found that corporations can hold religious-based objections to providing insurance coverage for certain medical care, such as contraceptives.