A Michigan woman said she was denied a medication for her miscarriage by a pharmacist at a supermarket who refused to fill the prescription because of his religious beliefs, then declined to help her obtain the drug elsewhere.
The woman, Rachel Peterson, 35, of Ionia, Mich., became pregnant earlier this year, but an ultrasound at the end of June revealed that the fetus no longer had a heartbeat. She and her husband headed to a family member’s home in northern Michigan, more than three hours away, to decompress.
Her doctor prescribed her misoprostol, a drug that would make the miscarriage process happen faster and could help her avoid an invasive surgical procedure.
She explained to the pharmacist, whom she identified as Richard Kalkman, that her fetus was no longer viable and that she needed the medication to complete the miscarriage safely.
But “he didn’t believe me,” Ms. Peterson said, and told her that he “couldn’t support an abortion.”
He also refused her requests to speak to another pharmacist or to the manager, she said.
She reported the episode to a Meijer manager, and received a call from a regional director at the company, who said the company would be investigating.
But nobody from corporate contacted her, she said, so she approached the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a complaint on Tuesday.
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