(FOX 9) – In a case that will be closely followed nationwide, a lawsuit began Monday in a lawsuit filed by a woman from a small town in central Minnesota against two pharmacies for refusing to fill her 2019 emergency contraception prescription.
The lawsuit, filed on the woman’s behalf in December 2019 by attorneys working with the St. Paul-based advocacy group Gender Justice, alleges the pharmacies violated the provisions of the Minnesota Human Rights Act against discrimination. It is seeking a court order prohibiting pharmacists in Minnesota from refusing to fill emergency contraception prescriptions, as well as monetary compensation and damages.
What the lawsuit claims
According to the complaint, Andrea Anderson, a mother of five and a licensed foster parent, received a prescription from her doctor for Ella, a “morning after pill” form of emergency contraceptive medication, on Jan. 20, 2019, after her partner’s condom failed.
The couple lived for several years in McGregor, Minnesota, a small town in Aitkin County with a population of approximately 392 at the time. The town had only one pharmacy, Thrifty White, where Anderson’s doctor sent the prescription.
However, when Anderson called the pharmacy to make sure the medication would be covered by her insurance, she was called back by the pharmacist on duty, George Badeaux, who told her he was unable to fill the prescription due to his “beliefs.” according to the complaint.
Badeaux is also said to have told Anderson not to go to another pharmacy in the area and that another pharmacist who worked at Thrifty White might be able to help her if he started his shift later that day. — but that was a blizzard coming, and that pharmacist might not be able to work, the complaint says.
Anderson, who tried to act quickly because “any delay in getting the medication increased the risk of pregnancy,” then called a CVS pharmacy in Aitkin, Minnesota. A female pharmacist there told Anderson that according to the complaint, she would not be able to fill the prescription.
The complaint says the CVS pharmacies further told Anderson that the Walgreens in Brainerd would not be able to provide the prescription either, but when Anderson later called those Walgreens directly, she got a different story.
According to the complaint, the pharmacist at the Walgreens in Brainerd told Anderson that she had told the pharmacist in Aitkin that she could fill in Anderson’s prescription. The Walgreens pharmacist also told Anderson that she could have the medication shipped to the store the next day, but the impending snow storm could cause delays.
The complaint says Anderson was eventually able to find a pharmacy to fill the prescription, but it was 50 miles from her home. By this time, a “huge blizzard” had begun to hit central Minnesota, and it took Anderson more than three hours to drive the 100-mile roundabout, which was about an hour longer than it normally would have taken.
The complaint says the pharmacies — the Thrifty White and the CVS in Aitkin — and their employees violated Minnesota’s anti-discrimination statutes because they “need only health care that might become pregnant — emergency contraception — and refused to provide it.”
It also alleges that the defendant tried to prevent Anderson from “taking care of others by placing delays and obstacles in her path, not offering her a reasonable alternative, and in one instance apparently misleading her about where to get care.”
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