Source: TikTok/@abigailmartiin; Photo: Getty Images/patty_c
Walgreens associates have made the news in recent weeks for refusing to sell over-the-counter and prescription contraceptives to customers based on their religious objections.
A woman visiting a Walgreens in Wisconsin while on vacation with her husband went to the store to purchase some products, including a box of condoms. The associate working the register said he would ring up all her items except for the condoms because doing so would conflict with his faith.
The customer, Jessica Pentz, the Star Tribune reports, “stared in shock at a middle-age stranger who was telling her his personal opinions trumped her constitutional rights.”
The associate called a manager over to complete the transaction while “walking away with a smirk” over the exchange.
Walgreens’ policy for such matters confirms that the worker was within his rights in refusing to complete the transaction and that he followed proper protocol (sans the departing smirk) in handing off the transaction to a coworker.
“Our company policy allows team members to step away from completing a transaction to which they have a moral objection and refer the transaction to a fellow team member or manager who will complete the customer's request," a Walgreens spokesperson told the Star Tribune.
Another recent Walgreens incident, this time involving a young woman seeking to refill a prescription for birth control pills, may have violated the chain’s policy.
A young woman named Abigail Martin went on TikTok to explain that she has been taking oral contraceptives for six years and was due for one of the four remaining refills on her prescription.
She described the encounter.
“When I told her what I was there for, my birth control, she looks me up and down and goes, ‘Okay, excuse me.’ She then says, ‘Yeah, we're not going to refill that prescription. You need to call your provider’ and I said, You won't refill it or you can't refill it. And she goes, ‘you just need to call your provider.’”
Ms. Martin called her provider who reconfirmed the prescription with Walgreens.
Ms. Martin called the pharmacy and spoke to a woman who said her prescription would be filled before confirming the denial of service for female contraceptives had become a problem at the store in recent weeks.
“So first, they want us to stop getting pregnant and having abortions,” Ms. Martin said, “and then they don't want to help us prevent that pregnancy.”