Last week, we filed an amicus curiae brief in the case of Morr-Fitz v. Blagojevich, now pending before the Illinois Supreme Court. The case involves a challenge by two pharmacists and three pharmacy companies to an Illinois regulation that requires pharmacies to assure seamless access to contraception when an individual pharmacist refuses to fill a contraceptive prescription. The Illinois regulation - adopted after several women faced undue delay and harassment in trying to fill prescriptions for contraception - simply makes clear that the pharmacy must provide some efficient procedure to allow such prescriptions to be filled, even when one pharmacist objects.

The plaintiffs in this case have argued to the Supreme Court that the Illinois rule is invalid, because it violates their rights as protected by the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act. We believe, and argue in our brief, that this is an overly broad reading of this law, and that the Health Care Right of Conscience Act must be balanced against the fundamental right of women to contraception.

A copy of the brief available for you to download from our website at http://www.aclu-il.org/legal/courtdocuments/morrfitz.pdf. If you would like to watch a short video describing our position, you can watch at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JKTG4ArkY.