The Illinois House shortly will consider a bill that denies critical health care options to women in the State of Illinois. House Bill 4346 allows pharmacists to substitute their religious and moral beliefs for a course of action prescribed by a woman's physician. The legislation, if adopted, would let a pharmacy or pharmacist refuse to fill a valid prescription of emergency contraception.

Please call your state representative and urge him/her to oppose House Bill 4346 when the Illinois House votes on the legislation! Call the Capitol Switchboard at (217) 782-2000 and ask to be connected to your state representative.

House Bill 4346 unnecessarily permits a pharmacist to interfere with a patient's rights, and substitutes the pharmacist's judgment for individual health care needs determined by a woman's physician. Worse yet, House Bill 4346 contains no exception for women who are the victims of rape or incest. For these women, access to emergency contraception is critical to avoid pregnancy as a result of the assault. Sadly, this effort to limit women's health care is built on a fundamental mischaracterization of emergency contraction. It is NOT abortion. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved emergency contraception as a method of preventing pregnancy. Emergency contraception is simply a high dose of the same medication founding in birth control pills. It has not effect on an already-existing pregnancy and is NOT an abortafacient.

You can read more about House Bill 4346 at http://www.aclu-il.org/legislative/alerts/hb4346.pdf.

If you are not certain about who represents your State Representative district, you can look up your State Representative at http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/SelectSearchType.aspx?NavLink=1.