ACLU, Planned Parenthood concerned about Walgreens clinics in Catholic hospitals

December 18, 2015

Nineteen organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington and Planned Parenthood Votes Northwest & Hawaii, have expressed concern about Walgreens’ plans to form a “strategic clinical collaboration” with Providence Health & Services, a Catholic health care organization.

Referring to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, the organizations said in a December 14 letter to the drug retailing chain that “these directives forbid or severely restrict critical reproductive and end-oflife [sic] health care services at Catholic health facilities, including contraception, abortions, fertility treatments, vasectomies, tubal ligations, aid in dying, and advance directives that are contrary to Catholic teachings.”

“Will Walgreens’s pharmacies that house these clinics continue to fill prescriptions for birth control, and emergency contraception?” the organizations said in their letter. “What end-of-life health services will be available at the clinics? … Will a transgender man or woman be able to receive a prescription for hormone therapy at one of these clinics, and have that prescription filled at Walgreens?”

 

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Further information:

• Walgreens and Providence Health & Services form strategic clinical collaboration to improve and coordinate patient care (Walgreens)
• Letter from Concerned Advocates to Walgreens (American Civil Liberties Union of Washington)
• Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (USCCB)