Women just can’t seem to catch a break! After the disappointing Supreme Court decision of overturning Roe v. Wade and making abortions less accessible, women's ability to make decisions about their bodies are continuously being taken away. It seems that pharmacists are taking it on themselves to determine whether a woman can have her prescribed birth control or not.
The issue came up when TikToker Abigail Martin shared that she went to Walgreens to pick up her birth control refill as it ran out, but the employee there refused to give them to her. The reason for that may be that she had conservative views and decided to abuse her position of power, leaving the woman without her pills for two weeks.
More info: TikTok
This woman came to TikTok to rant about a pharmacist who she thought purposefully didn't refill her birth control prescription
Image credits: abigailmartiin
Abigail Martin, who you can find on TikTok under the username abigailmartiin, is a digital creator who spends her days traveling in a van with her doggo Archie, enjoys skydiving and shares snippets of her adventures with 878K followers on her TikTok and 105K followers on Instagram.
While usually her content is all about adventures, travel and seizing the moment, one of her recent videos touches on some serious topics. They went quite viral, reaching over 2 million views and stirred up a storm in the comments as people were exasperated with the injustice the woman had to deal with.
Abigail has been taking the pills since she was 15 and recently it was again time for them to be refilled
Image credits: abigailmartiin
What happened was that Abigail got a reminder that she needs to refill her birth control pills. The woman has been taking them since she was 15 years old and revealed that it had quite a few side effects but she didn’t get into detail because probably she still considers the medication worth tolerating the inconveniences she might experience.
The traveler waits a couple days and asks for the refill but the pharmacist tells her there are none left which is weird because she was certain she was prescribed them. The refill request is usually done over text and is a simple process but because Abigail was confused, she tries calling Walgreens and eventually went there to figure out what was happening.
Image credits: abigailmartiin
The pharmacist tells her she doesn't have any refills left which shouldn't have been the case as she had already contacted her provider this year
Image credits: abigailmartiin
Turns out, the only pharmacist working there that day was an older lady. So the TikToker went up to her and the lady tells Abigail she needs to call her provider. The woman is confused as she usually calls them once a year and she already did that this year.
Abigail’s suspicion was that the older lady was quite a religious Catholic as she was wearing two crosses on her neck and was worried that her views might have caused her not getting her pills on time, so she asks her whether the problem is that she can’t refill her medication or that she just doesn’t want to do that.
Image credits: abigailmartiin
To find out what's the problem, Abigail needs to go to the pharmacy and is met by an older lady who looks to be a devout Christian
Image credits: abigailmartiin
The lady doesn’t answer the question and repeats to Abigail that she needs to call her provider. There is nothing left for that woman to do and when she finally gets in touch with her doctor’s assistant, he says that this shouldn’t have happened as she has four more refills left.
Abigail’s provider calls Walgreens to assure them the TikToker can take her prescription. The woman has been waiting for 5 days at this point which means she hadn’t taken the pills. It is unclear for what reason Abigail was taking them in the first place but suddenly stopping can cause irregular, longer and heavier periods, cramps, bloating, nausea, acne, weight gain and make you feel more irritable and moody. Not to mention, a bigger risk of getting pregnant and other more serious consequences, depending on why the pills were prescribed.
After waiting all this time and suffering hormones being all over the place, Abigail gets a message that her pills are delayed, then another one saying they are out of stock.
Image credits: abigailmartiin
Luckily, Abigail manages to get ahold of another employee when she calls Walgreens and this one promises to refill the pills reassuring Abigail that there were no problems with her provider and her prescription.
The intriguing part is that the employee asks Abigail who she was talking to the last time and reveals that she knows that person. Furthermore, the pharmacist believed that because of that older lady with two crosses on her chest, women haven’t been getting their medication for two weeks.
She doesn't refill the prescription and tells the woman to call her provider
Image credits: abigailmartiin
Abigail points out a very ironic and contradicting view that people who live by more ‘traditional’ ideology not only don’t allow women to have abortions but at the same time won’t help to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Also, it must be said that birth control has a misleading name because the medication has more purposes. WebMD lists a couple of more benefits that birth control pills provide: they make periods less painful and more regular, lowering the chance to get menstrual-related migraines or getting anemia due to heavy bleeding, it controls acne breakouts and PMS symptoms, it may keep ovarian cysts from coming back, helps with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) and even lowers the risk of getting ovarian cancer.
When Abigail talks with her doctor's assistant, she finds out her prescription is fine and there is no reason why it shouldn't be refilled
Image credits: abigailmartiin
Image credits: abigailmartiin
It’s frustrating that a person working in the healthcare field would withhold medication from a patient who was provided a prescription because you never know what consequences it could have. But if they are so concerned about a patient not needing something, you would expect that they would at least try to find out more instead of just refusing to give the pills.
If you are still worried about Abigail, fortunately, in an update video she shows she got her medication, but is not looking forward to the nausea she will experience because she was off the pill for two weeks.
The doctor contacts the pharmacy and Abigail then got a string of messages listing reasons why she can't get her birth control right away
Image credits: abigailmartiin
In a video update, she shared that she went to Walgreens and actually asked the person in charge about the other lady. The head pharmacist didn’t say anything certain, just that the situation “has been dealt with” and there was no reason to file any complaints.
The woman is still considering contacting someone because this incident was completely unacceptable and what is even worse, she found out that there were many more women who experienced the same thing after reading the comments left on the first video.
Fortunately, the woman contacted another pharmacist who refilled the prescription and revealed that the old lady has been causing similar problems for 2 weeks
Image credits: abigailmartiin
Sadly, Abigail’s experience is quite common. Guttmacher Institute published an article about pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception in 2005, so it is an ongoing issue. A 2012 article published by US News reports, “Pharmacists in at least 24 states have refused to sell birth control or emergency contraception to women. Some hospital emergency rooms refuse to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.”
Women are also being denied the removal of the uterus or are ‘advised’ to consult their husbands. In other cases, they have surgical procedures done without their consent, such as episiotomy, a surgical incision of the perineum which makes giving birth quicker but in most births is unnecessary.
Bored Panda has also done an article featuring women’s stories of when doctors completely disregarded their complaints. Eventually, it turned out that they weren’t complaining about anything, but they had to hop through hoops to get treatment and convince doctors they are actually sick, further proving the point of women's bodies being disrespected.
After two weeks, Abigail got her prescription which will mean she'll suffer some unpleasant side effects and she is overall disappointed that she was treated like that
Image credits: Women's eNews (not the actual photo)
You can watch Abigail telling her story in the video below
It certainly is infuriating and people in the comments were as angry as Abigail herself. They encouraged her to make an official complaint and were baffled by how unprofessional such behavior is.
Have you ever dealt with something similar? Do you think there is a way to fix the medical and political system and for women to become in control of their bodies? Do you think talking about it will make a change? Sound off your thoughts in the comments!
People in the comments were frustrated as well and wanted to convince the TikToker to file a complaint as it is a serious violation
