this is disgusting. via scarleteen
But of the pharmacies who said they had emergency contraception available that day, 19 percent said the 17-year-old caller could not buy the emergency contraception under any circumstances. The pharmacies who responded this way usually hung up the phone quickly.
“We were really surprised that so many pharmacies actually ended the conversation at that point,” said study researcher Dr. Tracey Wilkinson, a pediatrician at Boston Medical Center.
The misinformation was more common in poor neighborhoods: 23.7 percent of pharmacies in low-income neighborhoods said the teenage caller could not obtain emergency contraception at all, compared with 14.6 percent in other neighborhoods.
In addition, just under half (44 percent) of pharmacies surveyed gave the incorrect age at which a teenager can obtain emergency contraception without a prescription. Most who got it wrong said a person needed to be older than 17 to obtain emergency contraception. In low-income neighborhoods, about 50 percent of pharmacies gave the incorrect age, compared to about 37 percent in other neighborhoods.
The findings suggest that access to emergency contraception is particularly difficult for young women living in low-income areas — areas that also have higher rates of teen pregnancy, Wilkinson said.
