Bill Text: NJ S1014 | 2020-2021 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Requires retail pharmacies to stock and dispense emergency contraception.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 1-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2020-01-30 - Introduced in the Senate, Referred to Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee [S1014 Detail]
Download: New_Jersey-2020-S1014-Introduced.html
Sponsored by:
Senator LORETTA WEINBERG
District 37 (Bergen)
SYNOPSIS
Requires retail pharmacies to stock and dispense emergency contraception.
CURRENT VERSION OF TEXT
As introduced.
An Act concerning dispensing certain prescription drugs in pharmacies and supplementing P.L.2003, c.280 (C.45:14-40 et seq.) .
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. a. Each retail pharmacy in the State shall maintain a stock of over-the-counter emergency contraception, and shall sell or furnish over-the-counter emergency contraception to any person upon request.
b. As used in this section:
"Over-the-counter emergency contraception" means a contraceptive drug approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration as an over-the-counter drug that, when administered within the medically recommended time following unprotected sexual intercourse, prevents pregnancy.
"Retail pharmacy" means any place in the State where drugs are dispensed or patient care services are provided by a licensed pharmacist, but shall not include any pharmacy that limits the provision of pharmaceutical care services to a defined and exclusive group of patients and is not open for dispensing to the general patient population.
2. This act shall take effect on the 30th day after enactment.
STATEMENT
This bill requires retail pharmacies to stock over-the-counter emergency contraception and sell or furnish the emergency contraception to any person upon request.
Emergency contraception, also called postcoital contraception, is used to keep a woman from getting pregnant when she has had unprotected vaginal intercourse. "Unprotected" can mean that no method of birth control was used, a birth control method was used but did not work or the woman may have been abused or forced to have sex when she did not want to. Emergency contraception works by stopping the ovaries from releasing eggs that can be fertilized, stopping the egg from being fertilized by the sperm, or stopping a fertilized egg from attaching itself to the wall of the uterus. To be effective, emergency contraception must be taken within a certain time after the occurrence of unprotected vaginal intercourse. Depending on the product, this timeframe is generally three to five days.
