Pharmacies that keep their condoms in locked cases cite shoplifting as the main rationale for the safe-sex lock-up. When shoppers are ashamed to buy sex-related items, the theory goes, they’re more likely to steal them—instead of sheepishly carrying them to the counter. But condom shame could hold a hidden benefit for pharmacies as well: When customers do buy condoms, they’re more likely to impulse-buy other items, as well.

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In the District, Pharmacists: Rubber. Women: Glue.

For most professionals, an acceptable excuse is required to miss work: a swollen appendix, ailing grandmother, whiplash, at the very least.

Pharmacists, on the other hand, may refuse to do their jobs for any old reason—or for none at all. We’re talking about birth control, of course. In the District, for example, pharmacists are not required to provide such products, especially if their “personal views” won’t allow it. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, only six states bar pharmacists from withholding birth control prescriptions/doing their jobs: California, Illinois, Maine, Nevada, New Jersey, and Washington.

That means that D.C. is a hotbed of the ultimate bullshit defense for denying health care to women. Pharmacists here can refuse to provide women’s health care based on such “personal views” as latent sexism, unsubstantiated medical opinion, or whim. Some other “personal views” local pharmacies have offered up:

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