When Nicole Arteaga was told by her doctor that her baby had stopped growing and didn't have a heartbeat, she was devastated.
The 35-year-old school teacher from Arizona was given a prescription for misoprostol to end her 9-week pregnancy.
But the trauma of suffering a miscarriage was about to get worse. A Walgreens pharmacist refused to fill her prescription.
His reason? Ethics?
"He has no idea what its like to want nothing more than to carry a child to full term and be unable to do so. If you have gone thru a miscarriage you know the pain and emotional roller it can be," Arteaga told BuzzFeed News.
"I left Walgreens in tears, ashamed and feeling humiliated by a man who knows nothing of my struggles but feels it is his right to deny medication prescribed to me by my doctor."
She then took to Facebook and described the ordeal in a heart-wrenching post. She posted a message on Facebook, along with a photograph of the pharmacist's business card. By the weekend, the post was shared more than 14 000 times.
In a statement to BuzzFeed News, a Walgreens spokesperson confirmed that company policy "allows pharmacists to step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection."