Angela Brabant isn’t asking for much. She just wants the most convenient, fastest way to get a refill on her contact lens prescription.

She turns to 1-800-CONTACTS and gets a refill within two to three days.

“It doesn’t cost a lot less, but it’s a lot more convenient,” the family and child ecology junior said. “You can do everything online, so they have a lot more selection than the average optometrist.”

Mail-order contact lens companies such as 1-800-CONTACTS are rallying against legislation supported by the state’s major eye care organizations, Michigan Optometric Association and Michigan Ophthalmological Society.

“The bills will allow consumer patients to have their prescription in their hand after a fitting,” Dr. Anne Nachazel, president of the ophthalmological society said. “The crux of the bill is that the provider has to assure that the lens is an appropriate fit and the correct prescription. It protects the provider and the patient.”

In the battle for control in the immensely profitable contact lens industry, the two opposing parties seem to have the same person in mind - the consumer.

“These bills will change the way optometrists and mail-order dispensers do business,” a spokeswoman for state Rep. Gilda Jacobs, D-Huntington Woods, said. Jacobs is sponsoring the first bill in a package of four that aims to give the customer more choice in contact lens purchases.

Kevin McCallum, a corporate spokesperson for 1-800-CONTACTS, said the company supports this type of legislation, but opposes the wording in these specific bills.

“What the bills call for is specifically pro-optometric and not pro-consumer,” McCallum said. “They do a better job of protecting ophthalmologists than the rights of patients.”

The first bill would amend a law that directs eye doctors to give patients the prescription for their glasses. It would “require an ophthalmologist or optometrist to release a contact lens prescription upon request to a patient.”

Wendy Johnson, a music education junior, was not offered her prescription when she first began wearing contact lenses.

“I used to get contacts directly from my eye doctor,” she said. “He never gave me a prescription or any choice about where to order the contacts.”

At school, Johnson needed a refill on her lenses and a check up.

“I had an eye appointment with a different doctor at Olin,” she said. “He gave me the prescription so that I could order from wherever I wanted.”

Dr. Sam Estes of Optometrists of Lansing supports the bills.

“Right now, the definition of a contact lens prescription is rather vague,” he said. “There have been too many occasions where a patient comes back to the eye doctor’s office wearing a lens they weren’t prescribed.”

Wearing lenses that don’t fit can cause eye infections and irritation problems. The main goal of the bills is to keep the patient safe, Estes said.

“If we have something in place to safeguard the patient and give them the peace of mind that this is the right lens for them, I think that’s the biggest thing from our standpoint,” he said.