Unfortunately that is not currently a hypothetical question. KEPR-TV reported on Wednesday that a Federal Judge will consider if Washington state can require pharmacies to stock and sell Plan B or other emergency contraceptives, even in the face of religious objections by druggists who believe they destroy human life.
The article reports:
U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton heard closing arguments Wednesday in a lawsuit that claims state rules violate the constitutional rights of pharmacists by requiring them to dispense such medicine. The state requires them to dispense any medication for which there is a community need and to stock a representative assortment of drugs needed by their patients.
When did emergency contraception (read ‘morning-after pill’) become a community need?
The article further reports:
The pharmacists argued they can easily and quickly refer customers to nearby pharmacies willing to sell the drug. Individual pharmacists are allowed to pass a prescription to another druggist in the same store, provided the patient’s order was filled without delay. But that leaves no option for a lone pharmacist, or for the owner of a pharmacy who also has religious objections to a particular drug.
The pharmacists “can violate their core religious beliefs and participate in the taking of a human life, or they can lose their license,” lawyer Kristen Waggoner said during her closing argument.
Before you decide this case has nothing to do with you for various reasons, let’s walk down the road a bit and see where it goes. Every person has a slightly different conscience. That is because we are all different and have different life experiences. However, when we begin to violate other peoples’ consciences because we share a different belief, we lose some of the reins that keep society from spinning out of control. I am sure that there were people in Germany who were offended when the government began killing the disabled and the infirm. I am sure their feelings were ignored. By the time Hitler got around to killing the Jews, the idea of a conscience was erased. There were too few people left with an idea that something was wrong to stop what was going on. Do we want to go there? Violating a person’s conscience and claiming it is part of the law is a very dangerous thing for a society to do.
“… requiring them to dispense such medicine.”
That’s a stretch of the word “medicine”.
“But that leaves no option for a lone pharmacist, or for the owner of a pharmacy who also has religious objections to a particular drug.”
Does the opinion say they have to stock the drugs? They can’t sell ’em if they don’t have ’em.
But this issue is bigger than just Washington. The Obama Administration wants to require EVERY care provider to provide contraception and abortion on demand:
http://www.louisville.com/content/louisville-catholics-fighting-obama%E2%80%99s-abortion-mandate-opinion-arena
“It seems that the Obama administration’s Cabinet for Health and Human Services has issued a rule—pursuant to the Obamacare law—forcing nearly all private health plans to include coverage for all FDA-approved prescription contraceptive drugs and devices, as well as surgical sterilization.”