The pro life group Americans United for Life is celebrating another victory in their fight to outlaw abortions. In a press release today, they applauded the Illinois Supreme Courts decision to allow pharmacists the right to challenge a rule preventing their ability to deny patients emergency contraception for religious, moral, or conscientious reasons.
The rule was originally forced upon the pharmacists and pharmacies by a 2005 emergency order of Governor Rod Blagojevich, who stated in no uncertain terms that pharmacists should either dispense the controversial drug or leave the profession. Two lower courts had previously ruled that the plaintiff-pharmacists and pharmacies did not have legal standing to challenge the rule.
This is dangerous ground. However, I think that the next step in the process is doomed to failure. There is no way a nutball fundie pro life pharmacist can be allowed to practice religion in place of dispensing medially prescribed treatments for what a reasonable person understands to be a harmless medical procedure. What next? A pharmacist withholding AIDS drugs over a belief that AIDS is God’s punishment for a sinful lifestyle, or refusing to dispense antibiotics to a young person with an STD because the act was immoral? We must push back. This is insane.
