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A Win For Sound Medical Ethics

Sometimes when I read a news item, it strikes me that I should have been sitting down because the impact of what I am reading could have landed me on the floor. Such was the case when my good friend Bo Kuhar of Pharmacists for Life sent me a news report entitled “Judge: Washington pharmacists don’t have to sell Plan B.”

This is, without a doubt, a tremendous victory for a pharmacist’s right of conscience, and I hope it sets the stage for many more reports of a similar nature throughout this nation.

U.S. District Judge Ronald Leighton’s ruling is a defeat not only for the pro-abortion governor Chris Gregoire, but a serious setback for the culture of death. The case came about because two druggists and an Olympia, Washington pharmacy challenged a state Pharmacy Board rule that did not permit pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for the pill even though they felt that in good conscience their filling of a prescription for Plan B would be tantamount to providing a chemical abortion.

The judge listened to the testimony. It is reported that, “he sensed that wrangling over the issue is driven by bitterness between the two sides, and not by desire for good health care policy.” He subsequently denied the state’s request to hold up the case.

Now let’s get to the deception in this news report, which forced me to sit down and write this blog. First of all, the news report states, “Critics consider the pill [Plan B] tantamount to abortion, although it is different from the abortion pill RU-486 and has no effect on women who already are pregnant.”

WHOA!  The instant the embryo exists within his mother’s body, that woman is pregnant. She is not pregnant a week later, after the preborn child implants, which is precisely what the above sentence is suggesting. In fact, the pill in question DOES affect a mother who is already pregnant but whose preborn child has not yet implanted. The pill in question can thin the lining of the womb and thus make it impossible for the preborn child to implant, which means the child dies. That is abortion, regardless of what the media spinmeisters tell us.

The second problem with the news report is that they are equating the possibility of pregnancy and the chemical concoctions that can “prevent” pregnancy as somehow equal to health care. What this suggests to the average reader is quite simply that pregnancy is a disease and pills such as Plan B are a proven treatment for the “condition” of pregnancy. This might sound ridiculous to you, but the average person would perhaps not even be troubled by such suggestions.

I am elated for pharmacists in Washington State who choose to act on their well-informed conscience and their clinical understanding that a pregnancy begins at the when a preborn child is first formed and are therefore unwilling to be a party to chemical murder.  I am proud of their ability to defend the correct position, which is that good professional practice and sound ethical standards should be exactly the same and should be based on natural law rather than the culture of death tenets that are always deadly for the preborn child.

Oh yes, and one final item of interest in this news report: It seems that Governor Gregoire, a liberal politician, actually put pressure on the Pharmacy Board. She allegedly warned the members of that Board that she would replace any member who did not follow her wishes.

My, oh my, how interesting! It seems that some view democracy as a nine-letter word for dictatorship!