POLITICS - Looks Like a Duck, Quacks Like a Duck

"Pharmacists shouldn't dispense an anti-abortion agenda" by Lynne Varner, The Seattle Times

A colleague once told me that President Bush would be stupid to pursue an anti-choice agenda when most of the country supports abortion rights. Since then, Bush appointed two people hostile to abortion rights to the U.S. Supreme Court. The move emboldened South Dakota to institute the most-restrictive abortion law since Roe v. Wade stopped states from doing just that. A cousin to the South Dakota law is moving through the Mississippi Legislature.

Wars are best fought on many levels, employing many strategies.

Seventeen other states are considering "conscience clauses." Pharmacy boards in Wyoming, Nevada, North Carolina and Massachusetts did the right thing and told pharmacists they deserved no such rights.

I agree. Call me a cynic, but I'm presuming pharmacists aren't conflicted over dispensing, say Viagra. This issue looks, smells and quacks like a politically motivated debate over emergency contraception, also known as Plan B. Peel back a few more layers of the onion and catch a whiff of the lingering fumes from RU486, the controversial pill designed to end unwanted pregnancies. It ought not be confused with Plan B, which prevents fertilization of an egg and prevents conception.

"The abortion issue is a cover for a fundamentalist anti-contraception and anti-sex movement," argues Cristina Page, author of the aptly named tome, "How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America."

Pharmacists cannot be allowed to wiggle out of their professional responsibilities. My hunch is most probably don't want to. I'm thinking there are more conscientious objector bills floating around state Houses than pharmacists who want to object. This is less about morals and more about politics.

This is not really "more" about politics, it is all politics. This is the imposition of the beliefs of the Christian Right on all Americans using the law-of-the-land. This is a direct assault on our personal freedom. Don't agree with the Christian Right's view, well, they want to make you a criminal.

The Christian Right = Puritanical view; want to have sex you must accept having children, don't want children you must stop having sex. In other words, the Puritanical view of sex is, it is to be engaged in only to have children.