Imagine going to the grocery store to buy bacon, and having the checker tell you, "Oh, pork products are against my religion, so I can't sell you that."
Or imagine going to the drug store for your blood pressure or diabetes medicine, and being told, "According to my religion, you should be curing that yourself with the power of your mind, so I'm not going to sell that to you."
Now, Senator Russ Fulcher is working on a bill with a faith-based organization to allow pharmacists to make just that sort of religious-based determination on emergency contraception.
Emergency contraception uses the same chemical that's in birth-control pills, but at a higher dose. Used within five days of a sexual act -- including rape or a condom failure -- it can help keep a woman from getting pregnant. It was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for over-the-counter sales in 2006.
According to the Idaho Statesman, Fulcher is working with Idaho Chooses Life, an anti-abortion religious organization that, deliberately or because it doesn't know any better, considers emergency contraception to be the same thing as an RU-486 chemical abortion (which is administered up to seven weeks into a pregnancy). Fulcher said in the Statesman the idea would need to be run by the state attorney general's office to make sure it wouldn't violate state or federal laws before it can be brought before the Legislature. He did not say whether he would include a provision requiring the pharmacy to have someone else who could provide the person's medicine.
Such a bill would bring a particular religious belief into the lives of everyday Idahoans, interfere with a person's medical decisions about themselves and their families, and create a slippery slope. Should a pharmacist be able to refuse to sell someone insulin because they should pray to be healed? Should a grocery store clerk refuse to sell Nicoderm because according to their religion, you shouldn't be smoking or chewing anyway?
In short, such a bill would let a pharmacy allow its staff members to decide for themselves which medicine you deserve to get.
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So under this bill, could a pharmacist decide to give the medication to one person and not another? Could they choose to dispense it to those they consider "worthy" but not to others? Either way it's a ridiculous provision that would increase the number of abortions in Idaho, so I don't quite understand why it would be promoted by an anti-choice organization that claims it is trying to reduce abortions.
ReplyDeleteYes, I've never understood why people who claimed to be against abortion were also against sex education and birth control, each of which reduce the number of abortions.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, the bacon example in the first paragraph actually happened, though the checkers reportedly had the customer scan the bacon themselves or had another checker do it -- they were conscientious enough not to keep the customer from buying what they wanted.