we are so f'k'd, part 1 million & 1 (conservative estimate)

Pharmacies Balk on After-Sex Pill and Widen Fight

CHICAGO - As a fourth-generation pharmacist whose drugstore still sits on the courthouse square of his conservative small town downstate, State Senator Frank Watson knew exactly what side to take when Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich ordered pharmacies to fill prescriptions for women wanting the new "morning after" pill, even if it meant putting aside their employees' personal views.

"The governor is trying to make a decision that must be left to the pharmacy," said Senator Watson, whose family business, Watson's Drug Store in Greenville, Ill., does not stock the pill. "It's an infringement on a business decision and also on the pharmacist's right of conscience."

Senator Watson, the Republican leader of the Senate, and Governor Blagojevich, a Democrat, are the latest combatants in a growing battle over emergency contraception. In at least 23 states, legislators and other elected officials have passed laws or are considering measures in a debate that has attracted many of the same advocates and prompted much of the same intensity as the fight over abortion.

In some states, legislators are pushing laws that would explicitly grant pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense drugs related to contraception or abortion on moral grounds. Others want to require pharmacies to fill any legal prescription for birth control, much like Governor Blagojevich's emergency rule in Illinois, which requires pharmacies that stock the morning-after pill to dispense it without delay. And in some states, there are proposals or newly enacted laws to make the morning-after pill more accessible, by requiring hospitals to offer it to rape victims or allowing certain pharmacists to sell it without a prescription.

Some of the bills could become moot if the Food and Drug Administration approves the morning-after pill for over-the-counter sale by pharmacists, something advocates for women's reproductive rights and several Democratic senators have pressured the agency to do.

If over-the-counter sales are allowed, experts on the issue say, pharmacists who do not want to provide the pill on moral grounds could simply decide not to stock it, which current state laws already allow them to do. If a large drugstore chain decided to stock it, but an individual pharmacist in the chain objected, such a dispute might be governed by the employment agreements between the chain and the pharmacist.

But the bills may also lay the groundwork for pharmacists' actions regarding future controversial medications. And both sides in the debate may consider the publicity generated by any proposed legislation to be beneficial to their cause.

"This is going to be a huge national issue in the future," said Paul Caprio, director of Family-Pac, a conservative group that urged pharmacists in Illinois to ignore Governor Blagojevich's rule. "Pharmacists are coming forward saying that they want to exercise their rights of conscience."
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While a few doctors and pharmacists have for years declined to prescribe or sell birth control pills for religious reasons, the objections of some to the morning-after pill are more vehement because they consider it to be more akin to abortion.
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Abortion rights advocates and most physicians say the pill, unlike the French drug RU-486, is not an abortion drug because it does not destroy an embryo. Instead, the pill prevents ovulation or fertilization, or blocks a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in the uterus.
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"This is one of the safest medicines we have available, and it can prevent unplanned pregnancies," said Dr. Karen Lifford, the medical director of the Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts, who testified at a public hearing last week on a bill being considered by the Massachusetts legislature. "We're trying to reduce the number of pregnancies and abortions, and people of different religious views can agree that this is a good thing to do."

But many abortion opponents believe the morning-after pill ends a human life and is therefore tantamount to abortion.

"Emergency contraceptive pills can be abortifacient if they are taken after ovulation has occurred," Dr. Gertrude Murphy, a retired physician who worked at a Catholic hospital in Boston and is currently on the board of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, testified at the hearing. "An abortifacient is defined here as any medication or device that causes the death of the developing human after fertilization."

Around the country, in at least 12 states, including Indiana, Texas and Tennessee, so-called conscience clause bills have been introduced, which would allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives if they have moral or religious objections. Four states already have such laws applying specifically to pharmacists: Arkansas, South Dakota, Mississippi and Georgia.

Proposals in three states - California, Missouri and New Jersey - would have the opposite effect, compelling pharmacies to fill any legal prescription.
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"As far as being a health care professional, I don't think I should be injecting my moral values on other people," Rod Adams, a pharmacist at the Colorado Pharmacy in Denver, said in an interview last week. "Obviously a morning-after pill is a personal choice that someone has to make. They've already made that choice when they come in here, and I don't think - I'm not a counselor - I don't really think that's my job."

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What would happen if someone working at a convenience store refused to sell cigarettes or beer because they were morally opposed to them? They wouldn't work at that store very long, would they?
These people want to refuse to do their job, which, in this case, would mean literally changing the life of the person they are refusing and, most likely, forcing them to have an abortion that they are trying to avoid! Once again, the lack of logic is boggling!
Apparently, these people seem to think that the only reason anyone should have sex is if they are trying to have children! Apparently, if you are raped, that's just your own tough luck - you probably brought it on yourself....
Even if an egg is fertilized, which this pill is supposed to keep from happening, a 1 day old egg is not a person!!!!! It - and it very much is an "it" and this point - should not have more rights that the fully grown human that is carrying it!!! I can never understand why someone would want to destroy an adult's life for the sake of a microbe!!!
I still think that my idea is the best - every person should be sterilized before puberty and it can only be reversed after they have taken parenting classes and have signed a document saying that they wish to have children and are in a monogamous relationship! This would save a lot of heartbreak!!!