Sunday, April 03, 2005
Gov gets credit for stopping some rogue pharmacists
I give Governor Blagojevich credit for his emergency rules on Friday requiring pharmacists to dispense all drugs, including morning after pills and birth control pills, that a doctor prescribes, regardless of the pharmacist's beliefs. I also give credit to the pro-choice advocates that pushed this issue over the last few weeks. I'm sure Blagojevich is earning some points with the influential pro-choice crowd around the country. You sure can't imagine any Republican issuing these rules. One sort of funny thing . . . he attended a service in Logan Square tonight according to CLTV and the presiding Bishop directly called out Rod to rescind the rules according to Church teaching. Afterwards Rod was giving a quick press conference and seemed to be straining to avoid the word dialogue. He said 'the bishop expressed his views. That is great. And I am looking forward to. . . uhm. . . listening to them. It was a special night.' Wouldn't it be nice if the next Pope came to see birth control as promoting a culture of life? The anti-birth control pill plank is really the weakest link in the pro-life / anti-choice argument. It is hard not to come off as an ideologue uninterested in reducing abortions if one opposes birth control.
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This "conscience" issue is a loser for both social and economic conservatives in the long term, unless they both intend to be raging hypocrites when their encouragement or acquiescence to these nonsensical "conscience" laws start biting them in the butt.
When the non-Christians start claiming "conscience" to do any number of things that interfere with the lives of social conservatives (the vegetarian drive thru operator refusing the Big Mac order at McDonald's, the Muslim or Jewish checkout kid at Jewel refusing to ring up the pork chops, the wicca pharmacist insisting that herbs and an appreciation of mother Earth will be better than Viagra, etc.), how will Christians try to stop the slippery slope descent? Maybe it starts with the pharmacists, but it won't end there, and at that point the can of worms will be officially open.
The economic conservatives should be furious about these laws and cheering on G-Rod. This "conscience" business departs even further from the free market ideal in which people pursue jobs they can do completely and for which they are qualified. Having to dispense birth control is no surprise task to a pharmacist, and such a job should attract people who are willing to do the job -- the whole job, including the dispensation of one of the most common prescriptions in circulation today. Both the "personal responsibility" meme and the "vote with their feet" meme of the economic conservative applies here; after all, if these people are so interested in other people's morals, they should seek out the church, not the dispensary. In addition, companies for years have bitched about job discrimination prohibitions, claiming it limits their hiring and firing decisions; why no outcry on these "conscience" laws, which do the same thing but do so on incredibly flimsy and ill-defined "conscience" grounds? Right now these state laws would protect a Christian Science pharmacist from dispensing any prescriptions at all, and the employer would be screwed. Is this a rational result?
G-Rod should check his mailbox. I put pen to paper and wrote a genuine thank-you note on this one.
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