Credulity clauses

Pharmacies Balk on After-Sex Pill and Widen Fight in Many States [NYT permalink]

The so-called pharmacists' rights movement is the best guerilla marketing campaign I've seen in years. How else were they going to get people to discuss hormonal contraception as if it were a morally controversial issue? Now, all of a sudden thoughtful people are wondering whether it's fair to ask the pious to prescribe something as deeply controversial as a morning after pill.

I'll rant more about this later. But in the meantime, I leave you in the capably disgruntled hands of Jesse and Edward.

Comments

[aeg]

Could you BE anymore hot?! oh ... my god. I was just.... looking for that scathing Hitchhikers review... and oh.... GOODNESS.

I'm going to take a restraining order out against myself.

[mudkitty]

It's time the anti-abortionists are called out of the closet, and are forced to admit that they are anti-contraception as well. This would strike so many people as crackers...flat earth stuff. It exposes an extream agenda. Instead it's being framed as a matter of personal integrity.

If we Dems, lefties and progressives can't work this issue -- can't spin/frame (whatever you want to call it) this issue -- in our favor, than we don't deserve to lead, much less win elections.

[Treban]

Good god, we are living in scary fucking times. Our government is bent on turning back the clock seventy fucking years. It seems more likely every day that we're going to slip back into some sort of Dicken's dystopia. I poked fun at my crack pot, conspieracy theorist friends ten years ago for this sort of fear. Now I just shiver as their crack pot theories are fighting to become reality.

If the repugs manage to stack the judicial deck or even worse, reign in our independent judiciary it will get a lot worse. There are a couple nominees who would love to see birth control restricted to married couples or entirely eliminated. We won't even talk about their wiews on roe v wade. Oh and good by minimum wages, 40 hour work weeks and OSHA. Follow the logic of what there seeking to overturn and you'll find child labor laws and public education fall in the same catagory. New Deal out the fucking window. The so called constitutional exiles are in fucking power.

[Amanda Marcotte]

Frogs in boiling water is what we are. Living in an oasis in the middle of the Bible Belt, I feared this a long time ago and I decided to take drastic permanent measures so I wouldn't need the pill when it was taken away. People called me paranoid--not anymore.

[Vaughn Hopkins]

Amanda, I hated to do this, but I just phoned in a report to the Secret Service that you have confessed to mass-almost-murder-of-almost-ready-to- be-if-only-it-were-still-possible-babies. You may see the light of day again in, oh, say 50 years?

[Quisp]

[comment really for Pandagon -- per your link -- but their stupid worth-than-faith-based comments section is defunct]

Of course, if a pre-impanted embryo is a fully-vested-with-rights human life, then shouldn't every sexually-active woman be investigated monthly on suspicion of (at minimum) negligent homicide?

(to say nothing of the fact that -- if/when Roe is reversed -- every miscarriage must be investigated as potential negligent homicide or involuntary manslaughter)

The state has an obligation to investigate every death on behalf of the deceased. I look forward to the Fetal Homicide Divisions of our local police, and of course the Bruckheimer show of same, C.S.I.:OB/GYN.

[Quisp]

uh, I mean "worse than faith based."

[Dennis P]

These folks don't realize what they're unleashing. If refusing to do your job because in some specific instance it offends your conscience or your religious beliefs becomes acceptable then we can do - or not not do - our jobs according to our own moral compass. Here's hoping that the movement spreads to say, police, fire departments, the National Guard. I can hardly wait for the outcome. But then, I always did love chaos.

[Jerome]

Does the moral outrage of these folks extend to filling prescriptions for Xanax, Ritalin, and every other drug we're using to plug up holes that could in many cases be fixed with some of the discipline they claim us sex fiends lack? Cause if so, they're still hypocrites.

[anorpheus]

A pharmacist is position. A job.
The ethics of the job should come first. If your "moral" position on certain subjects make it so you disagree in fulfilling certian perscriptions, do NOT become a phramacist. Period. Otherwise.

If one thinks carefully about the matter, a phramacist, regardless of the religious-moral position he/she takes, is NOT morally responsible for filling a perscription. A doctor, a patient, that is it. A phramacist did not make the decision. God, Holy-Ghost, Baby Jesus, whatever, (forsooth, if such existed outside of any actual reality of these concepts, the historical Jesus as a kid excepted) will, by their very conceptual realities, NOT blame a pharmacist for giving a drug. The MORAL CHOICE is the patient/doctor/taker, etc. It is not the third party.

Okay, a bit rambly. This is just an imposition of a religious minority into public/private areas that is of no concern.

A pharmacist gives out drugs. They should never be in a position to claim a moral superiority over another person's life. They want that, become a televangelist.

[ol cranky]

It's funny in the non-HA HA kind of way. A year ago I mentioned I knew routine contraception would be the next battleground. The "prolifers" (and some prochoicers)said no it really was just about abortion; use of artificial contraception would always be a personal decision. I guess the way around that was to label hormonal contraception an abortifacient. How long before they require any pre-menopausal woman who only needs a partial hysterectomy to undergo a complete one out of fear than conception could occur and there's no uterus in which to implant (which must constitute abortion in their minds if hormonal contraception does)?

[mudkitty]

"Save the Sperm" is next. These people aren't just anti-abortion, nor anti-contraception, they are anti-sex.

[Bob Koepp]

I won't repeat my comments from a couple weeks ago -- instead, I'll offer the following simple advice: keep your eye on the FDA.

[Amanda]

Quisp, we're working on fixing the site. There's a PayPal button for people who want to help Jesse along with his task. ;)

Also, there was an attempt a few months ago by a VA legislator to pass a state law mandating investigations of miscarriages. I shit you not. The outpouring of mail from meanie feminists stopped it for now, but watch out.

[Ol Cranky]

Cosgrove's attempt at an amendment to legislation re: miscarriages is the fact that, according to him, he was trying to tighten up legislation for reporting of still births when no medical personnel were in attendance so people couldn't abandon their newborn to death or commit infanticide and claim still birth if and when the dead baby was linked to them; still births & fetal deaths (late term miscarriage) are reported to the bureau of vital statistics by healthcare professionals. Of course he used the term miscarriage and relied on the VA state legislature [medically/scientifically innacurate] definition of fetus. Maura Keaney at DFV caught the language used to amend HB1677 and luckily the story was publicized. Cosgrove claims the error would have been caught and language revised to limit to impact only events alleged to be still births (something we all know is a crock of shit).

The biggest lesson from this is to check your state legislature to see how they define fetus or child as this can be critical in understanding the impact of legislation regarding reproduction. Something that may seem inconsequential when reading the text, may seem much more nefarious when you realize the definition utilized by the legislature is not the actual/correct or common meaning of the terms used. Many states define fetus as the products of conception (as Virginia does) regardless of implantation or duration of gestation. As far as I know VA hasn't corrected their definition and neither has any other state.

[Scott]

I don't think they would mind admitting they are against contraception. All the nutcases on my blog ask, "What about the pharmacist's right to choose" and say inane things like, "It's the Liberals trying to force their views on everyone". Why do they hate abortion and AIDS and gays? It's about the sex, stupid. They hate sex, especially the fact that other people are enjoying it. And if they can't stop you from having sex (now that "Activist Judges" are overturning sodomy laws), they'll stop you from purchasing anythign sex-related, like sex toys or condoms or AIDS cocktails.

[rabbit]

We are better off today than we were eight years ago