From today's
NY Times:
Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, have introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would allow a pharmacist to refuse to dispense certain drugs as long as another pharmacist on duty would.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I wouldn't have thought that the concept of supporting something as self-evidently preposterous as a pharmacist's supposed "right of conscience" to refuse to dispense medication would require refutation, but apparently it does. Don't worry, this shouldn't take long.
If you are someone whose religious beliefs require you to refuse to dispense certain medications to patients in need of said medications, then you should not become a motherfucking pharmacist. The free exercise of religion stops at the point where your religous proclivities require you to harm someone at least derivatively in your care. Can anyone here possibly imagine this debate even being seriously carried out if the issue were Jehovah's Witnesses who became emergency room physicians but refused to administer needed medical treatment? Imagine a Jehovah's Witness doctor who refused to provide a blood transfusion because it was "against God's will." People would be screaming to have his license revoked, not defending his BS "right of conscience." How is the pharmacist case any different? Don't ponder that one for too long, because it's not any different.
Of course, the delicious irony here is that these same pharmacists gleefully dispense Viagra and Cialis to inflate the flaccid members of elderly men who, according to God's will, shouldn't be penetrating anything more exciting than a colostomy bag. But, who are the Republicans to let logic get in the way of theocracy?
Which leads me back to our erstwhile nominee, John Kerry, who supposedly fancies himself as at least a contender -- if not the front-runner -- for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Well, I've got news for "JFK." Withdraw your support for this fucking joke of a bill, or give it up. Unless you want to switch parties, supporting this sort of garbage isn't going to get you to the White House. Instead of helping Senator Man-on-Dog, perhaps your time would be better spent dealing with the investigation into the Ohio vote fraud that cost you the election.
I'll let a trained physician have the last, mercifully reasonable, word:
"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."