Culture is what we make it. The ignorance upon which our country's laws currently rest has reared its ugly head once again, this time in the state of Washington. I have heard it said many times that pharmacists should not be forced to dispense medication to which they are ethically opposed. To this I say, tough tushy. As the previously-cited blog post adeptly points out, Plan B does not cause abortion but, rather, prevents conception from occurring in the first place. So, really, if you are morally opposed to abortion, you should probably be a fan of Plan B considering that it prevents the need for an abortion altogether. If you're going to disguise your hubris as morality, you might want to do your homework first.

This debate has been going on for years, with pharmacists insisting that their right to impose their moral values on the rest of us trumps doctor-patient privilege. The fact of the matter is, you holier-than-thou pharmacists, you do not know the reason a doctor has prescribed birth control, nor do you know the reason a woman seeks Plan B. May I remind you that birth control is currently prescribed for everything from acne to Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome? And may I remind you that such things as rape and incest might cause a woman to seek an alternative to pregnancy? My point is simply that it is not a pharmacist's place to judge a client; it is their job to check for harmful drug interactions and dispense medication accordingly.

I am all for freedom of religion. Pharmacists can picket abortion clinics and pray for our heathen souls all they want. But they should not have the right to lord their religious values over the rest of us.