A Pharmacist Revolt Over Abortion Pills?

THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, March 28—New pills called “emergency contraception” threaten to turn pharmacists into abortion providers, and some of them don't like it, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“Pharmacist associations in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and numerous other states have responded to concerns about emergency contraception, as well as the specter of assisted-suicide drugs and the abortion pill RU-486, by adopting ‘conscience-clause’ guidelines that affirm pharmacists' right to refuse to fill prescriptions on moral, ethical or religious grounds. They also have pushed for legislation to protect druggists from retribution,” said the report. “Emergency contraceptives” prevent an embryo from implanting in the uterus, thus causing an early abortion.

Abortion supporters argue that pharmacists should be expected to help find alternate providers for pills they won't prescribe, said the report. But it cited one organization, Pharmacists for Life, which retorted, “any accommodation amounts to cooperation in abortion.”

“Pharmacists for Life urges its 1,500 members to refuse to fill not only emergency contraception but all birth-control prescriptions — pills, implants, injections and intrauterine devices — because of the chance, no matter how remote, of disrupting implantation of a fertilized egg,” noted the report.

The Kevorkian Slope

NEW YORK POST, March 27—The headline of the editorial made no bones about its view of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. “Dr. Death, Murderer,” it said.

“At long last, a jury got it right,” the New York Post editorial began in its treatment of the Pontiac, Mich. jury's verdict in the death of Thomas Youk, who suffered from Lou Gehrig's Disease . A videotape of his death by injection of fatal drugs was broadcast on the CBS television show “60 Minutes.”

The editorial noted that the case shows the consequences of legalizing assisted suicide. “The first victims will be those who — in a state of depression — declare that life is no longer worth living, whether or not they are terminally ill. The next step on the slippery slope is state-sanctioned murder, as practiced in Nazi Germany, when officials declared that someone's quality of life was impaired. ... “It's a truly frightening prospect, and we can only hope that yesterday's verdict puts a giant roadblock in the way of Kevorkian's murderous parade,” it concluded.

U.N. Conferees Target U.S. ‘Human Rights Abuses’

THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 28—At the United Nations annual meeting on human rights in New York, officials singled out their host country for criticism, reported the Times.

Said the paper, “The sharpest blow came from ally Germany, whose foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, announced that the 15-member European Union for the first time would submit an anti-death-penalty resolution to the U.N. Human Rights Commission.”

“He told delegates from the 53 member countries that the resolution was intended to prevent ‘the execution of minors, of the mentally ill, enforcement before completion of ongoing procedures, and extradition to countries where the death penalty is in force.’” The paper said, “Fischer did not single out the United States by name, but Germany protested when Arizona executed two German-born men earlier this year.”

“On the commission's opening day, Amnesty International for the first time placed the United States on its list of human rights violators, in the company of Algeria, Cambodia and Turkey, among others, because of police brutality, violations against people in detention and more executions,” said the report.