In the one of the two debates dedicated to domestic policy, I dearly hope that someone will ask the candidates about this new bill working its way through the House, and if he, as president, would sign it.
What do you think Bush would say? Do we think that he'll be somber in agreeing to sign it and appease his "base", or will he have a redux of the creepy moment in the 2000 debates when he discussed executing a man on death row and smiled?
Quote:
In Congress and states nationwide, anti-abortion activists are broadening efforts to support hospitals, doctors and pharmacists who - citing moral grounds - want to opt out of services linked to abortion and emergency contraception.
A little-noticed provision cleared the House of Representatives last week that would prohibit local, state or federal authorities from requiring any institution or health care professional to provide abortions, pay for them, or make abortion-related referrals, even in cases of rape or medical emergency.
In Mississippi, a bill became law in July that admirers and critics consider the nation's most sweeping "conscience clause." It allows all types of health care workers and facilities to refuse performing virtually any service they object to on moral or religious grounds.
And in states across the country, anti-abortion organizations and a group called Pharmacists for Life are encouraging pharmacists to refuse to distribute emergency contraceptives, which they consider a potential form of abortion.
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Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life, was fired by Kmart in 1996 for refusing to dispense a birth-control drug. She believes momentum now favors her movement.
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Brauer, who lives in Lawrence, Ind., and works at a drugstore in Ohio, hopes more states will emulate Mississippi, South Dakota and Arkansas by specifying that pharmacists, as well as doctors, have the right to withhold services on moral grounds. She does not believe there should be any obligation to refer rebuffed customers to another pharmacist who would fill their prescription.
"Forced referral is stupid," she said. "If we're not going to kill a human being, we're not going to help the customer go do it somewhere else."
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AP
