Today's toxic concoction from the laboratories of democracy
by digby
Robin Marty reports:
With the signing of a new expanded conscience clause bill in Kansas, Republican Governor Sam Brownback has now legally blessed a virtually open-ended number of situations in which "religious" workers can refuse to assist women under the guise that they believe they "may be" terminating a pregnancy.[...]
Idaho already had a case of a pharmacist who refused to fill a perscription for a woman who needed drugs to stop bleeding, believing that the woman may have had an abortion which caused her blood loss, and the pharmacist received no punishment for the action. How long will it take for that to become the rule, rather than the exception, as the Kansas law goes into effect?
"Assisting in terminating a pregnancy" has already become an overly expansive phrase that many anti-choice activists are applying to even more unrelated situations -- from the nurses who refuse to do intake of women in the hospital for a termination to the bus driver who won't drive a route to Planned Parenthood.
Creating a law that allows a person's moral convictions -- not science -- to determine what is "terminating a pregnancy" is legislation begging for legal challenge.
I'm guessing the majority of the locals there think it's just fine or they wouldn't be voting for these people. It's unfortunate for the women who need prescriptions filled but hey, you just can't be too careful when it comes to religious liberty. If a few women have to schlepp all over town to convince a pharmacist that her need to not bleed to death isn't a threat to his religious beliefs, well that's a small sacrifice for freedom.
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