May 9, 2005 (idea)

During my weekly catch-up reading session of professional literature, I stumbled over a small news item in the BMJ that profoundly upset me. Here a little extract:

"A growing number of pharmacists across the United States are refusing to fill prescriptions for emergency contraception, even in cases of rape. Some pharmacists won't fill prescriptions for oral contraceptives for moral and religious reasons. (...) The News & Record, a North Carolina newspaper, reported that some pharmacists were destroying prescriptions, giving patients speeches on morality, and stalling the patient beyond the point where emergency contraception would be effective."

This is of course just another sign that the battle of the religious right against their perceived erosion of moral values is slowly but surely escalating. I can't imagine what it must be like living in a country that has such a deep chasm between the tens of millions "believers", trying to convert their heathen fellow Americans, and the enlightened minority that finds itself surrounded by the encroaching medievalists that have taken over their society.

Shudder.