Besides the self-evident beauty, this young lady says it all about the ACLU, including their long and deep roots in the American Communist Party, including one supreme court justice (Ruth "Buzzi" Ginsberg) who was voted in with only 3 dissenting votes!
Here's one story about their latest attempt to impose their immorality down the throats of the majority. Whatever happened to the tyrrany of the minority? Oh yeah, right there with the "dictatorship of the proletariat" that these lefty commie kooks are installing in the land of the brave.
And, don't believe their bogus voodo "scientific" poll on the matter of the abortifacient "emergency" abortion pill being available without an Rx. In two separate polls, conducted by secular folks, pharmacists rejected
ACLU's and the abortoholics' premise of a pharmacist's conscience clause: by landslide majorities of 69 and 77% pharmacists overwhelmingly agree pharmacists should be able to step away from dispensing ANYTHING which violates their religious, moral or ethical principles AND not be strong-armed to refer the same said "patients" for drugs which often are used to kill a patient, preborn or born.
Monday, February 20, 2006
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KENTUCKY GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Bill eases access to 'morning after pill'
Contraceptive stirs abortion debate
By Peter Smith
psmith@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
A controversial emergency contraceptive would be easier for women in Kentucky to obtain under a bill proposed in the General Assembly.
The contraceptive, called Plan B, is designed to be used after unprotected sex or sexual assault, or when a primary birth control method such as a condom fails. It has been a target of abortion foes because in some cases, it prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
In that scenario, "it's not contraception" but the abortion of a "tiny human being," said Margie Montgomery, executive director of the Kentucky Right to Life Association.
But the bill's sponsor, state Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, argues that Plan B, which is one of the drugs known as the "morning-after pill," does not cause abortion and that conception begins with implantation.
"People are raising Cain about abortion all the time, but if you don't conceive a child, you don't have to abort the child," Burch said.
Burch's bill would allow a doctor to provide a pharmacist with a standing prescription for Plan B that could be filled for any woman who requests it. This process, which would follow guidelines set by the state, would not be the same as over-the-counter status, which federal authorities have denied.
"Men get all the birth-control stuff they want, and women can't," Burch said in explaining his reasons for sponsoring the measure. "There's not supposed to be any differences."
The bill's filing follows the recent release of a report by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, stating that nearly nine in 10 Kentucky pharmacies do not stock Plan B.
While the bill would not force pharmacies to stock the drug, it would streamline the process for those that do.
Advocates for the drug say that's crucial because Plan B is effective only within 72 hours of intercourse. The drug does one of three things, depending on the point in a woman's cycle -- prevents her from ovulating, prevents the sperm from fertilizing the woman's egg, or prevents a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
Opponents of Burch's bill include Right to Life and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.
"People (who) are prescribed drugs should have that happen in the context of advice and counsel and the ability to ask questions of doctors," said Ed Monahan, executive director of the conference.
The bill is pending in the House Health and Welfare Committee -- of which Burch is chairman. Burch said he has not set a hearing date.
Leon Claywell, president of the Kentucky Pharmacists Association, said he stocks Plan B at his pharmacies. Many do not, he said, because it's a "low-demand item."
Claywell said he doesn't see the need for Burch's bill because most pharmacists can order a prescription within 24 hours.
"I feel more comfortable with that being prescribed by" a doctor who knows a patient's medical history, he said. "But if the law is changed … certainly pharmacists could handle it."
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Plan B in 1999.
The FDA denied a proposal in 2004 to make Plan B available over the counter -- an unusual rejection of the recommendation of its advisory committee, a congressional report said.
The decision said inadequate data were available about the drug's effects on the health and sexual behavior of younger teens. Critics said the FDA caved into conservative pressure, which the agency denies.
According to national reports and the Kentucky ACLU study, some pharmacists have refused to dispense the drug on moral grounds.
Four states give pharmacists a right to refuse, and similar proposals are pending in the legislatures of Indiana and several other states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. States such as California and Illinois require pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives.
Kentucky law authorizes pharmacists to use their "professional judgment to refuse to fill a prescription," such as when a patient is allergic or addicted to a drug, said Mike Burleson, executive director of the Kentucky Board of Pharmacy.
But the law neither allows nor forbids a pharmacist to refuse a prescription out of conscience. Burch's bill doesn't address that issue.
ACLU survey
The recent Kentucky ACLU report stemmed from a survey it conducted last fall of 309 pharmacies, or nearly a quarter of the state's pharmacies.
As part of the survey, female callers posing as customers asked pharmacists if they could fill a prescription for Plan B that day.
Only 12 percent of the pharmacies said they had the drug in stock. Five rural counties had no pharmacies willing to dispense it, and a sixth had no pharmacies at all. Another 41 percent of the pharmacies called were willing to order Plan B, but some could not get it within the needed 72 hours, the report said.
"I found it disturbing in the sense that there were so few pharmacies that actually had it in stock," said Amanda Kreps-Long, director of the ACLU's Kentucky Reproductive Freedom Project. "That's really dangerous for women, because it's such a time-sensitive medicine."
The survey used some typical polling methods, such as its random selection of pharmacies and use of the same questions for each call. It was untypical in that the callers posed as customers rather than disclosing that they were doing a survey.
Some pharmacists told callers that their stores didn't stock the medicine as a policy or that they had never heard of the drug, while a few said they would not fill it as a matter of conscience, Kreps-Long said.
The pharmacy board's Burleson said no one has complained to the board about a pharmacist refusing to fill a prescription for Plan B. He added that state law does not require a pharmacy "to carry every medication out there that's available."
Wal-Mart, which has 90 pharmacies in Kentucky, refused to answer repeated Courier-Journal inquiries about whether it stocks Plan B. Industry trade journals say it does not. The ACLU said none of the 19 Wal-Marts it surveyed had Plan B in stock.
Rite-Aid, Kroger, Kmart and CVS allow individual pharmacists to decline to fill prescriptions for reasons of conscience but require their pharmacies to fill them in another way.
"We do have a responsibility to fill the prescriptions that are brought to us," said Kroger spokesman Tim McGurk. At the same time, "we do have a policy in place to ensure we don't force pharmacists to compromise their individual beliefs."
CVS requires each store to fill a customer's prescription even if they have to get it delivered from another store, spokesman Mike DeAngelis said.
Kreps-Long said she was especially dismayed that the survey found some pharmacists who didn't know about Plan B. She said the ACLU would start informational campaigns for pharmacists and the public.
"With more demand, more pharmacists might be willing to carry it," she said.
Reporter Peter Smith can be reached at (502) 582-4469.
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