TO: Members, Wisconsin State Legislature

FROM: Matt Sande, Director of Legislative Affairs
Mary Matuska, Deputy Director of Legislative Affairs

SUBJECT: Support for LRB 1469/1 and LRB 1278/1– Establishing conscience rights protections for pharmacists
__________________________________________________________________

Pro-Life Wisconsin strongly urges you to sign on as a co-sponsor to companion legislation currently under circulation that would protect the right of pharmacists to conscientiously refuse to engage in practices that violate the sanctity of human life.

Current law already protects health care employees from being fired or otherwise discriminated against based on a conscientious refusal to participate in surgical abortion and sterilization. The Pharmacist’s Conscience Clause Bill would extend that conscience protection to pharmacists who refuse to participate in chemical abortion and euthanasia.

Under the provisions of LRB 1469/1, authored by Senator Reynolds, and LRB 1278/1, authored by Representative Owens, a licensed pharmacist cannot be required to dispense a prescribed drug or device if the pharmacist believes the drug or device will be used for causing an abortion or causing the death of any person, such as through assisted suicide or euthanasia. He or she would be exempt from professional liability or disciplinary action and would be shielded from employment discrimination based on creed – including refusal to hire a pharmacist or termination of the pharmacist’s employment.

Why is this bill so necessary at this time? Abortion techniques focusing on chemical means to end the life of preborn babies, such as the morning-after-pill, have received FDA approval. It is common to receive life-ending (abortifacient) drugs in a pharmacy, thus compelling pharmacists to be party to abortion. On the other end of life’s spectrum, efforts are underway that would allow “terminally ill” individuals to request a prescription for lethal drugs from their physicians. Pharmacists would then be asked to fill those prescriptions. No pharmacist should have to daily check his or her conscience at the door. Importantly, the pharmacists’ conscience clause bill is the ONLY bill that protects pharmacists who conscientiously refuse to dispense the morning-after pill and other abortion-causing hormonal “contraceptives.”

The issue of pharmacists being fired for conscientiously refusing to dispense abortion-causing birth control has received international and national attention. The BBC News, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, CBS Evening News, and CNN, to name just a few media sources, have all reported on documented “real-life” cases in which pharmacists have been put in the position of either leaving their jobs or compromising their beliefs.

For example, in February of 2004 CNN reported on an Eckerd pharmacist in Denton, Texas, who refused to dispense the morning-after pill to a woman identified as a rape victim. The pharmacist was fired. In November of 2004, USA Today ran a third page story highlighting Wisconsin pharmacist Neil Noesen who is facing possible disciplinary action by the Pharmacy Examining Board for conscientiously refusing to fill or transfer a woman’s prescription for birth control pills. These attacks on pharmacists are an infringement on their free exercise of religion, and in the long run will serve only to aggravate the already acute shortage of qualified pharmacists by discouraging people of faith from entering the field.

It is a medical fact that the morning-after pill (a high dosage of the birth control pill) and most if not all birth control drugs and devices including the intrauterine device (IUD), Depo Provera, Norplant, the Patch, and the Pill can act to terminate a pregnancy by chemically preventing an already fertilized egg (a fully human embryo) from implanting in the uterine wall. This action constitutes chemical abortion. Pro-Life Wisconsin considers it undebatable that a baby’s life and a mother’s pregnancy begin at the instant of conception or fertilization. Pharmacists ought not to be forced to participate in the moral evil of killing human beings either before or after implantation.

To be sure, the bill does not ban birth control. It will not make drugs such as the morning-after pill and other abortifacient birth control illegal or unavailable. It simply recognizes that employers must not force pharmacists to participate in abortion and other practices that threaten human life.

The pharmacists’ conscience clause bill is modeled after a South Dakota law enacted in 1998. To the best of our knowledge, no one has challenged that law nor have any cases arisen because of it, showing that such a law can and does work. Other states with specific and comprehensive pharmacist conscience clause laws include Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi. Many other states are actively considering this legislation including Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Texas, New York, Arizona and Washington.

Thank you for your consideration of this important legislation. The deadline for co-sponsorship of LRB 1469/1 (Reynolds) and LRB 1278/1 (Owens) is Friday, March 11th. If you have any questions, please call Matt Sande or Mary Matuska at (262) 796-1111.

Let’s make Wisconsin a “pharmacist-friendly” state!