Conscience

 

We at Birth Pangs have been wrestling with ‘conscience’. Not ours. Ours are fine, thank you. (Er, except for that evening a few weeks ago, when one of us had a tad too much to drink and took her father-in-law to task for the unequal distribution of wealth in Canada, and well, pretty much the whole world. But she apologized for that.)

What we’ve been wrestling with is ‘conscience’ as it is invoked by people like pharmacists and elected representatives.

In the case of elected representatives wiki has this to say:

A conscience vote or free vote is a type of vote in a legislative body where legislators are each expected to vote according to their own personal conscience rather than according to an official line set down by their political party.

It goes on:

Conscience votes are usually quite rare and are often about an issue which is very contentious, or a matter on which the members of any single party differ in their opinions, thus making it difficult for parties to formulate official policies . Usually, a conscience vote will be about religious, moral or ethical issues rather than about administrative or financial ones.

What the hell business a legislative body has voting on religious issues is beyond us, but OK.

In the UK, legislators are grappling with the Human Tissues and Embryos Bill, which, of course, their flock of fetus fetishists take as an opportunity to roll back the clock on women’s rights. (Of course, the fetus fetishists are up to their usual shenanigans, like misleading surveys and not disclosing the nutbar affiliations of their so-called scientists. But those are other matters.)

The Telegraph reports today:

MPs are to be given a free vote on lowering the time limit for abortions.

As The Daily Telegraph disclosed on Friday, a cross-party group is planning to table amendments to the Human Tissues and Embryos Bill when it reaches the Commons next year, proposing lowering the time limit from 24 to 20 weeks.

Government sources have now confirmed that Labour whips would follow the tradition of treating abortion as a “conscience issue” and allow a free vote on amendments proposing changes to abortion laws.

We at Birth Pangs have no problem with treating abortion as a conscience issue. It is a conscience issue for the woman considering her options.

We do have a teensy problem with a bunch of people — elected or not — voting on human rights issues, but we’ll put that aside for a moment too.

Here’s the nub of what we’ve been wrestling with: In places with loud contingents of fetus fetishists, any wannabe pol must consider her or his position on abortion. I mean, it’s going to come up, right? It’s part of the job description, so to speak. The hiring committee — the voters — decides whether or not it wants a person with that position voting his or her conscience on the matter.

How is it then that the ‘hiring committee’ — the almighty consumers — for professional pill-counters don’t get to discover the position of their local pill-counter until a consumer is standing there in a pharmacy the morning after a contraception failure?

Any wannabe pill-counter must realize that she or he is going to be required to count pills prescribed for a myriad of yucky conditions. Do pill-counters who are also animal rights loons refuse to hand over pills that would kill a cutesy-pie tapeworm? Do pill-counters who are also man-hating vagina warriors refuse to touch, let alone hand out, penis-hardening pills?

Here, we reported on the Pharmacy Board in the enlightened state of Washington considering the case of pill-counters refusing to dispense emergency contraception because of their ‘conscience’.

Well, a federal judge has weighed in:

A federal judge Thursday issued an injunction suspending a Washington state law that would require pharmacists to dispense Plan B emergency contraceptives, the so-called “morning-after pill.” US District Judge Ronald Leighton’s injunction effectively creates a “refuse and refer” system, allowing pharmacists to refuse to sell the pill if they refer the customer to another nearby source. Critics say that the system could harmfully delay womens’ access to the contraceptive, which must be taken with 72 hours of intercourse to be effective.

Refuse. And smirk. Take that, you whoring harlot.

We at Birth Pangs simply don’t understand how this can be OK. How can the class of people allowed to vote their conscience consist of elected representatives and pill-counters?

As the feminazis say: ‘Don’t like abortion? Don’t have one.’

Don’t want to hand out lawful products you don’t like? Don’t become a fucking farmacist.

But we’re pleased to report that in Chile, the government threatens to close pill-dispensaries that won’t comply with the law.