Federal Law Would Mandate Abortifacients at Pharmacies

Catholic World News reports that:

Senate Democrats have proposed a new bill that would force pharmacies to dispense abortifacient birth-control or "morning-after" pills, notwithstanding an individual pharmacist's moral opposition to the drug.

There have been a spate of such laws recently that would require Catholic hospitals or pharmacists to provide contraceptive or abortion-related services despite objections of conscience. This is obviously a poll-tested issue for Democrats, or they wouldn't be pushing it in so many states and at the Federal level.

The Democrats probably think they have their own political version of "partial-birth abortion" with this issue. I can imagine they think they'll use this type of legislation as a wedge issue to split off some of the voters who normally agree with the GOP on moral issues, but who would draw the line at requiring a woman who has been the victim of rape to carry the rapist's child to term. After all, so the Democrats think, who (besides the Catholic Church) can object to a rape victim receiving "basic contraceptive services"?

However, if Democrats are, as they claim, genuinely concerned about winning over "values voters", this is not the kind of legislation that will do it. And the reason is that it still smacks of elitist arrogance toward those with religious beliefs in its cavalier treatment of the moral objections to providing such services by hospital and pharmacy personnel.

In the end, I think the Democrats will find that this kind of legislation will only further ingrain in the minds of "values voters" the notion of the Democrat Party as the political wing of the culture of death.