Rooting Against Both Sides . . .

The push for the legal protection of conscience is exploding across the country in a variety of health care contexts, as documented by The Washington Post earlier this week. It's not a positive trend, in my view.  My opposition to a legally enshrined right of conscience for pharmacists, for example, is grounded in significant part on the fact that such rights effectively render pharmacies morally fungible, further eroding the intermediate ground between the individual and the state. 

The conscience movement, of course, is no match for the reproductive-rights lobby when it comes to invoking the trump of state power on non-conforming intermediate bodies.  The latest example is today's lawsuit against Wal-Mart in which NARAL and Planned Parenthood argue that, by not stocking emergency contraception in its pharmacies, the chain violates a Massachusetts state policy requiring pharmacies to carry all "commonly prescribed medicines."

Rob