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Pro-life pharmacies opening around the U.S.

Comments: 7

Chantilly, Va., Jun 17, 2008 / 06:10 am (CNA).- A pro-life pharmacy which will not stock contraceptives will open this August in Chantilly, Virginia, is joining several pharmacies around the country that accommodate workers with objections to distributing contraceptives.

The DMC Pharmacy, located in a shopping plaza near a major thoroughfare, aims to support pharmacists and other health-care workers whose consciences do not allow them to distribute such products, the Washington Post reports. The DMC Pharmacy is an expansion of Divine Mercy Care in Fairfax, Virginia, a nonprofit healthcare organization that adheres to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

"We're trying not to leave our faith at the door," said John Bruchalski, who chairs the group's board of directors. "We're trying to create an environment where belief and professionalism come together."

Bruchalski said that one of the organization's major goals is helping needy, uninsured patients obtain health care. The group also runs the Tepeyac Family Center, an obstetrics-gynecology practice that offers natural family planning instead of contraceptives, sterilization, or abortion.

Other pro-life pharmacies are in operation around the United States.

"We try to practice pharmacy in a way that we feel is best to help our community and promote healthy lifestyles," said Lloyd Duplantis, who owns Lloyd's Remedies in Gray, Louisiana, and is a deacon in his Catholic church. "After researching the science behind steroidal contraceptives, I decided they could hurt the woman and possibly hurt her unborn child. I decided to opt out.”

Conscientious objection by pharmacists has become a flashpoint for the debate surrounding freedom of conscience and reproductive health.

Objecting pharmacists have refused to fill prescriptions for birth control pills, morning-after pills and other forms of contraception, saying that they believe such methods can cause an abortion. Also cited are the beliefs that contraceptives promote promiscuity, divorce, the spread of sexually transmitted diseases and other evils.

Women seeking contraceptives claim to be traumatized by pharmacists’ refusals to fulfill their requests, while pharmacists have been fired, fined, or reprimanded for refusing to distribute contraceptives.

Some pharmacists have stopped carrying such products or have opened pharmacies that do not stock any. One organization, Pharmacists for Life International, promotes a pharmacist's right to refuse to fill such prescriptions and supports pro-life pharmacies.

"This allows a pharmacist who does not wish to be involved in stopping a human life in any way to practice in a way that feels comfortable," said Karen Brauer, president of Pharmacists for Life.

The group’s website lists seven pharmacies around the country which have pledged to follow pro-life guidelines. Brauer added that the list was “just the tip of the iceberg.” She said the pro-life pharmacies were identical to other pharmacies in all other respects. Some pharmacies, she added, also refuse to sell tobacco or tobacco products or pornography.

Comments: 7

Subscriber comments:

Published by: Warren Anderson
Victoria, BC, Canada 06/19/2008 03:59 PM EST

Here is a correlative effect for you. Planned Parenthood has become a master at creating demand. Promote a lie (“safe sex”, contraception and “free love”) that plays on people’s instinctual urges and create the need for their “service” (abortion). As has been noted, contraception fails consistently. Coupled with an entrenched mindset akin to an addiction, the contraceptive mentality inevitably creates dependency on a service that promises “reproductive freedom”, i.e., sexual irresponsibility and exploitation. A culture of death has arisen to keep people bound to their addictions. Planned Barrenhood is like a drug dealer. Any attempt to expose their crimes or ween people off their “drug” is seen as a threat to business. Banned Parenthood depends on people’s addiction to a false promise in order to stay in business. Gradually, far too slowly, people are beginning to see through the propaganda. The culture of death is a conspiracy in so far as groups like NARAL and NOW have a common objective: convert people to their agenda through deceit and playing on people’s fears (about loss of personal freedom, a loss of a “right” to their own body, etc.). These groups are no different from their ideological brethren of the 1930s and 40s. If NARAL is the NAZI party, then Planned Parenthood is the group operating the death camps for them. Pope Paul VI saw through the fog of lies and predicted the coming danger.

Published by: FRAN DELSPINA
BURNSIDE, KY USA 06/18/2008 02:38 PM EST

PRAISE BE TO JESUS!

SO PROUD OF YOU TO REFUSE TO SELL CONTRICEPTIVE DEVICES.

GOD WILL RICHLY REWARD YOU OH FAITHFUL SERVANT

FRAN

Published by: Andrew
Fairfax, VA 06/18/2008 09:22 AM EST

TimL,

Actually the exact opposite is true. Over the last 40 years (since widespread acceptance and use of chemical contraceptives) the amount of abortions has greatly increased.

Anecdotally, you can think of it this way. When a couple is engaging in contraceptive sex they have a very strong intention to have the sex without the possible natural consequence (i.e. conception of a child). So when the contraceptive method they are using fails (which will happpen since no contraceptive method is 100% effective), the couple engaging in the sexual activity is far more closed off to idea of having a child and is far more willing to seek an alternative to carrying the child to term. (i.e. abortion)

The link between contraception and abortion is not only historically proven, but should be obvious once thought about. At their root both of these actions seek to divorce sex from procreation. In the case of contraception the very nature of the conjugal act is changed from something unitive, natural, healty, and life-giving to something that is inherently selfish, divisive, unnatural, and a hinderance to life.

Published by: Teresa
Albany ,NY USA 06/17/2008 08:22 PM EST

Tim L -

Simply put; Thou shalt not kill.

Teresa

Published by: Linda
Brantford, Ontario, Canada 06/17/2008 06:16 PM EST

The correlation between contraceptives and abortion flows the other way, TimL.

Pope Paul VI warned against developing a contraceptive mentality forty years ago, but nobody, including most of the teachers (bishops) in the Church seriously listened to him. We divided our sexuality into recreational and procreative. Eventually, procreative sex became anathema for most people - witness the common response to large families, viewing them as freakish when once they were the norm.

Now we see the results the in escalating demise of the family.
When families were strong, unwed mothers, welfare families, &c., &c. were mostly non-issues.

Good for these pharmacists for standing up for truth. Would that leaders had as much courage!

Published by: Mark F
Falls Church, VA 06/17/2008 03:54 PM EST

Tim,

I used to think the same way about artificial birth control too, but after a bit of thought, and a lot of help from the Holy Spirit, I know can see that the Church's position is correct.

It's really as simple as this: Look back before we had wide-spread access to birth control, say back in the 1940's... did we have more or less of the following - unwanted pregnancies, divorce, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases and the like?

Birth control doesn't work, in fact, it does just the opposite.

Published by: TimL
Eugene, OR 06/17/2008 02:19 PM EST

Rate: Regular

Can we just use all their profits/taxes to pay for the wellfare bums who keep having kids and become an ever increasing burden on our society?

I mean seriously.. I can understand being against abortions.. because that is killing living tissue/child?

But preventing pregnancy to begin with... Doesn't that just increase the abortions you are trying to prevent? Are these people so short sighted to not correlate something so obvious?

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