(Tim, w/thanks to James) First, this from our sermon text yesterday:
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. (Matthew 23:23)
It's sometimes depressing, but other times very encouraging to see what believers in Jesus Christ are doing in their place of work or profession as they face the onslaught of demonic forces. Often, we compromise with this present evil age--incrementally, of course. Yet from the perspective of those who have lived longer than thirty-five years and have some familiarity with church history, the compromises are punch-you-in-the-nose obvious.
There are other brothers in Christ, though, who boldly confess their faith. All of us are strengthened by their pursuit of justice, mercy, and faithfulness. Take, for instance, this Washington Post piece reporting on pharmacists starting new pharmacies that refuse to sell drugs that kill unborn babies.
Of course, the Post is incapable of accurately reporting the story because they are committed to using their paper to market their belief that unborn children are not fully "persons" under the United States Constitution. Thus their story is sold as a battle over "birth-control," "contraception," and "rape" with no mention of the chemical murder of babies and those babies' deaths.
Many, many, many, many, many, many believers in Jesus Christ, both couples and pharmacists, refuse to submit to the claims of love as they apply to these little ones. We cultivate ignorance of the destruction of unborn children that is a constant in the use of birth control pills. For many years, now, pharmaceutical firms, doctors, and pharmacists have known birth control pills kill unborn babies. Some have adapted their definition of life to allow their own use of those pills, or their fulfillment of prescriptions for these abortifacients.
Sadly, most of us have such seared consciences that we feel no need to provide a biblical base for our actions. We justify nothing.
Within evangelical or reformed churches, no one raises the subject. When it comes to chemical (as opposed to mechanical) baby-killing, mum's the word. It's completely legit, no questions asked. After all, how would the whole evangelical reformed money-making machine work if women started having babies every nine months?
"'Chemical baby-killing?' What are you, some sort of fanatic? My parents used the Pill back in the Sixties. Are you saying they killed some of my brothers and sisters? That's absurd! Why don't you go become a Catholic? You aren't secretly going to Mass, are you? Matter of fact, tell me your views on justification, would you? Are you all imputation or are you sympathetic to infusion? And speaking of imputation, single or double, dude? No sneaking away and hiding behind a rock. Which is it? En garde!"
Beyond the church, though, the treatment of this issue by the Post is itself instructive. Look how their headline demonstrates...
the sort of neutral and objective journalism they practice:
'Pro-Life' Drugstores Market Beliefs
We could ask for the Post's recommendation of a drugstore where beliefs aren't marketed?
Likely they'd punt, responding that pharmacies that offer every drug that's legal are the ones not marketing their beliefs. Next question.
This piece is a good specimen of the close-minded elitism that permeates our chattering class. Obviously they hate diversity, inclusivity, and pluralism.
So here we have a story about pharmacists who don't believe it's
right to murder unborn children in the womb by the use of chemicals, they are starting pharmacies that don't profit off these lethal doses, and
what's the response?
"We may find ourselves with whole regions of the country where virtually every pharmacy follows these limiting, discriminatory policies and women are unable to access legal, physician-prescribed medications," said R. Alta Charo, a University of Wisconsin lawyer and bioethicist. "We're talking about creating a separate universe of pharmacies that puts women at a disadvantage."
"These are uncharted waters, since the issue of so-called pro-life pharmacies are so new," said Elizabeth Nash, a public policy associate at the Guttmacher Institute, a private, nonprofit organization that researches reproductive issues.
Note the words: "whole regions," "virtually," "limiting," "discriminatory," "legal," "physician-prescribed," "creating a separate universe," "putting women at a disadvantage," and "so-called pro-life pharmacies."
Picture the Nazis' newspaper, Das Reich, running a story on a concentration camp founded with the explicit goal of keeping its inmates alive. Of course the jounalist is in the hip pocket of Hitler's Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels (with a Ph.D. from Hedelberg University), who founded the paper.
So he runs quotes from Himmler associates (identified as "incarceration experts") sniffing about this "so-called pro-life concentration camp" that discriminates against those seeking new lampshades made of human flesh and refuses even to advertise the fact that they won't hire sadistic employees with a lust for blood. Doing a little investigation, the reporter breaks the news that, when the box cars dispense their cargo of new inmates at this "so-called pro-life concentration camp," there are no signs prominently displaying the fact that the camp's showers have been designed for their inmates' cleanliness, not their murder. Nor have they bothered to inform the new guards they've hired that their ovens are small and used to bake bread, only.
He goes on to make it clear, though, that things are not standing still. The authorities are pondering this new phenomena and may well take action, although at this point the new enterprise is skating under the eyes of the law. The reporter sums up the situation as it now stands:
The Third Reich does not have any laws or regulations that would prohibit a pro-life concentration camp and is not considering adopting any, according to the Berlin Board of Incarceration.
Back to the Washington Post:
"I'm very, very troubled by this," said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women's Law Center, a Washington advocacy group. "Contraception is essential for women's health. A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care. That could endanger women's health."
The pharmacies are emerging at a time when a variety of health-care workers are refusing to perform medical procedures they find objectionable. Fertility doctors have refused to inseminate gay women. Ambulance drivers have refused to transport patients for abortions. Anesthesiologists have refused to assist in sterilizations.
Critics also worry that women might unsuspectingly seek contraceptives at such a store and be humiliated, or that women needing the morning-after pill, which is most effective when used quickly, may waste precious time.
"Rape victims could end up in a pharmacy not understanding this pharmacy will not meet their needs," Greenberger said. "We've seen an alarming development of pharmacists over the last several years refusing to fill prescriptions, and sometimes even taking the prescription from the woman and refusing to give it back to her so she can fill it in another pharmacy."
"If you are a health-care professional, you are bound by professional obligations," said Nancy Berlinger, deputy director of the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y. "You can't say you won't do part of that profession."
On the other hand, some better statements so we can leave this matter on a positive note:
"In general, I think product differentiation expressive of differing values is a very good thing for a free, pluralistic society," said Loren E. Lomasky, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. "If we can have 20 different brands of toothpaste, why not a few different conceptions of how pharmacies ought to operate?"
And finally:
"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, La., 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."
