Carole Joffe: The Right's Bitter Pill
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In this piece, Carole Joffe discusses one of the most unusual new fronts in the neverending abortion war--the growing instances of "pro-life" pharmacists who refuse to fill women's birth control prescriptions. Similar to other pieces on the Longview website, Joffe argues here that the reproductive rights movement, while supporting legal abortions, also works to prevent unwanted pregnancies; in contrast, many of those opposed to abortion also promote policies that virtually assure there will be more unwanted pregnancies, and thus, more abortions. Given the near universality of contraceptive use by American women, and especially the high rate of use of birth control pills, and the high rate of approval of contraceptive use by Americans generally, Joffe sees this movement of pharmacists' refusal as a classic case of "overreaching" by the Religious Right that may well backfire.
The link address is: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_rights_bitter_pill.php