Plan B: Judicial disservice

Thursday's U.S. District Court decision to halt state rules obligating pharmacists to dispense emergency contraception regardless of their religious beliefs is stunning in its backwardness.

To start with, emergency contraception (aka, Plan B) is not an abortive drug. It's a hormonal form of birth control, much like the pills, patches, shots and IUDs available on the market.

Plan B has no effect on a pregnant woman. And when we say pregnant, we mean it in the scientific sense (a fertilized egg implanted in the uterus), not the fanciful way some anti-birth control activists describe it. So the very objections those pharmacists have to dispensing the drugs are ill-founded.

That said, pharmacists who spiritually oppose dispensing any drug -- be it a form of birth control, HIV treatments or hormones for transgendered patients -- should realize that they're not meant to serve as spiritual gatekeepers. That's why we have priests, rabbis, mullahs and monks.

Saying that pharmacists can point customers to a "nearby" store as a justification is so vague as to be meaningless. What's "nearby," exactly?

Perhaps in the world of the pharmacists who feel that others should simply serve those they turn away, there are pharmacies in every neighborhood, and those who have to go out of their way to fill a legitimate prescription have a car, or failing that, miraculously open schedules that permit them to meander around their town at a pharmacist's will.

Those railing against state rules are doing a tremendous disservice to the community. This decision ought to be appealed, and we hope reason and the community's best interest will prevail when this case goes to trial next year.