NARAL's got a new girl

It's a safe bet to say that Concerned Women for America's Jan LaRue does not like NARAL. I probably could have easily reached this conclusion before, on a recent edition of "Family News in Focus," she said NARAL's latest action surrounding an Ohio woman's failed attempt to procure Plan B from a local Wal-Mart pharmacy "smells like a fundraising ploy. I expect this whole campaign by NARAL to be filed appropriately in that infamous circular file we all maintain."

Well, fundraising it might be (actually, the NARAL email only contained "action links;" no donation buttons presumably until the website itself), but it's very unlikely that the campaign is a ploy. Tashina Byrd, the person, presumably does exist. Tashina Byrd, the ridiculed victim of Wal-Mart's unconscionable conscientious-objection policy (sorry), presumably did have some PR help. (Her on-the-spot, self-reflective response from the Jan. 15th Columbus Dispatch article was, "I could go to church if I wanted to be told how to live my life.")

The Family News in Focus story then detours from LaRue's snarky ad hominem to a now stock report on the ever-escalating war on pharmacists' consciences. FotF's own Carrie Gordan Earll (the extra 'L' is for Livid) is taken away from her real work just long enough to soundbyte, "The question is, is this really about choice, because if it’s really about choice, what about the choice of the pharmacist?"

Conscience clauses, call 'em "refusal clauses" if you're a lefty, have really only recently expanded from a doctor refusing to perform an abortion to a pharmacist refusing to supply an "abortifacient." I put that word in quotes because, as William Saletan wrote so well in a Slate article nearly one year ago,

"Who's right? Does EC kill some embryos, or doesn't it? The answer is, we don't know. We can't know..."

I'm going to refer to the same research Saletan uses to support the accepted theory that it is a very unlikely case that a fertilized egg's journey will be disrupted on its way to implantation due to EC. For evidence against this theory, you can look to Dr. Gene Rudd of the Christian Medical Association's somewhat deceptive reference to a 1999 literature review,

"Using conservative estimates, the study concludes that other mechanisms of action are at work up to 38 percent of the time. These mechanisms include post-fertilization effects—actions against a fertilized but not yet implanted human egg."

Keeping in mind that even if we accept the 8-year-old review's culled estimate of 38%, that estimate also includes every natural reason that an embryo fails to implant. So if the prevention of implantation by a newly formed embryo is the definite minority to the pill's main effectiveness of ovulation prevention, Family News in Focus should probably refrain from referring to EC as the "abortion pill." Maybe try out calling it the "abortion surprise pill." That may even be scarier.

The very heart of this issue truly is abortion. Shocking, I know. But as the idea of healthcare workers' "conscience clauses" move from personal philosophy to being actively legislated the actions of pharmacists and nurses who refuse to dispense potential abortions is being portrayed as civil disobedience, and the punishment from their employers is creating martyrs. In the past, the rights of the unborn have already been related to in the same manner as the civil rights movement, and by pushing those rights back from belonging to a fetus to belonging to an hours old, not yet implanted (or maybe never implanting) embryo, the Pro-Life movement is gaining attention and winning ground on an unexpected front.

Whether or not the public's focus is shifted from the virtuous pharmacist who never expected to someday be forced to park his morals and beliefs at the door, to stories of women like Tashina Byrd---a responsible woman, being responsible, denied access to her responsibility by an arrogant, unreasonable pill-dispenser---may determine the fate of "conscience clauses" for more than just pharmacists.

Just for fun: On the Family News in Focus episode I refer to, reporter Steve Jordahl mispronounces Tashina Byrd's name as Ta-nisha Byrd. I'm sure it was just an accident though and in no way reflects a FNiF stereotype.