News Commentary 2003
5 March, 2003
Some opponents of freedom of conscience for Wisconsin pharmacists justify
their coercive views with the claim that rural residents may be deprived of
certain drugs if the only pharmacist in town has moral objections to
dispensing them. (Pharmacist Conscience Bill Pushed in Wisconsin,
February 28, 2003).
Is there, in fact, anywhere in Wisconsin, a community in which a single
pharmacist is the only available health-care professional? Such a situation
seems more mythical than hypothetical. Surely, given the political will, a
bit of imagination and a modicum of respect for differences of opinion,
adequate access to morally controversial drugs can be arranged without
forcing dissenting pharmacists to participate in dispensing them.
Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project
24 January. 2003
I am writing to correct an error in a report published in July in The
Medical Post. ("Swiss vote in new law making abortion legal in first
trimester". 24 July, 2002, Vol. 28, No. 37). My response has been delayed by
the need to consult Swiss authorities and the Swiss Catholic Bishops'
Conference.
In a letter to the Project, the Swiss embassy in Canada made the
following statement:
" . . . there are no more hospitals existing in Switzerland that are
based on a catholic foundation; all of them are now managed by secular
directors. There are, of course, medical staff with religious
inclinations. . . their number, however, is constantly declining. The
only remaining indication today of some hospitals' former catholic
orientation are their names such as St. Anna . . . there is no more
hospital in Switzerland that would truly qualify for the adjective
'catholic'. This . . . renders the information in the newspaper report
inaccurate . . ."
The General Secretary of the Swiss Catholic Bishops' Conference describes
this explanation as "99% true". He explained that vocations to the founding
religious orders diminished to the point that the hospitals were given over
to civil administration. While one or more sisters might still be working in
the hospitals, they are only employees and do not usually have any
managerial authority.
Sean Murphy, Administrator
Protection of Conscience Project