{"id":1160,"date":"2012-09-25T18:09:00","date_gmt":"2012-09-25T18:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/conscience-rights-for-pharmacists-upheld-in-illinois-ruling\/"},"modified":"2012-09-25T18:09:00","modified_gmt":"2012-09-25T18:09:00","slug":"conscience-rights-for-pharmacists-upheld-in-illinois-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2012\/09\/conscience-rights-for-pharmacists-upheld-in-illinois-ruling\/","title":{"rendered":"Conscience rights for pharmacists upheld in Illinois ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Washington D.C., Sep 25, 2012 \/ 12:09 pm (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- An Illinois appeals court\u2019s ruling on the conscience rights of pharmacists is being hailed as a victory for religious freedom and could offer hope to current lawsuits challenging the federal contraception mandate.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cGovernment can\u2019t force pharmacists and pharmacies to violate their religious beliefs to stay in business,\u201d said Mark Rienzi, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has been co-representing the pharmacists for seven years.<\/p>\n

\tRienzi told CNA on Sept. 24 that the ruling provides a \u201cuseful\u201d parallel in examining the controversial Health and Human Services mandate that forces many religious employers to violate their sincere beliefs by providing health insurance coverage of contraception, sterilization and early abortion drugs.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cI think the same principle would apply,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\tOn Sept. 21, an Illinois appellate court held that the state cannot force pharmacies and pharmacists to sell early abortion-inducing drugs if doing so violates their religious beliefs.<\/p>\n

\tThe ruling comes after seven years of litigation over a state mandate requiring all pharmacies and pharmacists to sell Plan B, known as the \u201cmorning after pill.\u201d Pharmacists who did not comply were threatened with penalties, including fines and \u201cthe loss of professional licenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tSeveral pharmacists and pharmacies that hold moral objections to the morning-after pill because it can cause the abortion of a human embryo filed lawsuits.<\/p>\n

\tA circuit court ruled that \u201cthe plaintiffs had sincere religious beliefs preventing them from dispensing emergency contraceptives\u201d and issued a permanent injunction preventing the state from enforcing the mandate against them.<\/p>\n

\tThe court of appeals has now affirmed the injunction, arguing that pharmacists and pharmacies are protected under the Illinois Health Care Right of Conscience Act.<\/p>\n

\tThis law prohibits discrimination in health care licensing due to religious objections that prevent cooperation with certain procedures or products.<\/p>\n

\tRienzi said that the state mandate is an instance of \u201creligious discrimination, as surely as a fine on going to church.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tHe noted that in the Illinois case, the defendants made the same argument put forward by the Obama administration in defending the contraception mandate, claiming that the right to religious freedom is surrendered when one enters a for-profit business. However, the court rejected this argument, he said.<\/p>\n

\tThe Becket Fund was also involved in a recent Washington state case where a federal court struck down a similar requirement.<\/p>\n

\tRienzi finds rulings like these encouraging for the ongoing fight over the contraception mandate. More than 80 plaintiffs across the country have filed lawsuits challenging that mandate and the threat that it poses to their free exercise of religion.<\/p>\n

\tThe contraception mandate is \u201cparticularly offensive,\u201d Rienzi said, because there are numerous other ways for the government to ensure that women have access to contraception without forcing objecting employers to facilitate it.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThere\u2019s no need to do this,\u201d he explained. \u201cThese are religious beliefs that people have lived with just fine for our whole history.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Washington D.C., Sep 25, 2012 \/ 12:09 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- An Illinois appeals court’s ruling on the conscience rights of pharmacists is being hailed as a victory for religious freedom and could offer hope to current lawsuits challenging the fede…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nConscience rights for pharmacists upheld in Illinois ruling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Washington D.C., Sep 25, 2012 \/ 12:09 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- An Illinois appeals court’s ruling on the conscience rights of pharmacists is being hailed as a victory for religious freedom and could offer hope to current lawsuits challenging the fede...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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