{"id":4898,"date":"2011-04-06T06:12:50","date_gmt":"2011-04-06T11:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kevinbryant.com\/?p=4898"},"modified":"2011-04-06T06:12:50","modified_gmt":"2011-04-06T11:12:50","slug":"palmetto-family-council-illinois-court-strikes-rule-forcing-pharmacists-to-violate-their-conscience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/palmetto-family-council-illinois-court-strikes-rule-forcing-pharmacists-to-violate-their-conscience\/","title":{"rendered":"Palmetto Family Council: Illinois court strikes rule forcing pharmacists to violate their conscience"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><span><em>\u201cThere is a widespread attack on conscience in America,\u201d said AUL\u2019s Dr. Charmaine Yoest. \u201cBut today an Illinois court ruled that the state cannot target pharmacists simply because of their religious beliefs.\u201d<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong> \u2014 Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest applauded a decision today from an Illinois circuit court that struck down a state administrative rule forcing pharmacists and pharmacies to dispense \u201cemergency contraception\u201d against their conscientious beliefs. Long involved in the case, AUL first represented the plaintiffs in 2005 when\u00a0<em>Morr-Fitz, Inc. vs. Blagojevich<\/em> was filed.<\/p>\n<p>The complaint alleged that then Gov. Rod Blagojevich violated the conscience rights of pharmacists and pharmacies by requiring them to dispense \u201cemergency contraception\u201d against their religious convictions. As the case has proceeded, AUL\u2019s involvement included two\u00a0<em>amicus curiae<\/em> briefs on behalf of national medical organizations in support of the plaintiffs and the conscience rights of all health care providers in the state of Illinois. Click\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aul.org\/xm_client\/client_documents\/briefs\/Morr-FitzvBlagILontheMerits.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aul.org\/aul-amicus-brief-fitz-marr-v-blagojevich\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> to read those briefs.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s ruling, the court found that the rule was improperly aimed only at pharmacists and pharmacies holding religious convictions. While proponents of the draconian rule claim it is necessary in order to ensure availability of \u201cemergency contraception,\u201d the court noted that not a single person has ever been unable to obtain \u201cemergency contraception\u201d because of a pharmacist\u2019s religious objection.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr. Yoest commended the state court: \u201cFor six years, pharmacists and pharmacies have been bullied by the state of Illinois into choosing between violating their religious beliefs or violating the law. We applaud the Illinois circuit court for permanently striking this unconstitutional rule.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For more information on healthcare freedom of conscience, go\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aul.org\/issue\/healthcare-rights-of-conscience\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cThere is a widespread attack on conscience in America,\u201d said AUL\u2019s Dr. Charmaine Yoest. \u201cBut today an Illinois court ruled that the state cannot target pharmacists simply because of their religious beliefs.\u201d WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Americans United for Life President and CEO Dr. Charmaine Yoest applauded a decision today from an Illinois circuit court that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-4898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2gEQ0-1h0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kevinbryant.com\/kbarchive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}