Theocracy wins one in South Dakota

The South Dakota senate last week shot down a bill that would have ensured pharmacists would dispense birth control bills and other contraceptives.

The bill, SB164, recognized "the right of consenting individuals to obtain and use safe and effective methods of contraception without interference of government entities."

The purpose was to prevent pharmacists from refusing to fill birth control prescriptions by referencing a state law which allows them to refuse to dispense medication they believed would be used for an abortion or suicide.

“It separates out birth control from the abortion statutes,” said Sen. Ed Olson, R-Mitchell, the sponsor of the bill.

Sounds like common sense, doesn't it? And given that increased use of birth control leads to fewer unwanted pregnancies and fewer abortions, you might think people who really want to reduce abortions would support it. You might think that, but you'd be wrong.

The same groups that pushed for an extreme anti-abortion bill in South Dakota also opposed this bill, including the South Dakota Eagle Forum, the Catholic Archdiocese of Sioux Falls and the South Dakota Family Policy Council.

Why would they do such a thing? Because banning abortion isn't their ultimate goal. Their ultimate goal is banning contraceptives and forcing a return to the idyllic days when women were kept home, barefoot and pregnant, with none of that inconvenient freedom to worry about.

Kimberly Martinez, executive director of the Alpha Center in Sioux Falls, which is one of those pregnancy centers that provides no birth control information, considers the morning-after pill an abortifacient and refers to a zygote as a "tiny baby," had this to say:"We want to thank the senators who voted no on SB 164, in spite of being bullied to disregard South Dakota values and accept an extreme worldview"

They consider access to birth control an "extreme worldview." The fact that 98 percent of women will use birth control at some point in their lives is apparently irrelevant.

What do they want as an alternative to birth control?

"The key to reducing the number of unwed pregnancies and abortions in South Dakota is sexual integrity relationship education, which includes healthy decision making, healthy relationships and refusal skills," Martinez said.

In other words, just say no and squeeze your knees together. We all know how well that works as public policy.

This is not just a theoretical concern. More and more cases of pharmacists refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control are popping up across the country. See here or here or here or here or here. That's just a sampling.