A few months ago the story surfaced of pharmacist John Lane in Broadus, Montana who exercised his conscience, and the freedom allowed to him by law, to refuse to sell contraceptives. Complaints were filed against him by those who demanded he sell them a product he found objectionable.
His story started a dialogue in South Dakota that resulted in a bill being submitted to the South Dakota legislature that would have remove the right of conscience of South Dakota pharmacists and punished those who didn't want to sell a product about which they had moral objections.
Ironically, that bill referenced this exercises of conscience by pharmacists as if they constituted "government intrusions" and as if the pharmacists were "government entities," turning the whole debate upside down. Fortunately, the bill was rejected by the legislature.
Now, according to CBN News, Lane has been cleared by the Montana Board of Pharmacy:
Since then, Lane had 11 complaints filed against him with the Montana Board of Pharmacy for not selling the pills. He was represented before the state's pharmacy board by the Alliance Defense Fund, a nonprofit legal agency.
"Neither the government nor an employer should make people choose between their faith and their job," ADF-allied attorney Matthew Monforton, said. "The board did the right thing by recognizing that Mr. Lane did nothing to violate the law."
Lane had faced potentially losing his license or an official reprimand from the board. But all complaints were dismissed last Wednesday, after officials determined Lane had not broken law.
As the ADF attorney pointed out in the story, respecting the right of someone not to sell a product they find objectionable doesn't impose an ideology on anyone; using the power of government and law to force someone to choose between their job and their conscience DOES.
Since customers are free to obtain contraceptives from another pharmacist or order them through the mail, I can't consider this effort by some in Montana, and some in the South Dakota legislature, as anything other than an effort force the ideology of sex without consequence upon others.
Fortunately, the right of conscience has been upheld in both Montana and South Dakota. For now.
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