Why Can't The Democrats Take Advantage Of This?

Here's some more crap from those radical right-wing religious lunatics out there who apparently became pharmacists in order to spread the word of Ja-Heesus by not doing their jobs:

Cedar River Clinics, a women's health and abortion provider with facilities in Renton, Tacoma, and Yakima, filed a complaint with the Washington State Department of Health this week alleging three instances where pharmacists raising moral objections refused to fill prescriptions for Cedar River clients. The complaint includes one incident at the Swedish Medical Center outpatient pharmacy in Seattle.

According to the complaint, someone at the Swedish pharmacy said she was "morally unable" to fill a Cedar River patient's prescription for abortion-related antibiotics. Cedar River's complaint quotes its Renton clinic manager's May 17, 2005, e-mail account: "Today, one of our clients asked us to call in her prescription... to Swedish outpatient pharmacy. [We] called the prescription in... and spoke with an efficient staff person who took down the prescription. A few minutes later, this pharmacy person called us back and told us she had found out who we were and she morally was unable to fill the prescription." (Cedar River thinks their client eventually got her prescription filled.)

This kind of stuff is happening all over the country. It's as if God himself came down and handed the Democrats the Mother of All Wedge Issues, yet the Democrats don't want to do anything to exploit this opportunity.

Well, that's not exactly true. Last week, the Democrats claimed they want to push legislation which would expand access to contraceptives and sex education:

The Prevention First Act is sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.), one of few congressional Democrats considered anti-abortion. The bill, which Reid introduced at the start of the Congress, has the support of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), presumptive front-runner in the 2008 presidential primary and 21 other Democrats.

The bill would prohibit group health plans from excluding contraceptive drugs, devices and outpatient services if they cover the cost of other prescription drugs and outpatient services. It would also require the secretary of health and human services to disseminate information on emergency contraception to healthcare providers and require hospitals receiving federal money to provide emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.

The bill would also mandate that federally funded programs provide information about contraceptives that is medically accurate and includes data on health benefits and failure rates.

OK, that's a good start. Well, maybe calling it a "start" is a bit premature, given that the Democrats passed up an opportunity last month to attach this legislation to a budget resolution and Reid doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry to bring it forward. But even if the Democrats got off their back ends and started aggressively pushing this legislation, it is too weak by a long shot.

A democrat in Congress should instead propose a bill making it a violation of federal law for pharmacists to refuse to fill these types of prescriptions. Every Republican running for reelection in 2006 would, of course, oppose such a bill out of fear of reprisals from radical, right-wing Christian cults if they don't, and the Democrats could then use this opposition against these candidates during the run-up to this year's Mid-Terms.

Such legislation might not be constitutional you say? I don't care about that, because the purpose of proposing such legislation is to create a wedge in the GOP's support base. Whether or not such a law passes constitutional muster is irrelevant. In fact, it doesn't even matter if the bill passes Congress.

The Republicans pull this kind of stuff all the time, most recently in Arizona, where the radicals tried to pass a bill which required doctors to inform a woman seeking an abortion after 20 weeks that the "unborn child" can feel pain (Arizona's Democratic governor vetoed it).
I can't understand why the Democrats are reluctant to do the same type of thing. One of the GOP's biggest weaknesses is its embarrassing affiliation with the extreme religious right, and it's time for the Democrats to start exploiting this connection.