Friday, April 15, 2005

Karen Brauer

Now she is making the papers because 1 Senator and 1 Representative are presenting a bill that would require all pharamcies to fill prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception. This wouldn't hold individual pharmacists responsible, just the pharmacies they work for.

I think this is a reasonable compromise as do the 2 lawmakers leading the discussion of the bill, which is why they are introducing it I assume.

What I don't get, is the correlation that Brauer comes up with:

Brauer said in a telephone interview that she believes the country is on a path that will eventually lead to doctors ordering women to abort disabled children, or refuse to treat them once born. "They'll force women to kill their children ... It will be like China. It's the next logical step," she said.

Apparantely, she is unaware that the "crisis" already exists. Most women do not know within the 120 hour window that they are carrying a child with a disability. I do know (because I seem to be thinking realistically here) that it takes a month (an approximation) to study the genes of an embryo and by then, EC is no longer affective. So her next illogical step has been logically disproven. The whole point of EC is to stop the implantation of a fertilized egg. Once the implantation process has occured, women have to seek a medically induced abortion. Duh.

Let's not forget the ever-increasing cuts of Medicaid and Social Security so, in a way, we are refusing to care for them once they are born. In Virginia, insurance companies are allowed to stop paying after a certain point and then a waiver has to be filled out and the process goes on forever. There are waiting lists a mile long for children to get into special schools, homes, for the Medicaid Waivers and so on.

Why isn't she picking on the fact that genetics screening provides parents with the coding of their embryo's DNA which can also be used to used to make decisions such as aborting girls? Abortion isn't the culprit, technology is. How a pharmacist fits into that equation, I'm not at all sure of.

George Will published an editorial yesterday and while I don't usually read his stuff because he just aggravates me, he did make some good points.

What I do think is one certain pharmacist needs to know her facts before pretending to be something she is not. You know, like a Dr. or something.