A Third Victory For Sanity By The Supreme Court This Week

(Image was found at the Progressive Secular Humanist.)

This has been a good week for progressives regarding Supreme Court decisions. First, we had the 5 to 3 vote killing the odious law in Texas that closed many women's clinics. The cam the 6 to 2 vote that upheld the ban on possessing firearms by those convicted of misdemeanor domestic violence. Now we learn of another victory for women's health.

The case involved a pharmacist and two of his employees in the state of Washington. That pharmacy refused to even carry the "morning after pill", or other contraceptives they considered to cause abortions. They claimed they had a religious right to do that.

The state of Washington disagreed. They passed a law mandating that all pharmacies must carry and sell those contraceptives. The pharmacist went to court to protect his "religious rights", and was able to convince a federal judge that he was right. But that verdict was overturned by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, who ruled that the Washington law was constitutional and did not violate religious rights. It simply mandated that pharmacists do their job.

He appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. But this week, on a 5 to 3 vote, the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. That left the appeals court decision as the law of the land. The five justices voting to refuse the case were Breyer, Sotomayor, Kagan, Ginsberg, and Kennedy. Roberts, Alito, and Thomas wanted to take the case.

The Supreme Court did the right thing. Refusing to sell legal medications to the public is not only a violation of the law, but a breach of ethics for a pharmacist. If they don't want to do their job, then they should quit and find a job they can do properly.