Constitution 1, Rob McKenna 0

Oops. Rob McKenna bet on the wrong side yesterday.  Rob McKenna believes allowing people to refuse to participate in murder is a violation of the Constitution and Judge Leighton smacked him down.

Court upholds pro-life pharmacists’ objections to dispensing abortifacient contraceptives.

We applaud the court's decision because it was the right one. AIW was at many of the Board of Pharmacy hearings and covered the controversy in-depth. We provided the only public reporting on the incestuous business relationships between Planned Parenthood of Western Washington, the UW School of Pharmacy/Don Downing, Barr Labs, the Board of Pharmacy and the governor of Washington. ALL of them colluded against pharmacists (and others) who said, "Plan B kills and we don't want to be part of it."  Specifically, they targeted Christians and people of conscience.

WE TOLD YOU SO. And the court agrees with US. He sent everyone involved in the selling and promotion of the snake-oil known as Plan B out the door.


In the opening Summary the Judge stated the situation exactly as it is rightly understood.

This case presents a novel question: can the State compel licensed pharmacies and pharmacists to dispense lawfully prescribed emergency contraceptives over their sincere religious belief that doing so terminates a human life? In 2007, under pressure from the Governor, Planned Parenthood, and the Northwest Women’s Law Center, the Washington State Board of Pharmacy enacted regulations designed to do just that.

And it just gets better from there. The judge chronicles the pure evil that flowed out of Planned Parenthood, the Northwest Women's Law Center, and the governor's office to target the conscience rights of pharmacists, as we reported starting 2006. Go read it; see especially pages 7 onward.

As for judge's analysis of where the Plaintiffs and Intervenors were coming from in making this end-run around the Constitution, try this on:
In the initial rulemaking process and throughout this litigation, the State and the Intervenors have dismissed Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs about the implications of dispensing emergency contraceptives as unworthy of the same sorts of protections they would, presumably, freely recognize in another context. Indeed, they view the decision that confronts people of faith as minor, even quaint, burdens on religious practices like regulations on facial hair, dreadlocks, drug use, land use regulation, taxation, and the like. They argue that Plaintiffs’ sincere belief about an issue at the core of their religion is not entitled to constitutional protection, but is instead granted (or not) as a matter of legislative grace.
(page 18)
As the case went to trial, Attorney General Rob McKenna threw his opinion into the fray to try to curry favor with the state's abortion establishment. His brief is a disturbing look into the mind of a man unable to reason and willing to say anything to get elected. Remember that this man wants to be the Republican candidate for Governor.

The blog PubliCola first exposed the brief in late December 2011. In a nutshell, McKenna's opinon was that: "if exceptions were made for religious beliefs, the state would be establishing religion, in violation of the First Amendment." Such ignorance about conscience rights are breathtaking for someone who claims to have gone to law school and wants to win the governorship. Does he not know that concentious objectors can refuse military service? What about lawyers who don't want to represent certain clients? People who don't want to participate in executions? This man thinks the First Amendment protects the right of the state to force Christians to participate in murder! You can't make this stuff up.

The court nicely slams McKenna on page 17, footnote 13. The judge also makes many of the same points we have made about the rights of concentious objectors having a long history in America.
Rob McKenna's brief is offensive to people who know right from wrong and can follow a simple syllogism, but if you must you can read it here.

The most offensive line from the brief is this:

"If this Court allows pharmacies to interpose their religious beliefs to deny health care to its patients, the Court would put the state in the role of endorsing the religious beliefs which view life as commencing upon fertilization."

Contraception, emergency contraception, and abortion are many things, but everyone knows that they are NOT health care.  They are technological innovations developed to alter the normal, healthy condition of a woman's body to allow people to achieve pleasure without consequence. They don't prevent disease, unless you believe humanity is a plague. The belief that life begins at conception/fertilization is a scientific fact, not a religious one. If Rob McKenna wants to go on the record as anti-science he'll find loads of company in the abortion lobby.

(Furthermore, the state has defined when life begins -- at birth, and that line is even now beginning to slip.)

Here's the bottom line on Rob McKenna: Rob McKenna is going to do what's good for Rob McKenna. I understand that Jay Inslee is crazy-insane pro-abortion but don't think for a minute that that makes McKenna some kind of moderate who is going to do the work pro-lifers are expecting of him.

It is our opinion that this man should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power. If the Washington State Republican Party can't find anyone better than this to represent conservative values, maybe it should just pack up and go home.

And we can hardly wait for the Seattle Times editorial about the continuting Ban on Plan B.