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BC PREMIER DEMANDS PHARMACISTS DISPENSE 'EMERGENCY CONTRACEPTION'

VANCOUVER, Oct 16 (LSN.ca) - Premier Ujjal Dosanjh threatened "government action" Friday to ensure pharmacists will dispense abortifacient morning- after pills without a doctors prescription. The Vancouver Sun quotes the premier as saying, "I want to make sure we have the morning-after pill available to women in British Columbia, readily available and I want the doctors and the pharmacists to work together to end the jurisdictional squabble. I just want them to speed it up. I hope no government intervention is required because that is not my first preference."

Commenting on the news, Cristina Alarcon, a Vancouver pharmacist said: "How ironic that the B.C. Health Minister wants to ban tobacco sales in pharmacies while our Premier is trying to force pharmacists to hand out morning-after pills like Halloween candy." Alarcon, who is the BC representative for Concerned Pharmacists for Conscience, added: "This abortion-causing drug was developed primarily to act against implantation of a live human embryo. It is a product that professional pharmacists should refuse to dispense for medical, ethical reasons, or on moral or religious grounds, not to mention liability concerns and the possibility of having angry parents of teenagers coming after us. We still do not know the long-term effects of repeated use of this drug. We do know that high doses of these hormones have been linked to breast cancer. Why are we using young women as guinea pigs?"

Stressing conscience rights, Alarcon said, "Regardless of where you stand on the moral issues surrounding abortion, pharmacists who do not wish to participate must have their 'freedom of choice' respected and they must not be forced to refer. ... I didn't spend years studying pharmacy just to become a dispensing machine."

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