"Pope urges pharmacists to reject abortion pill" - Reuters

Update 5: I've decided to make this speech the topic of this week's bioethics essay.

Reuters:

Pharmacists must be allowed to refuse to supply drugs that cause abortion or euthanasia, Pope Benedict said on Monday, calling on health professionals to be "conscientious objectors" against such practices.

The Pope told a convention of Roman Catholic pharmacists that part of their job was to help protect human life from conception until natural death -- the Church teaching that rules out any deliberate termination of pregnancy or euthanasia.

"It is not possible to anaesthetise the conscience, for example, when it comes to molecules whose aim is to stop an embryo implanting or to cut short someone's life," the Pope said.

The so-called abortion pill, which is available in many European Union countries and has had regulatory approval in the United States since 2000, has not been authorised in Italy.

The Vatican has criticised moves by some Italian politicians who favour the pill, which blocks the action of the hormone progesterone that is needed to sustain a pregnancy.

The Pope told the international gathering that individual pharmacists could always choose not to prescribe such a drug.

"I invite your federation to consider conscientious objection which is a right that must be recognised for your profession so you can avoid collaborating, directly or indirectly, in the supply of products which have clearly immoral aims, for example abortion or euthanasia," he said.

Update: Today's VIS adds a bit more:

In the moral sphere, the federation of pharmacists "is called to face the question of conscientious objection, which is a right that must be recognized for people exercising this profession, so as to enable them not to collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products that have clearly immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia."

It is also important, the Pope proceeded, that pharmaceutical organizations practice "solidarity in the therapeutic field so as to enable people of all social classes and all countries, especially the poorest, to have access to vital medicines and assistance."

"The biomedical sciences are at the service of man," the Pope concluded. "Were it otherwise they would be cold and inhuman. All scientific knowledge in the field of healthcare ... is at the service of sick human beings, considered in their entirety, who must have an active role in their cure and whose autonomy must be respected."

CWNews provides a summary of the Pope's words. CNA does so as well.

The Pope is calling on pharmacists to conscientiously object when asked to dispense treatments that have an abortifacient or euthanistic effect.

The Pope's speech, however, does not answer the dilemma currently being faced by pharmacists asked to dispense Plan B, because the precise question is whether or not Plan B is abortifacient in the first place. If it is, the Pope's words apply. If it isn't, they don't apply.

This speech also provides no guidelines that might be applied to the prudential question concerning how much surety (or lack of surety) is needed to conscientiously object. The fact that pharmacists' jobs as well as their moral integrity is at stake makes me wish for a bit more clarity.

Update 2: I'm specifically pointing out that this speech by the Pope does not seem to directly apply to recent events in CT. The press has decided to link the two events in naming the "abortion pill" as the type of treatment the Pope is speaking about, while actually, the Pope is simply stating a general principle that then must be prudentially applied in specific cases. To wit: if Plan B is an "abortion pill" then clearly the Pope's words apply. If Plan B is not an "abortion pill", than just as clearly the Pope's words do not apply.

Update 3: The Associated Press has picked up on the story, and it seems to be getting more traction in general.

(Of course, it would be nice to have access to the full text of the Pope's speech. Again, Reuters/AP have their coverage out before the Catholic reporting agencies. I'm not trying to lay any blame here, but it would be nice if the universal Church had access to its own documents before the secular presses tell us - in their own way - what was said.)

Update 4: Zenit has posted its coverage and adds a helpful line (underlining mine):

[Pope Benedict] recalled [the pharmacist's] role in educating patients "in the correct use of medications" and in informing them of "the ethical implications of the use of particular drugs."

A law that prohibits pharmacists from informing their patients about the ethical implications of certain drugs would seem to violate what Pope Benedict is claiming to be part of the pharmacists' role.

LifeSiteNews has coverage of the Pope's speech, which is now available in French and Italian on the Vatican Website.