Nov 7, 2007 / 09:39 am
The president of Human Life International has decried a New Jersey law effectively forbidding conscientious objections from pharmacists who are asked to fill prescriptions for abortion-causing contraception.
“When a state rejects the protection of individual consciences, that state loses its soul," said Reverend Thomas J. Euteneur, president of Human Life International.
The New Jersey law was sponsored by state Senator Joseph Vitale and signed into law by Governor Jon Corzine.
“In a free society, the rights of conscience are recognized. When the state abrogates those rights forcing citizens to violate their consciences as a condition for employment, then that state is no longer a free society,” said Father Euteneuer.
“This is not yet another action by government in America leading to tyranny, it is tyranny. Governor Corzine and Senator Vitale are no longer acting as American statesmen but as representatives of the Culture of Death, joining officials in eleven other states with this evil law.”
“This new precedent is a call for all Americans, especially Catholics and others who live by firm moral and religious principles, to take a hard look at what is happening in our country as the national elections approach," he said. “The day has come when the corner pharmacist, whom we trust and expect to be moral, can lose his or her job and even go to jail for refusing to dispense a pill that can kill a baby.”