'Faith-Based' Pharmacies: prescription for problems.

I am alarmed at how insidiously the anti-birth control/anti-abortion hierarchy is maneuvering throughout our country to take away a woman's right to plan when or if she wants to become a mother. Your article "Faith-Based Pharmacies?: Religious Right Backs Prescription Exemptions" (May Church & State) wisely points how out of touch with reality the so-called "Workplace Religious Freedom Act" in Congress really is. Their goal is to control American citizens' private lives. Denying birth control to the sexually active is guaranteed to cause more abortions.

What is the "pro-lifers'" ulterior motive? Evidently they want to keep using women as mindless baby machines for their orphanages and adoption industry, plus sending many women into the welfare syndrome and abusive relationships. (Some are even killed by their partners.)

Because I believe in the separation of church and state and individual freedom, I was offended when I read an article Jan. 20, 1971, titled "Catholics Gird for Fight Against Abortion Reform." When I read "The right of a woman to her own body is subordinate to the right of a child to life," I thought this is why my friend's mother (and fetus) chose to die a good Catholic rather than sign to have a safe legal abortion back in 1949. Her husband was Lutheran and had signed for his wife to have an abortion, but was left to raise their six children, the youngest still in diapers, when his wife died

The ecumenical and humanitarian Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling wisely took the abortion issue out of the political and religious arena and allowed a woman to decide for herself whether or not she wanted to become a mother. It should not be the church or the state making this life-altering decision for her.

If these trends continue, just think about the future: Separate pro- or anti-choice hospitals, physicians, pharmacists, clinics, etc. Also, will the pharmacists be allowed to pick and choose other prescriptions they dispense such as Viagra, diet pills, Nexium, etc? If not, why not?

If you're going to be judgmental, whether it's working in a bar (you're against drinking) or working as a pharmacist (you're against birth control) please choose a different profession to go into.

Alice Cowley

Becker, Minn.