A Good Thing in the News

Our daughter Joy lives in the State of Washington, which is also where I grew up. It's hard to imagine but I do think Washington is even more liberal in it's thinking and politics than Oregon. Joy has worked in the Pregnancy Resource Center in her community since it's inception 10+ years ago, serving as the treasurer and on the board. Last year she asked us to pray for the leaders in the Washington State Senate, as there was a lot of pressure on the senators to pass a bill that would effectively shut down all resource centers in the State. Fortunately, the bill was narrowly defeated. But, they are back at it again in this session, hammering away at all 'roadblocks' to uncontested abortions. Please continue to pray that they won't succeed.

Yesterday in our newspaper I found a good article about the State of Washington. It seems that two pharmacists and a pharmacy owner went to court to contest a state ruling requiring them to dispense Plan B, or other emergency contraceptives, stating that it went against their conscience and violated their constitutional rights to freedom of religion. Washington's rules require that pharmacies stock and dispense drugs that can destroy a fertilized egg, equal to an abortion. Fortunately, US District Judge Ronald Leighton sided with the pharmacists, and overturned the state ruling. The Judge recognized that "the state's true goal was to suppress religious objections" by druggists to dispensing abortion medications. The Judge stated "the most compelling evidence that the rules target religious conduct is the fact that the rules already contain numerous secular exemptions...the rules now exempt pharmacies and pharmacists from stocking and delivering lawfully prescribed drugs for an almost unlimited variety of secular reasons, but fail to provide exemptions for reasons of conscience". Now it does, thanks to an insightful Judge. It's a small victory, but any victory is welcome, and especially when favorably reported in our newspaper. May more Christians stand up and fight for their beliefs.

*The photo above is one of Elijah right after her was born in January of 2011. I used it not just because he was so cute, but to remind us once again of the value of human life.