Pope tells pharmacists to not give "immoral" drugs

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI said Monday that pharmacists have a right to use conscientious objection to avoid dispensing emergency contraception or euthanasia drugs — and told them they should also inform patients of the ethical implications of using such drugs.

Benedict told a gathering of Catholic pharmacists that conscientious objection was a right that must be recognized by the pharmaceutical profession.

Benedict said such status would "enable them not to collaborate directly or indirectly in supplying products that have clearly immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia."

In his address to the 25th International Congress of Catholic Pharmacists, the pope also said they have an educational role toward patients so that drugs are used in a morally and ethically correct way.

"Pharmacists must seek to raise people's awareness so that all human beings are protected from conception to natural death, and so that medicines truly play a therapeutic role," Benedict said.

Emergency contraception pills, which can be taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sex, work by preventing ovulation or fertilization. They may also prevent an embryo from being implanted into the uterus.

The issue has also been debated extensively in the U.S., primarily after the introduction of the emergency contraceptive Plan B in 1999. Since last August, the drug has been available to women 18 and older without a prescription.

A few U.S. states have passed laws that specifically allow pharmacists or pharmacies to refuse to provide health care because of religious or moral objections, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive-rights think tank based in New York.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich made headlines two years ago when he introduced a rule requiring pharmacists to fill all prescriptions. Pharmacists challenged the rule, and a legal settlement earlier this month allowed pharmacists who object to dispensing emergency birth control to step aside while someone else fills the prescription.