Judge Leighton's Plan B ruling makes constitutional sense
Seattle Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey argues that Judge Ronald Leighton got it right in his ruling, in Stormans v. Selecky, that a druggist has a right not to sell the Plan B morning-after pill.
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Seattle Times (editorial columnist
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Progressives were quick to dismiss the ruling in U.S. District Court in Tacoma that a pharmacist has a right not to sell the Plan B "morning after" pill. To them, Judge Ronald Leighton's ruling Feb. 22 in Stormans v. Selecky was all about religion blocking a woman's access to health care.
No doubt a druggist who refuses to sell Plan B may infuriate a woman. Her anger is probably less about the inconvenience of finding another store and more about the implied censure of behavior she feels is none of the druggist's damn business. But the Constitution offers no guarantees against a druggist's disapproval — or of "access" to health care, whatever that means. It does guarantee the druggist's free exercise of religion.
The judge is not on a campaign for prudery here. Leighton may be a George W. Bush appointee and a Republican, but he is also the judge who ruled in 2010 against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and for the rights of gays in the military. Leighton cares about Americans' rights. Those who condemn his ruling might take the time to read it.
In it, he offers two arguments for the druggist's right to refuse. The first is that every American ought to have a right not to be compelled to take a human life.
The progressives reply that preventing the survival of a zygote, which is what Plan B does, is not really taking a life and that religious people should just get over it.
Writes Leighton, "Indeed, they view the decision that confronts people of faith as minor, even quaint... " But the disagreement between the progressive and the religious believer is not minor. It is about when a living zygote, with homo sapiens DNA, becomes a person. It is not a scientific issue. It is a matter of belief, and by the progressive as much as anyone.
Leighton considers whether "the right not to take a human life" should be constitutionally protected along with the rights to marry, to abort a fetus and to have children and direct their education. None of these is in the Constitution, but all have been declared by the U.S. Supreme Court to be fundamental to American law. Leighton wisely steps back from declaring a new right from his bench in Tacoma, and hangs his ruling instead on a second argument.
State government regulates pharmacists. In theory, the Board of Pharmacy requires drugstore owners to stock a wide assortment of drugs and to dispense them to proper buyers. The Plan B rule could be justified as part of that requirement, Leighton writes, except that in 40 years the requirement was never defined or enforced. In practice, he writes, "a pharmacy can decline to stock a drug for a host of secular reasons" including that it has a short shelf life, it is expensive, it is difficult to store, it requires special equipment, it requires extra paperwork or, in the case of oxycodone or Sudafed, the drug makes the pharmacy a target for robbery.
Leighton tells us to look beyond what the rule says. Look at what the state does. In practice it allows a pharmacy to decline to sell a drug for reasons that are commercial but not religious. The state's actions show that "access" is not what its Plan B rule is about. It is about expunging the exercise of religion from the commercial marketplace.
Really this is about the implied censure. And in a free country, that may be something you have to put up with.
Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His email address is bramsey@seattletimes.com
No doubt a druggist who refuses to sell Plan B may infuriate a woman. Her anger is probably less about the inconvenience of finding another store and more about the implied censure of behavior she feels is none of the druggist's damn business. But the Constitution offers no guarantees against a druggist's disapproval — or of "access" to health care, whatever that means. It does guarantee the druggist's free exercise of religion.
The judge is not on a campaign for prudery here. Leighton may be a George W. Bush appointee and a Republican, but he is also the judge who ruled in 2010 against the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy and for the rights of gays in the military. Leighton cares about Americans' rights. Those who condemn his ruling might take the time to read it.
In it, he offers two arguments for the druggist's right to refuse. The first is that every American ought to have a right not to be compelled to take a human life.
The progressives reply that preventing the survival of a zygote, which is what Plan B does, is not really taking a life and that religious people should just get over it.
Writes Leighton, "Indeed, they view the decision that confronts people of faith as minor, even quaint... " But the disagreement between the progressive and the religious believer is not minor. It is about when a living zygote, with homo sapiens DNA, becomes a person. It is not a scientific issue. It is a matter of belief, and by the progressive as much as anyone.
Leighton considers whether "the right not to take a human life" should be constitutionally protected along with the rights to marry, to abort a fetus and to have children and direct their education. None of these is in the Constitution, but all have been declared by the U.S. Supreme Court to be fundamental to American law. Leighton wisely steps back from declaring a new right from his bench in Tacoma, and hangs his ruling instead on a second argument.
State government regulates pharmacists. In theory, the Board of Pharmacy requires drugstore owners to stock a wide assortment of drugs and to dispense them to proper buyers. The Plan B rule could be justified as part of that requirement, Leighton writes, except that in 40 years the requirement was never defined or enforced. In practice, he writes, "a pharmacy can decline to stock a drug for a host of secular reasons" including that it has a short shelf life, it is expensive, it is difficult to store, it requires special equipment, it requires extra paperwork or, in the case of oxycodone or Sudafed, the drug makes the pharmacy a target for robbery.
Leighton tells us to look beyond what the rule says. Look at what the state does. In practice it allows a pharmacy to decline to sell a drug for reasons that are commercial but not religious. The state's actions show that "access" is not what its Plan B rule is about. It is about expunging the exercise of religion from the commercial marketplace.
Really this is about the implied censure. And in a free country, that may be something you have to put up with.
Bruce Ramsey's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His email address is bramsey@seattletimes.com
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