Letter: Pharmacists forced to endorse abortion

Thursday, Feb. 16, 2006 | 12:30 p.m.

Recent letters to the Las Vegas Sun on the beginning of life and the start of pregnancy miss an important point. It is a biological fact that each human life begins at conception, not at implantation. This is true even if pregnancy is technically defined as beginning at implantation of the unborn into the womb.

One writer's argument that the unborn is not a human life because the unborn is not viable - because he or she hasn't implanted him or herself - is frightening. Viability or lack of dependency is not an acceptable definition of who possesses human life. If it were, millions of Americans - including "viable" unborn children late in the pregnancy period of life, infants, children, many physically and mentally challenged people, and people dependent upon medical care - would not meet the definition of being human due to their high degree of dependency on others.

Whether or not pregnancy is defined as beginning when the unborn implants into his or her mother's womb does not change the fact that a unique human being exists several days before implantation. When pharmacists are forced to prescribe drugs that end these lives before or after implantation, those pharmacists are made to be frequent participants in aborting newly conceived human beings.

Abortion advocates know life begins at conception and that in addition to preventing conception, certain drugs kill newly created human lives. They will use laws forcing pharmacists to participate in chemical abortions as precedent to force doctors, hospitals and insurers to participate in and pay for abortion.

Don Nelson, Sparks