Apparently some pharmacists are now refusing not only to fill women's prescriptions for emergency contraception and other methods of birth control, but also for antibiotics or vitamins. I want to say something like, "tell me this is about life now" or point out that the hypotheticals we used to propose about pharmacists refusing to dispense medication for cholesterol drugs and the like are no longer hypothetical, or that in fact, that parallel is deeply flawed because apparently some pharmacists' moral beliefs only mean not dispensing medications to women. But really, I can't say anything because my jaw is sitting on the floor.

Also, yesterday Broadsheet linked to a news story that at least one of the two recent deaths said to be RU-486 related had nothing to do with either the medication or, indeed, the abortion. It also includes the information that prior deaths said to be RU-486 related were, in fact, due to toxic shock. It seems clear that, in five of the six cases that anti-abortion folks like to point to to talk about the risks of RU-486, there is no direct relationship between RU-486 and death: you can get toxic shock from using tampons or by introducing the bacteria into the vagina by any method whatsoever.