Slippery Slope

We are travelling down a very dangerous road with a very slippery slope, now, when it comes to the very ideas on which this country was founded. One of the things that separates this country from the rest of the world is our security in the notion that we cannot be forced to do something we find to be against our conscience. I remember a saying I heard growing up, "this is a free country, ain't it?".

That may be changing. There is a growing trend in this country to force people to do certain things "for the public good." The latest controversy involves the medical use of estrogen and progesterone. The "morning after" pills in question are high dose hormone pills that keep a fertilized egg from attaching to the wall of the uterus. If this newly fertilized egg( called a blastocyst) cannot attach to the wall of the uterus, it will not be able to further divide and ultimately become a viable pregnancy.

Many people, rightly or wrongly, find this to be tantamount to abortion. In Washington state, a law was passed to FORCE pharmacists to dispense this medication to women, regardless of their personal moral beliefs.

Those who wish to force the issue are concerned that, if pharmacists can refuse to deal with "morning after" pills, what's to stop them from refusing other medication, like birth control in general or Viagra to single men?

This is the slippery slope I'm concerned about. Personally, I believe that an independent,private individual MUST have the right to refuse to perform an action they hold to be morally objectionable. If he (or she) can be forced to do this one, small thing, I'm afraid the government will snowball this. What else can the government force us to do, in the name of the "public good?"

In my state of Tennessee, they passed a law making it illegal to smoke in public buildings. On the surface of it, I love this law. I hate the smell of cigarette smoke. I've heard people say on the radio here that that's as far as the ban can possibly go. "They" could never come into our homes to ban smoking. Well, in California, it's now illegal in many places to smoke in your own apartment. In New Jersey, they are proposing making it illegal to smoke in your car. Again, I like the concept of this law, especially when it comes to small children.

But where will these laws end? What else will the bureaucrats in Washington, or Nashville, or Sacramento, or Trenton, be able to make us do???????