Possibly we should call it a “conscienceless clause”

I’ve written about conscience clauses before, but this takes them to a whole new level of ugly.
A nurse calls an Idaho pharmacist for methergine, a drug which can be used to stop bleeding after birth, abortion or miscarriage (and other reasons). Pharmacist demanded to know if it was for the aftermath of an abortion. Nurse refused to say (this is a HIPAA, right-of-privacy thing). Pharmacist refused to fill the prescription, using Idaho’s conscience clause to justify her decision. State pharmacy board defends the decision, partly because another pharmacy filled the drug order so no harm was done..
As one of Idaho’s prolifers points out in the story, the pharmacist didn’t know for a fact the woman had had an abortion, and even if she had, the drug wasn’t an abortifacent. So apparently the pharmacist thinks that it’s morally wrong to help a woman seriously bleeding because she—what, doesn’t deserve to live if she has an abortion?
But the board’s right, there doesn’t appear to be anything in the law that prevents this.
I’m sympathetic to pharmacists who have issues with abortion—I disagree with them, but I can understand not wanting to fill a drug they believe kills babies. And if it’s possible to work around that, great. But if not, I also think the patient’s entitled to get their medicine and for the pharmacist to do the job they’re paid for. And I believe abortion is a right and no woman should have to bear a child against her will.
And even though I agree with the prolifer that this pharmacist was way, way out of line, her solution captures something else I dislike about the conscience clause. Her argument is that the legislature should rework the law so that it only applies to abortion and abortifacents, the way it was meant to. In other worlds “right of conscience” means “right to refuse to provide drugs I think are bad, but nothing else.”
No surprise. Strategically, the narrower the effect, the less likelihood people will be up in arms. And it reduces the chance that the religious rightists themselves will be inconvenienced: I’m quite sure if they need antibiotics for their kid or antidepressants for their mother, most religious conservatives would be outraged if the conscience clause got in the way (“I’m sorry, I think the only cure for disease is prayer” or “I’m a Scientologist. Giving drugs for depression will only make your mother worse.”).
I have a feeling there’s worse to come in this line.