One of the core free market conservative principles is that individual persons (and that includes corporate persons) can make business decisions for themselves better than some bureaucrat can.

Well evidently Massachusetts doesn’t think so, as they’re forcing Wal-Mart to carry emergency contraceptive.

The unanimous decision by the pharmacy board comes two weeks after three women, backed by abortion rights groups, sued Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart for failing to carry the drug in its 44 Wal-Marts and four Sam’s Club stores in Massachusetts.

The women had argued that state policy requires pharmacies to provide all “commonly prescribed medicines.”

So where’s the libertoid outrage on this? It’s bad enough if they were violating a conscientious objection on behalf of Wal-Mart, but to arbitrarily require stores (Wal-Mart or otherwise) to carry something seems absurd.

An Australian lawmaker has set off a storm after comments tackling two subjects many consider taboo — the country’s high abortion rate and fears of a Muslim “takeover.”

Citing estimates of 100,000 abortions a year, Danna Vale, a member of Prime Minister John Howard’s ruling coalition, told a press conference that Australians were “aborting ourselves almost out of existence.”
…
Australia’s total fertility rate (TFR) has dropped from 3.5 in 1961 to 1.7 in 2005. [Replacement TFR is 2(children/couple)]

Someone’s been reading Mark Steyn. Good for her.