Chemists around the world must demand the right to "conscientious objection" and refuse to sell medicines - even though they are legal in many countries - that cause euthanasia or abortion, including the so-called "morning-after pill", Pope Benedict XVI said this week.

Speaking at the Vatican on Monday to the International Federation of Catholic Pharmacists (IFCP), the Pope said: "In the moral realm, your federation is invited to confront the question of conscientious objection." He said this was "a right that must be recognised" for all chemists, because they could not "collaborate - directly or indirectly - in furnishing products" intended for "clearly immoral choices".

He said that pharmacists could only sell drugs that "truly fulfilled their healing role" and protected "every being" from "conception to natural death".

But the Pope said refusal to sell such "immoral" drugs was only part of the pharmacist's duty. He pointed out that chemists also played an "educative role" in their work as "intermediaries between doctor and patient". And, therefore, they had a duty to inform their customers of the "ethical implications" inherent in using certain drugs. "It is not possible to anaesthetise consciences," he said, "for example, about the effects of molecules [of a drug] that prevent the implantation of an embryo or abbreviate a person's life."

Pope Benedict told the pharmacists they also had the duty to be a moral conscience for "young people who work in the various pharmaceutical professions". He called on them to help their young colleagues "reflect on the ever more delicate ethical implications of their activities and decisions".

Pope Benedict's address to the IFCP closely paralleled a speech he gave on 24 February to the Pontifical Academy for Life when he called on Christians to "mobilise themselves" against attacks on life - including chemical abortion, eugenics, euthanasia and the legalisation of same-sex unions. 

In that speech, which was made in the context of a conference on human conscience, Pope Benedict said "attacks on the right to life" were "spreading and multiplying, and even assuming new forms". But he noted that human conscience did "not demonstrate sufficient vigilance concerning the seriousness of the problems at stake". He called for a rediscovery and re-education of conscience, illuminated by the "solid foundation of truth". However, he claimed that today's social environment created obstacles to forming a "true and upright" conscience. 

Already in his 1995 encyclical, Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II said people working in the field of health care should be allowed to claim "conscientious objection" and not participate through "consultation, preparation and [/or] execution" of abortion or euthanasia. But Pope Benedict is encouraging health care workers to avail themselves of this right and repeating that it must be protected by law.

In his speech to the federation of pharmacists Pope Benedict also spoke about "solidarity in the therapeutic field", urging that people at all levels and in every country - "in particular the poorest persons" - be given access to cures and primary medicines.

The following day, on Tuesday, the Chilean Government warned pharmacies that they could face a fine or closure if they refused to sell the morning-after pill.