Phoenix, AZ (LifeNews.com) -- Arizona's Catholic bishops built on their reputation as some of the most assertive pro-life advocates in the country by releasing a new statement promoting the conscience rights of medical professionals. Conscience issues are concern not only for doctors and nurses but pharmacists as well.

Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted delighted pro-life Catholics in November 2006 when he asked parishioners to tell the Komen breast cancer group to stop giving money to Planned Parenthood.

Now, he and Tucson Bishop Gerald Kicanas released a lengthy document on the Freedom of Conscience for medical professionals.

"Today in our state and elsewhere in our nation, health care professionals and institutions find themselves struggling to preserve their rights of conscience, especially in matters that would involve the taking of human life," they wrote in a May 2 pastoral statement LifeNews.com obtained.