The first time I read the news that the Connecticut Catholic Conference had decided not to oppose the use of the morning after pill for rape victims, I was positive it was a misprint. I was wrong.
When I visited the web site of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, I found the following:
Do Catholic hospitals provide emergency contraception (Plan “B”) to a rape victim as part of its medical protocol?
Yes.
As explained above, Connecticut’s Catholic hospitals provide emergency contraception (Plan B) in those cases in which the women is in the phase of her cycle in which Plan B can have a contraceptive effect by preventing ovulation.
If the woman is already in the ovulation stage of her cycle, then Plan B cannot have a contraceptive effect. In these cases, the only objective of administering Plan B is to impede the implantation of a fertilized ovum, which is abortion that the Catholic hospital cannot perform directly or in cooperation with others.
Those who have read the details of how the morning after pill (emergency contraception) acts know that it not only can but does "impede implantation." We also know that there is no foolproof test to assure that the victim of sexual assault has not already conceived, regardless of what the above statement suggests.
The only ethical position to take in the battle between Catholic hospitals and the culture of death would be to say that there is never a circumstance in which the morning-after abortion pill is acceptable, period!
By bending to the pressures of the culture of death, the Connecticut Catholic Conference has provided America with a perfect example of why compromise never has the desired result. The Church condemns contraception without exception; that is a fact and the Connecticut Catholic Conference is encouraged to rethink its position.
