Contraception and Rape

[diarmait]

I didn’t know contraception could be licit.

From the USCCB Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Part Three, Par. 36:

“Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”

usccb.org/bishops/directives.htm

 

[1ke]

diarmait:

I didn’t know contraception could be licit.

From the USCCB Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, Part Three, Par. 36:

“Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”

usccb.org/bishops/directives.htm

Rape is not a sexual embrace, it is a one-way violent assault. Repelling a rapist before, during, and after the attack is not contraception. It is self-defense.

Contraception is never morally licit. However, what is described by the USCCB is not contraception.

 

[Windmill]

The rapist’s seed is seen as an unjust aggressor. A fertilized ovum (ie. an innocent baby person) is not an unjust aggressor. So, the woman can douche or do those things necessary to prevent the aggressor’s seed from fertilizing an egg, but if it is determined that a child is indeed conceived, than that life must be respected.

Incidently, many women have found healing through bearing the child to term and then putting it up for adoption. However, those who go in for an abortion heap a big pile of guilt and sin on top of an already emotional situation.

 

[Island_Oak]

There exists a fairly recent thread on this topic that thoroughly exhausted all facets. Take a look in either Family Life or farther back in Moral Theology.