German bishops agree Catholic hospitals can prescribe emergency contraception to rape victims

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LaSainte said:
Ok I thought that artificial contraception is supposed to be “intrinsically evil”. That means there can never be a reason for it, correct? If it is ok in cases of rape, then it is not intrinsically evil. If it is not intrinsically evil, then that opens the door to subjectivity regarding under which circumstances one may contracept. Abusive husband? Too poor? Disease?
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Abortion is also “intrinsically evil” but in cases where only one of them can survive, the doctor can take a decision to save the life that is mostly likely to survive as I understand. If it’s the mother, then…
 
_Abyssinia said:
Why did Catholic Medical Association not accept directive 36 in their annual meeting in 2003? They said

And
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Just heard yesterday that the drugs described work only on preventing ovulation.

Is anyone concerned about a slippery slope here?
 
RevDon said:
Is anyone concerned about a slippery slope here?
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Yes, me. I’m no ob/gyn, but as far as I’m aware, there is really no way to tell if a woman is pregnant or not in the first month or so after conception. Certainly, not the morning after.
 
_Abyssinia said:
When you are dealing with human life life should always be erred upon and if a test is not 100%, I do not understand how it can be okay to use to determine ovulation
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The life of the unborn is not more valuable than the life of the motorist. There is not such thing as 100%. Do you not think the bishops that made this decision are fully aware of just how valuable life is?

One would never take a vacation, play sports, or do much of anything if the goal was to protect all life, including one’s own 100%.
 
RevDon said:
Just heard yesterday that the drugs described work only on preventing ovulation.

Is anyone concerned about a slippery slope here?
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Not I. The principle that the bishops are basing this on was written into the very first thought on modern contraception in Humanae Vitae. There is nothing new in this decision. There is no slope.
 
pnewton said:
The life of the unborn is not more valuable than the life of the motorist. There is not such thing as 100%. Do you not think the bishops that made this decision are fully aware of just how valuable life is?

One would never take a vacation, play sports, or do much of anything if the goal was to protect all life, including one’s own 100%.
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I think fertilised embryos development process has bound to have been ended because the ovulation tests have not picked it up and the pill has acted as an abortifacient

I think the German Bishops believe life is valuable but are maybe giving the current ovulation tests too much credibility
 
kelvinf said:
Abortion is also “intrinsically evil” but in cases where only one of them can survive, the doctor can take a decision to save the life that is mostly likely to survive as I understand. If it’s the mother, then…
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I don’t think this is quite correct - it sounded like you weren’t quite sure. :o There was a case in AZ a couple years ago where doctors claimed the woman’s life was in jeopardy, so they aborted the child. Problem is, they aborted a perfectly healthy human being. They chose to kill the child. No way around that. If they attempted to save the baby in some other way, that would be a different story. But going in with the intent to kill the baby is still murder. Some of my source material can be seen in this article reviewing Judie Brown’s book The Broken Path. Keyword search “Omsted” to jump to the pertinent part.
 
LifeSiteNews.com has the following story: lifesitenews.com/news/top-vatican-official-calls-german-bishops-approval-of-morning-after-pill-ex

This except truly disturbs me as how can you prevent a pregnancy after a woman is raped without risking killing the child that was possible conceived?
Asked whether there is a concern that the drug could cause an abortion, Bishop Carrasco said determining the pill’s abortifacient effect should be left to doctors.
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“What Church teaching says in this case is: in cases of rape all possible action must be taken to prevent a pregnancy but not to interrupt it. Whether a given medicine is classed as a contraceptive or abortion-inducing medication, is up to doctors and scientists, not the Church,” he said.
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P.S. Sorry for duplicating the story link, didn’t see it before posting. :o
 
aidanbradypop said:
A Catholic hospital turned away a rape victim and caught a lot of public hate from it. I am sure that has something to do with the German Bishops bringing this up. 🤷
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True, but they obviously have some ignorance on how this pill works, as it is clearly known to be potentially abortifacient.
 
This whole thing is driving me nuts. I’ve been trawling through the theology and I just cannot square what the bishops are saying here. Their whole case, theologically speaking, seems to rest on the distinction between deliberate abortion and unintended consequence. I might accept that in, say, the case of an ectopic pregnancy, but what is happening here is a legalistic fig-leaf so thin it’s transparent. Even the Jesuits would baulk at this. They’re saying, in essence, that because it is impossible to know within so short a space of time as rape victims normally present whether or not the woman is pregnant, we’ll go through the motions of checking if she actually is pregnant, which test will, of course, show no evidence of conception (how could it, so soon after the event?), and on that basis we’ll assume she isn’t pregnant and administer the morning after pill. Since we can’t know for sure she is pregnant, we’ll let God work it out.

This whole thing has the mark of treating with “the real world” stamped all over it, the Protestant philosophy of trimming and tacking with the prevailing breeze, whatever that breeze might be. That’s not what the Catholic Church is supposed to be about. We’re supposed to be the last hold-outs, the ones who die with their boots on in a valiant last stand around a tattered papal flag. It’s not supposed to matter what “the real world” thinks of us, it’s only supposed to matter that we keep the faith, and I cannot understand how we’re doing that here.
 
Mustard said:
This whole thing is driving me nuts. I’ve been trawling through the theology and I just cannot square what the bishops are saying here. Their whole case, theologically speaking, seems to rest on the distinction between deliberate abortion and unintended consequence. I might accept that in, say, the case of an ectopic pregnancy, but what is happening here is a legalistic fig-leaf so thin it’s transparent. Even the Jesuits would baulk at this. They’re saying, in essence, that because it is impossible to know within so short a space of time as rape victims normally present whether or not the woman is pregnant, we’ll go through the motions of checking if she actually is pregnant, which test will, of course, show no evidence of conception (how could it, so soon after the event?), and on that basis we’ll assume she isn’t pregnant and administer the morning after pill. Since we can’t know for sure she is pregnant, we’ll let God work it out.

This whole thing has the mark of treating with “the real world” stamped all over it, the Protestant philosophy of trimming and tacking with the prevailing breeze, whatever that breeze might be. That’s not what the Catholic Church is supposed to be about. We’re supposed to be the last hold-outs, the ones who die with their boots on in a valiant last stand around a tattered papal flag. It’s not supposed to matter what “the real world” thinks of us, it’s only supposed to matter that we keep the faith, and I cannot understand how we’re doing that here.
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Don’t you just hate it when somebody raises an issue about the Church that you thought was settled, and you have to think about it!
 
Mustard said:
This whole thing is driving me nuts. I’ve been trawling through the theology and I just cannot square what the bishops are saying here. Their whole case, theologically speaking, seems to rest on the distinction between deliberate abortion and unintended consequence. I might accept that in, say, the case of an ectopic pregnancy, but what is happening here is a legalistic fig-leaf so thin it’s transparent. Even the Jesuits would baulk at this. They’re saying, in essence, that because it is impossible to know within so short a space of time as rape victims normally present whether or not the woman is pregnant, we’ll go through the motions of checking if she actually is pregnant, which test will, of course, show no evidence of conception (how could it, so soon after the event?), and on that basis we’ll assume she isn’t pregnant and administer the morning after pill. Since we can’t know for sure she is pregnant, we’ll let God work it out.

This whole thing has the mark of treating with “the real world” stamped all over it, the Protestant philosophy of trimming and tacking with the prevailing breeze, whatever that breeze might be. That’s not what the Catholic Church is supposed to be about. We’re supposed to be the last hold-outs, the ones who die with their boots on in a valiant last stand around a tattered papal flag. It’s not supposed to matter what “the real world” thinks of us, it’s only supposed to matter that we keep the faith, and I cannot understand how we’re doing that here.
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The quote from EWTN’s website ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/World.php?id=7086 reads:

"Doctor John Haas, a bioethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center and a permanent member of the Pontifical Academy for Life, did not comment on the chemical actions of the pill but he did explain a way it could be used ethically.

He explained that it is possible to know whether the morning-after pill will cause an early chemical abortion by determining if a woman is ovulating.

“There are two ways in which (ovulation) can be determined, three ways really.

“You can take the medical record of her cycle and determine where she might be within it. But then there are more precise scientific tests that can be done, test that could be done using her blood or her urine. This will allow them to see whether or not certain hormones are in the blood or urine and that will indicate whether or not she has ovulated.”

This to me is ridiculous, because if they discover that the woman is not ovulating, than there is no need for the morning after pill because it is impossible for her to get pregnant. If she is ovulating, than the morning after pill poses real threat to extinguishing a human life, so it can’t be used. The Honduran Supreme Court just recently ruled that the morning after pill is an abortifacient…ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/Americas.php?id=4884
 
MarcoPolo said:
I don’t think this is quite correct - it sounded like you weren’t quite sure. :o There was a case in AZ a couple years ago where doctors claimed the woman’s life was in jeopardy, so they aborted the child. Problem is, they aborted a perfectly healthy human being. They chose to kill the child. No way around that. If they attempted to save the baby in some other way, that would be a different story. But going in with the intent to kill the baby is still murder. Some of my source material can be seen in this article reviewing Judie Brown’s book The Broken Path. Keyword search “Omsted” to jump to the pertinent part.
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Right, I wasn’t quite sure. I have heard something like that before and I think it’s logical. If the life of the mom and the baby are both at risk, then the doctor would likely (logically) focus on saving the life that he or she could save.
 
comrade1789 said:
This to me is ridiculous, because if they discover that the woman is not ovulating, than there is no need for the morning after pill because it is impossible for her to get pregnant.
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Sperm can survive in the body up to 5 days before ovulation occurs, no?
 
I was surprised by some of the comments I read on LifeSiteNews.

There is no evidence that the new morning-after-pill causes abortion. The “best” argument people who think it causes abortion can present is that, it contains a substance that could cause abortion.

But if administered in the prescribed dose, there is no scientific evidence that it causes abortion.

All or some drugs could be harmful to the body if not taken as prescribed. But that’s something else.

I don’t think the Bishops and Rome are that stupid to approve the use of the morning-after-pill in cases of rape. And they made it clear that as long as it does not cause abortion.

So it’s really a matter now for doctors in Catholic hospitals to follow what the bishops have said. That is, they can administer a pill as long as it doesn’t cause abortion.
 
kelvinf said:
I was surprised by some of the comments I read on LifeSiteNews.

There is no evidence that the new morning-after-pill causes abortion. The “best” argument people who think it causes abortion can present is that, it contains a substance that could cause abortion.

But if administered in the prescribed dose, there is no scientific evidence that it causes abortion.

All or some drugs could be harmful to the body if not taken as prescribed. But that’s something else.

I don’t think the Bishops and Rome are that stupid to approve the use of the morning-after-pill in cases of rape. And they made it clear that as long as it does not cause abortion.

So it’s really a matter now for doctors in Catholic hospitals to follow what the bishops have said. That is, they can administer a pill as long as it doesn’t cause abortion.
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World’s top authority on morning-after pill says women must be told it may cause abortions

lifesitenews.com/news/worlds-top-authority-on-morning-after-pill-says-women-must-be-told-it-may-c

Dr James Trussell says they inhibit ovulation

There is plenty of evidence that the ingredients in Ella/EllaOne and Plan B have an embryolethal effect or have a negative effect on implantation or ovulation

What the American, German Bishops and the president of the Pontifical academy for life are accepting of is the pill for rape victims if ovulation is not occuring, so if ovulation is not occuring there is no fertilised embryo to kill, but the question is over the reliability of such ovulation tests
 
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