I read in another post that hormones that block ovulation are permitted according to ethical guidelines in Catholic hospitals.
Is this truth? I know women that often have “hiccups” in their cycle. How can the medical community be 100% sure that a life has not been conceived?
So you may respond there is a “test.” That means that the scientific and medical world determines life - not God. Please enlighten me with a charitable response.
Such hormones are permitted only in limited circumstances, in particular as an optional response to rape (I am guessing
this is the thread you are referencing). The medical community has scrambled certain terms to obscure how certain drugs work. For clarity, the Catholic Church considers the moment a sperm fertilizes a woman’s egg to be the moment of Conception (and thus the start of a pregnancy). The medical community uses the moment a fertilized egg is implantation instead.
When a woman is raped, and then brought to a hospital, several tests are done, including a pregnancy test, and an ovulation test. If not pregnant, and hormone tests do not indicate that an egg has been released, she is given the option of trying to prevent the egg from being released. It is a hormone that mimics the hormones naturally released in pregnancy, and aids an already conceived child who has safely implanted. (If pregnant, the woman hormones naturally prevent the release of eggs to avoid become pregnant with an additional child).
However, the medicine may interfere with implantation, which is why the ovulation test is first administered. If the egg has already released, then it could become fertilized and blocked from implantation (the medical community incorrectly calls this “contraception”, the Catholic community calls it more honestly “abortion”). The test looks at the levels of various hormones associated with the release of an egg from the ovary to see if ovulation has likely occurred. If the test shows that the egg released, then the medicine may not be administered.
If egg has not released, no child is possible. The medicine, if administered, would then block the release to maintain this impossibility temporarily. The woman is given the option to not attempt this block.
The ovulation test may not be perfect, but I presume it is reasonably accurate in stating when ovulation has not occurred (and that the medicine may be safely administered). The medicine is not administered to specifically target and destroy a newly conceived child (which is gravely immoral), but to prevent ovulation following a rape (which is morally neutral). The death of a conceived child due to an incorrect test result is a foreseeable, but unintended and reasonably unlikely outcome.
Sadly, millions of such children die similar deaths every year, with their presence known only to God. The causes may be something a genetic defect, unavoidable toxic exposure, something eaten by the mother, or other assorted causes (it is impossible to tell the exact cause in most cases). These deaths are natural evils, for the which the mother bears no personal responsibility. God is simply calling these children home, and we can only entrust them to God’s love and perfect justice.
