USCCB OKs contraception in rape cases?

[jimmy]

1ke:

Jimmy, you completely miss the point. Contraception is intrinsically evil and never allowed. Repeling an agressor is not contraception. Did you not read my post?

Your first post doesn’t make sense to me. It is not part of the attack after the attacker has left. This is a form of contraception. Your not attacking the attacker by killing the sperm. The sperm is not the agressor.

 

[Catholic2003]

jimmy:

I would like to see an official Church document that says that it is fine to use contraception if it is not in the marital act, or somehow makes this exception.

For faithful Catholics, the USCCB statement is in itself an official Church document.

 

[mjdonnelly]

Catholic2003:

For faithful Catholics, the USCCB statement is in itself an official Church document.

Sorry, but I have to agree with Jimmy on this one. As far as not always believing the USCCB all the time. What they put out may not always be in agreement with what the Vatican puts out, they are falible (sp?). The USCCB appears to be very liberal on some items.

Are there any Vatican documents on this topic? Rape that is.

I’m faithful to the Vatican way before being faithful to the USCCB.

 

[Catholic2003]

mjdonnelly:

I’m faithful to the Vatican way before being faithful to the USCCB.

Just like the Protestants are faithful to Christ and the Bible before being faithful to the Pope and the Magisterium.

I stand by my statement.

 

[jimmy]

Catholic2003:

For faithful Catholics, the USCCB statement is in itself an official Church document.

Not if it contradicts Rome. Just like the Orthodox have been separated from the Church, the USCCB can be separated from the Church.

 

[mjdonnelly]

Catholic2003:

Just like the Protestants are faithful to Christ and the Bible before being faithful to the Pope and the Magisterium.

I stand by my statement.

Fine I’ll use your tactic.

So you are faithful to the USCCB before the Vatican? Must be, the way you talk about them being the ultimate authority.

 

[Catholic2003]

mjdonnelly:

Fine I’ll use your tactic.

So you are faithful to the USCCB before the Vatican? Must be, the way you talk about them being the ultimate authority.

I’m faithful to the full Magisterium of the Catholic Church, which includes the Vatican and the bishops of the USCCB. I’m not a cafeteria Catholic, picking and choosing which parts of the Magisterium I will agree with.

 

[Pug]

mjdonnelly:

Sorry, but I have to agree with Jimmy on this one. As far as not always believing the USCCB all the time.

If anyone has concerns about a general statement issued by the USCCB, they should probably check with their own specific bishop to see what if anything he is proposing for belief. A general statement may not in fact be proposed for belief, but merely is a guideline or something. Your bishop could clarify what he has in mind for his diocese. One has to think about if religious assent is required in some situations. Here is a quote from the document the USCCB has about what it thinks it is doing in the document, I put in red:

The purpose of these Ethical and Religious Directives then is twofold: first, to reaffirm the ethical standards of behavior in health care that flow from the Church’s teaching about the dignity of the human person; second, to provide authoritative guidance on certain moral issues that face Catholic health care today.

I don’t know of a Vatican document on the rape issue. Does anyone else? I do know the Scotland and Wales and whatever group of bishops had a commission that seemed to support similar conclusions, but I can’t find it online.

Link to the document. (directive 36 is the one for this thread)

 

[1ke]

jimmy:

Your first post doesn’t make sense to me. It is not part of the attack after the attacker has left. This is a form of contraception. Your not attacking the attacker by killing the sperm. The sperm is not the agressor.

Yes, they are.

 

[jimmy]

1ke:

Yes, they are.

How is that? I don’t think they are the one that commited the crime. They did not go against any of God’s commandments. How can sperm be the aggressor? Because the person does not want to get pregnant?

 

[Ann_Cheryl]

This isn’t a new teaching. I heard about this teaching in the sixties.“Your first post doesn’t make sense to me. It is not part of the attack after the attacker has left. This is a form of contraception. Your not attacking the attacker by killing the sperm. The sperm is not the agressor.”

But the attacker didn’t take all of him when he left. He left something to continue the attack. What is the sperm? if not the agressor. It doesn’t belong there and the woman has the right to rid herself of it. I suppose if she got a std from it you wouldn’t consider that part of the attack either?

 

[Pug]

After a rape, I think the perfectly natural reaction would be to scrub off every bit of anything that man left behind. Sweat, hair, teeth marks, whatever. None of it belongs, and all of it is a violation.

I can see how it would seem like an invasion and one would want to lock all your doors so nothing can creep in further and contaminate (touch) more of you.

A baby, however, is different, because she is yours. She belongs and is welcome.

 

[jimmy]

I don’t know, this is a very confusing issue. I can see how a woman would want to scrub down and just get rid of everything, but I see using spermicide as being contraception for the purpose of preventing pregnancy.

I don’t think an std could be prevented like this because it is after the fact. It is after the rape occured.

 

[mjdonnelly]

Catholic2003:

I’m faithful to the full Magisterium of the Catholic Church, which includes the Vatican and the bishops of the USCCB. I’m not a cafeteria Catholic, picking and choosing which parts of the Magisterium I will agree with.

Neither am I, but just because the USCCB puts something out, doesn’t mean it is correct. People are flawed and accidents do happen. That is why, especially since everyone has a computer, we should look up what the Vatican has to say on a topic.

Everyone can come up with examples where liturgical abuses happen in the uppermost ranks of the USCCB, I’m just saying they’re not the end all for policy. The Vatican outranks them.

ex.: I don’t agree with what the Cardinal from L.A. did the other day (sorry I can’t remember his name), but in the mass he did for JPII, he had what appeared to be a glass chalice. If someone knows if it was lead crystal and is therefore approved, please let me know.

 

[Listener]

This is nothing new. Back in the late fifties or early sixties, I remember a question and answer column in a Catholic publication regarding what women should do if they are raped. The answer was that the woman should get herself to the doctor immediately and have the doctor clean out her uterus. There was nothing wrong with this, since the sperm didn’t have the right to be there in the first place.

 

[tuopaolo]

If contraception is OK in cases of rape why wouldn’t it be also potentially OK in cases where a couple has sex and then after the fact regrets having had sex and tries to contracept? If they go into sex intending to contracept then I see why there would be a difference. But what if they go into sex not intending contraception at all but then afterwards have regrets?

 

[Agomemnon]

CCF_Jeff:

I was floored when I first read this. What’s up here?

Fact Sheet
Emergency Contraception and Treatment
of Victims of Sexual Assault

www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/abortion/ecfact.htm

…A woman who has been raped should be able to defend herself from a potential conception and receive treatments to suppress ovulation and incapacitate sperm. If conception has occurred, however, a Catholic hospital will not dispense drugs to interfere with implantation of a newly conceived human embryo.2

Hospitals should develop appropriate protocols to determine whether administering emergency contraception would have an abortifacient effect. Tests are available to determine whether ovulation has occurred.3

…

---

Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3070

Further proof that the American Church is in full schism and that we need a papal legate to fix this mess. That and a lot of charitable anethma’s.

 

[jimmy]

Listener:

This is nothing new. Back in the late fifties or early sixties, I remember a question and answer column in a Catholic publication regarding what women should do if they are raped. The answer was that the woman should get herself to the doctor immediately and have the doctor clean out her uterus. There was nothing wrong with this, since the sperm didn’t have the right to be there in the first place.

Now that sounds like abortion, which would definately be a heresy. To clean out the uterus would mean that conception has occured.

 

[jimmy]

tuopaolo:

If contraception is OK in cases of rape why wouldn’t it be also potentially OK in cases where a couple has sex and then after the fact regrets having had sex and tries to contracept? If they go into sex intending to contracept then I see why there would be a difference. But what if they go into sex not intending contraception at all but then afterwards have regrets?

That is true. I think this is a very poor decision by the USCCB.

 

[Tom444]

jimmy:

Now that sounds like abortion, which would definately be a heresy. To clean out the uterus would mean that conception has occured.

The actual fertilization takes place in the fallopian tubes, not the uterus, and it takes the sperm a day or two to swim that far. If the uterus were cleaned out within 24 hours of the rape, fertilization could not have occured yet, and the procedure would not constitute an abortion.