Contraception and Conscience

I have a question. The article says the Church supports the suppression of ovalation to prevent pregancy during rape. I didn’t know this was an acceptible belief. Does this apply to other forms of contraception? (at least theoritically, if a woman somehow has a birth control pill and prior knowledge that she is going to be raped and not capable of stopping it) Is it morally permissible to take the contraception?

Thanks for any answers you could provide.

at least theoritically, if a woman somehow has a birth control pill and prior knowledge that she is going to be raped and not capable of stopping it

Come on. Do you really want to delve into the ridiculous in order to “reverse-engineer” morality?

In order to be moral, the method of suppressing ovulation has to not have any potentially abortifacient method (i.e. desynchronizing the transport of fertilized ovum to the uterus or causing the uterinus to reject the fertilizid ovum). One would also have to be sure at the time the medication was administered that ovulation had not already occurred nor was it imminent within the time frame of sperm survival and the lapse from the rape to the woman’s seeking care.
There are several medical options that will amost 100% prevent ovulation if it has not already occured. High doses of just about any birth control pill can have that effect (not just the ones marketed as ‘morning after pills) and so can other hormonal agents including high dose pure bio-identical progesterone, the drug Lupron which throws women into artificial menopause, high doses of thyroid hormones etc. The real issue as I see it is that most women have little or no idea if ovulation has already occured or is expected momentarily, because most women are not monitoring their bodies that carefully. And if they havent’t studied the fertility awareness that is part of NFP, they are even less likely to know what is happening. I repeatedly see women who haven’t more than the vaguest clue as to when they last menstruated – at that is a pretty obvious biological marker.
There is some work done trying to identify if ovulation has happened using a biochemical marker that rises rapidly with ovulation. The problem is that there is enormous personal variation, and it can’t easily be determined by a one shot blood or urine test, but rather needs to be tracked over a few days.
If you want more technical details on this, Kevin Miller and I were among a group of several Catholics interested in this and other bioethical topics that attended a conference at Marquette last year. You might also contact Kevin for his input.