Digging a hole
The first rule when your 'e in a hole is to stop digging. A lesson that Barry Feldman whole is general counsel for St. Francis Hospital the lead spokesman for the Connecticut Catholic Bishops conference should learn.
Asked how the CCC found itself at odds with the Vatican document, Feldman replied, "What we're talking about now is emergency contraception which is different from the morning after pill which is referred to in that Vatican document. What the Vatican document was expressing an opinion on and an objection to was medication or a pill, the morning after pill, that has the direct intended effect of causing an abortion."
Feldman added, "Emergency contraception is different, its not an abortion pill, its intended to prevent pregnancy and not constitute an abortion. So what we're talking about now really is just a totally different subject and a totally different medication than what was addressed in the Vatican document. The Vatican has not issued any kind of teaching with respect to emergency contraception."
...LifeSiteNews.com spoke with Dr. John Shea, a medical doctor who has researched and written extensively on bioethical issues. Dr. Shea, a member of the Canadian Bioethics Institute confirmed that Plan B, the drug which the CCC has agreed to allow into Catholic hospitals is indeed a morning after pill, and was specifically addressed in the Vatican document where it spoke of a pill containing "only progestogens".
Richard Doerflinger, Deputy Director for the USCCB Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities, although he would not specifically address the CCC situation, did confirm that the Pontifical Academy's 2000 document did address Plan B.
I found the otherwise reliable Bishop Lori's blog post on the subject to be rather unsatisfying.
Unfortunately, Connecticut Legislature decided last spring to settle the question of whether both tests are necessary, instead of letting the Church do so in her own way. The Governor signed into law a measure that forbids health care professionals from using the results of an ovulation test in treating a rape victim. We bishops, as well as health care professionals, continue to believe this law is seriously flawed and should be changed. You should also know that we carefully explored with very competent experts the possibility of challenging the law. Unfortunately, such a challenge would most likely not succeed. Failure of the hospitals to comply would put them and their staffs at risk.
I still don't understand how a "seriously flawed" law that you can ethically comply with really needs to be changed? Why would you want it to be changed unless you believe that only a standard pregnancy test, as the law allows, is not enough. Plus the whole idea of the government limiting what tests a hospital can perform should be causing alarm far outside the circle of the Catholic Church.
I also find the following statement to be rather weaselly.
Indeed, the Church does not teach that it is intrinsically evil to administer Plan B without first giving an ovulation test or that those who do so are committing an abortion.
The Church doesn't specify every method that can be used to kill an unborn child as intrinsically evil, it calls murdering a human person intrinsically evil. He also downplayed the medical science about an abortafacient aspect by saying only "some believe" (when it is the mainstream assumption) and saying their is uncertainty about this, but somehow this uncertainty can also be categorized as "rare."
I think what I found most disappointing about the Bishop's letters is that it seemed all about the prudence of challenging and resisting the law and zero emphasis on possibly allowing Catholic hospitals to kill human beings in the name of prudence.
“Reluctant compliance” emerged as the only viable option.
Diogenes saw the use of viable to be highly ironic and I agree.
Its it no wonder that Tertillian never said "The blood of the Bishops was the seed of the church." OK - that is rather snarky and of course there have been Bishop martyrs but you only need to think back to the fact that St. John Fisher was the only Bishop to stand up to the King in the face of government intrusion into the Church.
St. John Fisher pray for us.
Hat tip to Constitutionally Correct for the story.
Known as 
As I have mentioned before, my status as a pharmacist with a conscience clause may be jeopardized now that bishops have begun the domino effect of caving in on the abortifacients of Plan B (morning after pill).
Pharmacists for Life (http://www.pfli.org/) can supply more information on the abortifacient properties of Plan B and other birth control/
abortifacient drugs.
I have a bad feeling about this. I wrote to the bishops involved but, frankly, I can imagine others following suite. Can the Vatican put out the fire? It wrote of these issues in 2000
and this can be viewed at
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_academies/acdlife/documents/rc_pa_acdlife_doc_20001031_pillola-giorno-dopo_en.html
The Vatican Academy CONDEMNED the use of these pills!!! What part of that is hard to understand? Why the wordsmithing?
When someone asked St. Padre Pio what the coming years would be like he replied, "All is darkness" and so it is on life issues even within our Church when so called peace and justice that can include saving banana trees in Panama overrides concern for the lives of the unborn.
I cannot describe my disappointment in these bishops.
Bless you magdalen for standing up for Life!
A gal I went to college with told about how she was raped, and concieved from that rape. She had an abortion. She stated that the abortion was worse than the rape. Her child recieved capital punishment, because the father was a criminal.
Big fat red disclaimer: I am NOT endorsing the Connecticut Bishops position, only trying to explain it. I am playing devil's advocate. Or should I say Connecticut Bishops advocate. Or is that the same?
1. Barry Feldman appears to be confused by medical wordsmithing. In particular, he seems not to realize that the Vatican uses the word abortifacient to describe hormones which prevent implantation but the "health" community uses the word abortifacient only to describe hormones which act after implantation. Thus Plan B is not abortifacient under health definitions but is under the Vatican definitions which condemn it. When you take into account Mr. Feldman's understandable confusion on this point, you can see how he fails to see that Plan B is abortifacient and thus condemned.
2. as for how a "seriously flawed" law that you can ethically comply with really needs to be changed, we can consider a similar example. When B16 gave his indult, he basically said that requiring priests to ask permission from the local bishop to celebrate the Mass in Latin was a seriously flawed law that needs to be removed. But complying with this seriously flawed law (as the Fraternity of Saint Peter did) did not entail any sinful activity on the Fraternity.
3. as for using prudential reasons to put life at risk, we do this all the time. For example, we put the lives of ourselves and others at risk when we drive a car but prudence dictates this is an acceptable risk because the risk is "remote enough".
His position is well-articulated and understandable - but it is plain wrong.
One of these days I'm going to unplug the internet. I just can't take reading this stuff anymore.
Here's a "viable" option, albeit a drastic one: Have the religious orders that run the Catholic hospitals divest themselves of them and get out of the healthcare business in CT. Such a move would be akin to when the Archdiocese of Boston ceased providing adoption services.