Dawn Eden sent me the following story.
For the first time, a Republican in the state Assembly is co-sponsoring a Democratic initiative that would require hospitals to offer emergency contraception to rape victims, considerably improving the bill’s chances of passage.
Significantly, the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, the public arm of Wisconsin’s bishops, is also no longer opposed to the bill.
Rep. Terry Musser, R-Black River Falls, said this morning he would begin circulating the Compassionate Care for Rape Victims bill to his Assembly colleagues today. Musser, who did not support the bill when it was introduced last session, said he changed his mind after hearing testimony from rape victims at a public hearing on the bill last week before a Senate committee.
…The only group lobbying against the bill is Pro-Life Wisconsin. Matt Sande, the group’s director of legislation, was not available for comment this morning, but said in a news release he opposed the bill because emergency contraception can work to prevent implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus and he considers this "pre-implantation chemical abortion."
Wisconsin Right to Life, which tends to focus more on abortion issues, is not taking a stand on the bill. Sue Armacost of Wisconsin Right to Life said it was important to the group that the Catholic bishops were not opposing the bill.
Groups supporting it include the Wisconsin Public Health Association, American College of Nurse-Midwives, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault.
Kim Wades of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference said many Catholic hospitals are already dispensing emergency contraception to rape victims. She said the group removed its objections to the bill after it was revised to allow hospitals to give women a pregnancy test before providing emergency contraception.
The Catholic Conference’s support might make a big difference to legislators who have opposed the bill in the past, Musser said.
It is not quite true that the Wisconsin Catholic Conference is supporting the bill, only that it has withdrawn objections to it. As a press release from their conference states.
"From our perspective, we believe this bill is not necessary as Catholic health care already provides victims of sexual assault with appropriate and compassionate medical care."
…"As regards SB 129, it must be understood that our lack of opposition is contingent upon two points, said Wadas. "First the language exempting hospitals from providing emergency contraception to a victim known to be pregnant shall be interpreted as allowing Catholic hospitals the flexibility to follow testing protocols that establish with moral certitude that a pregnancy has not occurred. Science is providing medicine with new tools everyday and our Catholic hospitals must retain the freedom to use the latest technology to ensure that treatment does not result in the taking of a human life."
The Church has not spoken definitively on the use of contraception in the case of rape and the language in Humanae Vitae is specific to "conjugal or between married persons" as Jimmy Akin points out. So far in the United States the interpretation has been that it is licit in these circumstances if they women has not become pregnant.
As you would probably guess there are plenty of questions in regards to obtaining the moral certitude that the women is not already pregnant. A good article on the subject can be found at Catholic Insight.
Many Catholic hospitals interpret “appropriate testing” as a hcG pregnancy test, which is accurate only if a woman is at least one week pregnant by the time of the test. …
…The problem is that the test may be falsely negative if the pregnancy is too recent. A further problem is that the woman may have ovulated at the time of the rape or shortly afterwards and there is, at present, no test that can detect this with certainty.
The Catholic Insight article goes over the controversy and surveys the opinions of various moral theologians on this topic, the degree of certitude required, and the varieties of medical tests that might be required to get to that point.
This is an area where doctrine is developing such as the case of to whether embryos can be adopted and implanted. There is also the question to just how diligent Catholic hospitals will be in ascertaining if a women is pregnant first.
Legislation like this is really stupid in the first place though. There is zero need for any legislatures to be mandating what medicines are to be used by hospitals in the first place. It is all about agendas and getting the Catholic Church through her hospitals to knuckle down to their pressure.
Developing doctrine is messy and if anybody has further insights into this I would be glad to hear it, especially if I have mischaracterized anything.
Update: Lifesite also is covering the story.
11 comments
The moral question with regard to Plan B is not a contraceptive one. Contraception, by definition prevents conception. Emergency “contraceptives” do not simply prevent conception by delaying ovulation. They can prevent a conceived human being from implanting in the womb. If life begins at conception, that means “emergency contraceptives” are also potential abortifacients, and are in that respect contrary to the moral teachings of the Church.
Incidentally, Plan B contains an extremely high dose of synthetic progestins–the same ones used in the birth control pill, and these progestins, as well as the synthetic estrogens also used in birth control pills are categorized by the World Health Organization as known carcinogens that elevate a woman’s risk of breast cancer, especially with long-term exposure before a woman’s first full-term pregnancy. That alone should give people pause about distributing them without hesitation.
Having read Jimmy Akin’s entry, it occurs to me that he doesn’t really address the fact that Paul IV would have been operating according Catholic belief that the conjugal (ie. married) act (mistranslated as “sexual”) is the sole legitimate, Christian sexual act. So considering that context, extramarital sex would not be considered, because the Church doesn’t endorse that anyway.
Another point to consider in Humanae Vitae is the rather slippery-ish-slopish argument (but an effective slippery-slope, if it can ever be considered legitimate rather than a logical fallacy–I rather accept this particular example) that if contraception is permissible in the intimate life of husband and wife, how much more is it available to governments who wish to regulate population growth via artificial means? (I’m not quite sure how to cite HV, but it’s item #17) He further asserts that “if one does not want to see the mission of generating life exposed to the arbitrary decisions of men, one much of necessity recognize certain absolute limits to the possibility of a human being’s dominion over his or her body and its functions, limits that no one, whether a private individual or someone invested with authority has any right to exceed.”
Further, we must perhaps consider the idea that God’s will is indeed at work, even in unfortunate circumstances. If one believes that every creation of life is indeed governed by the will of God, the grounds according to which married couples accept every gift of life, whether “planned” or not, is it possible to add the exception “except when unduly influenced by the actions of evil individuals”? This will not be popular logic in the case of rape, but it may be that this individual’s will be enriched by the child (not the rape), or that in some way the experience will bring the individual closer to God’s intention for every human soul–Salvation.
“The problem is that the test may be falsely negative if the pregnancy is too recent. A further problem is that the woman may have ovulated at the time of the rape or shortly afterwards and there is, at present, no test that can detect this with certainty.”
Actually, if the woman had been charting using the Cympto Thermal Method of NFP, she could tell exactly when she ovulated, so the above statement in quotes is not exactly ture.
The state senate of CT just passed this same bill, with the same name (duh!). The four CT hospitals provide the plan B pill in case of rape, just not when the hormone test shows ovulation. If that were to be the case, the hospital will PROVIDE TRANSPORTATION to someplace else for the woman to get the pill.
However THIS HAS NOT HAPPENED. In a survey last year, 73 rape caes presented themselves, about 29 got the pill, the rest didn’t need it (on the birth control pill; past menopause etc). ZERO people were turned down, in other words. But the legislature will not accept this compromise.
NO rape victim has complained and NONE of the electorate asked for the bill. It is anti-Catholic bigotry, pure and simple.
In the endless attacks on the first amendment’s right to freedom of religion, what next? Doctors MUST perform abortions?
And you CANNOT REASON with the legislature. They’ve been bought off. The Republicans all voted for it too, except for 3 people.
Our bishops won’t cave in, however. They say they will stop treating rape victims at all if cooler heads do not prevail (not much chance of that).
Gay marriage is on its way here too. The gay head of our Judiciary committee insulted Catholics left and right – read the transcript at the Catholic League.
James,
Even with faithful use of the Sympto-Thermal Method of NFP, there is no way to determine actual time of ovulation. You’re still limited to a three day span of possibility assuming the woman in question has fairly regular cycles and symptoms. Even then, the knowlege only approaches certainty after the fact.
The way I read the article, CT. hospitals use the “ovulation test” (which seems to be as up-to-snuff as any medical procedure.)
If the test shows recent ovulation, the CT (Catholic) hospitals will NOT give out PlanB.
This is, by the way, a Planned Parenthood initiative from top to bottom. You can expect similar crap in all the other States over time.
The Wisconsin Bishops are relying on the “Peoria Protocol” and not suggesting an “ovulation test” as additional criterion. Sad…
It seems to me that since any post-intercourse “contraception” method is an abortificient (sp?) then the discussion turns from one of contraception within extra-marital intercourse to one of abortion. In that case it appeals to me to say that based on the inherent value of each human person as being created in the Divine image and likeness, it would be everywhere and in each case unacceptable to use Plan B or any other post-intercourse contraceptive.
It seems to me that since any post-intercourse “contraception” method is an abortificient
Umm… no. If the medication prevented ovulation from occuring in the possible window of conception following the rape, then it would not be an abortion, by definition.
That is true… But how long does it take for the hormones to kick in and delay ovulation if it hasn’t happened yet? The fact is that unless ovulation is still days away then the contraceptive won’t prevent ovulation and in case of successful fecondation might kill the baby… I wonder if some kind of efficient spermicide would be more useful in a case like that.
Right– and from what I’ve read, once the “LH surge” (luteinizing hormone) begins, I think 12-36 prior to ovulation, the egg release cannot be stopped. Prior to that, though– I’m inclined to suspect that suppression would be possible. **Not sure about that.** But if suppression is possible, it would then be worthwhile to administer the drug in those circumstances, since sperm can survive for up to 5 days given the right conditions.
I don’t like Plan B, even in rape cases. I think it’s a compromise with hidden ramifications (as well as unhidden ones). If the Church changes its mind (and aren’t we against contraception in every case, in spirit if not in actual wording?) and extends particular mercy in rape situations, though, I won’t argue it. The longer I live , the more I notice that the Church is more merciful than I. And rightly so!
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