{"id":3455,"date":"2007-11-16T20:07:33","date_gmt":"2007-11-17T01:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/2007\/11\/16\/certainty\/"},"modified":"2007-11-16T20:07:33","modified_gmt":"2007-11-17T01:07:33","slug":"certainty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/2007\/11\/certainty\/","title":{"rendered":"Certainty"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I subscribed to Bishop Vasa’s e-column that
\nsends me his weekly column in the Sentinel. Week after week he continues to
\nwrite with on important moral teaching with the clarity that you rarely see.
\nThis week once again<\/a> he has
\ndone the same thing on the issue of the use of Plan B in the case of
\nrape.<\/span><\/p>\n

…Nothing is to be done which impedes the natural
\nprogress of a child already conceived. This principle, at least in the ideal,
\nis understood and practiced in Catholic hospitals. There is a huge difficulty
\nwith Plan B. If a pregnancy is confirmed by way of a standard pregnancy test
\nthen Plan B is neither warranted nor needed since such a readily identified
\npregnancy would not be the result of a very recent sexual assault. If the
\nstandard pregnancy test returns a negative for pregnancy then this only
\nproves that the woman was not pregnant prior to the assault. The critical
\nquestion, which must be answered with very great care, is whether the
\nassaulted woman has already conceived a child as a result of the assault.<\/p>\n

The answer to this question may not be able to be given with certainty and I
\nmaintain that it must be given with certainty in order to proceed with Plan
\nB. The utilization of Plan B without this certainty runs the unjustifiable
\nrisk of destroying new life while ostensibly intending to prevent the assault
\nfrom engendering that life. It turns an uncaring eye to the new life which
\nmay have already begun.<\/p>\n

This is quite a different take than what the Connecticut Bishop’s
\nconference has said by maintaining that this type of certainty is not
\nrequired.<\/p>\n

Some would maintain that since the intention is to prevent
\na pregnancy which may result from the unjust aggression of the assault it is
\nlegitimate to use Plan B even if the remote possibility of a pregnancy has
\nnot been absolutely eliminated. They suggest that a lesser degree of
\ncertainty of absence of pregnancy suffices. They suggest that even if a
\npregnancy does in fact exist the lack of knowledge about that pregnancy and
\nthe sole intention to prevent a pregnancy and not destroy one eliminates
\nmoral wrongdoing. They fail to recognize that we may not play this kind of
\nroulette with the existence of a human life. It is illegitimate, even with
\ngood motives, to directly cause the death of a pre-born child. Intervention
\nwith Plan B without ascertaining with certainty the absence of an existing
\npregnancy is a direct attack on the life of that child and this is morally
\nillegitimate.<\/p>\n

There is no doubt that the intention of trauma treatment is to protect the
\nwoman who has suffered an assault but this must not extend to the destruction
\nof an innocent child.<\/p>\n

There is certainly a lack of respect in our country for pre-born human life
\nbut we in the Catholic community and our Catholic health care facilities must
\nnot in any way condone or cooperate in that promotion of the culture of
\ndeath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last year I subscribed to Bishop Vasa’s e-column that sends me his weekly column in the Sentinel. Week after week he continues to write with on important moral teaching with…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pro-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3455\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.splendoroftruth.com\/curtjester\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}