Catholic hospitals to allow Plan B for rape victims

Source: Yahoo News

HARTFORD, Conn. - Roman Catholic bishops have agreed to let hospital personnel give emergency contraception to all rape victims, reversing their decision days before a new state law requires it.

The church had fought the state law by arguing it would force Catholic medical personnel to perform chemical abortions because they may be providing emergency contraception to women who are ovulating. The Catholic hospitals wanted to first perform ovulation tests, but lawmakers did not include such tests in the legislation.

The bishops now say that administering the drug, sold as Plan B, cannot be judged as an abortion.

Plan B is a high dose of a drug found in many regular birth-control pills. Its maker, Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc., got approval last year to sell the drug over-the-counter.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070927/ap_on_re_us/morning_after_pill

Who are raped by clerics too?

May contribute to more natural abortions than other methods.

1. There is the possibility that when that when a couple goes into the waiting mode of the method (when she thinks she starts ovulating) that there might be a few somewhat viable sperm hanging around inside the woman from the last time she had intercourse.
2. Likewise, when the waiting is up, and she feels ovulation is over, there could still be an old egg (old being relative to her cycle) hanging around.

In either case, if the old sperm fertilizes a new egg or a new sperm fertilizes an old egg, it more than likely doesn't produce a very viable zygote that can implant itself in the uterine wall so it's expelled, but technically, it was a fertilized egg, and it was unable to come to term because of Catholic Church doctrine.

TlalocW

She said "At least it is god's will," as if that somehow makes it okay.

I'm happy to hear that rape victims can get prophylactic care. I hope this attitude presents a precedent for more Catholics to follow: it isn't a baby if it can't implant in the uterus.

And I was going to come in here and post about how I was proud of them for drinking a nice, tall glass of reality. After reading the article I see that they're doing it just to be in accord with the law of the land.

:eyes: See what I get for getting my hopes up?

Shameful. Convoluted reasoning so that they can involve themselves in body parts that do not want to directly touch and in the lives of women they do not seem to want to protect.

The issue here is RAPE not ovulation.

I grew up in the Catholic Church ( I am not saying that other churches are better) and could no longer abide the treatment of women by the time I reached the age of 12).

Imagine a forcible rape victim, possibly bloody and battered, having to be given an ovulation test before and then denied Plan B if she might be ovulating.

It occurs to me that it is not the "life of the unborn child" being protected but the right of the male seed that is being treated as sacred.

way they can logically argue is not an abortion in any case! Are these cells not 'human'? in rape cases and human is oops cases??



..The bishops now say that administering the drug, sold as Plan B, cannot be judged as an abortion.

by allowing a post-coital chemical birth control method to be used, they are pretty much admitting that human life does *not* begin at the moment of conception. And it wouldn't make any sense to assert that this is some kind of exception being made in the case of rape. Conception is conception no matter how it takes place.

to bear a child which is the result of rape unless they really want the baby. I was acquainted with a Catholic woman who was dragged off the sidewalk into an abandoned house and raped. She was 18 and she had never before had sex. She was impregnated and because of her beliefs, did not abort and kept the baby. Not that it makes any difference, the baby boy had a severe heart defect and was mildly retarded. He had to have open heart surgery. He has caused her a great deal of grief because of antisocial and criminal behavior. I just can't help but think if plan 'B' had been an option and if she hadn't been so brainwashed by her mother her life may have been different. Who knows. It's all hypothetical at this point. Being raped is bad enough but to have to look at the product of that type of conception the rest of your life seems so tragic.

uct of the male body over the entire life of a female human being.
I could have a modicum of respect for the position of the church if they took total financial and other supportive responsibility for raising the child but they do not do that---they tell the woman it is her responsibility and, for the most part, like Pontius Pilate, they wash their hands and move on to their next pronouncement.

Indeed, it is NOT about protecting life, but IS about elevating the sperm or the product of the male body over the entire life of a female human being. Every sperm is sacred...

the church leaves raising the child soley to the woman. First, they'd probably believe adoption would be be best but even beyond that, the Catholic church offers plenty of assistance to the poor.

and in money. There is no way that the church is meeting more than a small percentage of that cost for women who might obey the church's demands re birth control practices.

Catholic charities do much for many-I will definitely acknowledge that.

I have been disapointed in the loss of equality in Catholic education. In the 1950s and 60s Catholic education started to pull away from a commitment to educating most children equally (like public schools of the era they barred the doors to many children with retardation) and started reserving Catholic education for those considered more educationally promising. Up until the 1960s parents were chastised for not sending their children to parochial schools (I speak about northeast US-in my community parents were told it was sinful to send their children to public schools). Later Catholic school education became exclusive, with entrance tests for high schools.
Those of us who passed the tests were welcomed; those who did not were rejected and parents were then told that public education was fine for these less able or average students.

In the city in the southeast where I now live, the Catholic elementary school in the poorest neighborhood was shut down. Catholic education for poor was dependent upon the sacrifice of women who were encouraged to take vows of poverty and become teaching nuns. Now that there are fewer women doing so, Cathocic education has become more costly and more elitist.

Interestingly the priesthood has no vow of poverty. I think this is also a sign of maleness being valued above femaleness.

I'm not going to dignify this bigoted crap with any further response

Catholic teaching is quite clear that every act of intercourse be open to life. In the case of rape, the argument is made that it is not the fetus's (or plug in any PC term you want to describe a fetus) fault how conception occurred, so the pregnancy must proceed. Cold, yes, but such a view is faithful to Catholic thought.

What a lot here seem to be missing is the important point that the bishops may have inadvertently shot a BIG hole in the Church's staunch defense of all birth control, but I'm sure they will somehow explain this away with their brilliant use of pretzel logic.

I hope this story gets wide play and the Church is made to answer for its inconsistency in the birth control debate. And, saying that the "state made us do it" won't be a sufficient answer.

...dislodge an already-implanted zygote. It has to be taken SOON after intercourse or rape.

It's infuriating that pro-birthers insist on treating every form of contraception as though it were abortion. And that by doing so, they get many other people to believe that is the case when it's not.

Some of the posters in this thread are repeating what amount to RW talking points when they defend Plan B as a form of abortion. It's not RU486.

And yes, as anyone who knows me can attest, I am pro-choice.

http://www.plannedparenthood.org/news-articles-press/politics-policy-issues/birth-control-access-prevention/plan-b-6502.htm

Hekate

As a Catholic, I definitely endorse this move.

sons of *(%$s.

Of course, Joe Lieberman was backing them up.

hospital, except we don't (1) provide Plan B, or (2) do therapeutic abortions." Once a hospital starts to determine what medicine it will conduct "a la carte" based on religious teaching, we're all screwed. If they decide to do so, law should indicate, "no medicare $$$$$ for you. Only wealthy, Catholic, privately insured folks need step through your doors."