DEACON FOR LIFE

Were there to be no support in the whole history of ethical and moral thought, were there no acknowledged confirmation from medical science, were the history of legal opinion to the contrary, we would still have to conclude on the basis of God's Holy Word that the unborn child is a person in the sight of God. He is protected by the sanctity of life graciously given to each individual by the Creator, Who alone places His image upon man and grants them any right to life which they have.

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Morning-after pill “is not emergency contraceptive but rather emergency abortion”

BUENOS AIRES, March 8 (CNA) - The director of the Institute for Bioethics of the Catholic University of La Plata, Juan Carlos Caprile, said this week the morning after pill should not be called an "emergency contraceptive, but rather an emergency abortion," since its many effects include the prevention of implantation of a fertilized ovum.

Caprile said the morning after pill that the government has begun distributing free of charge in the public heath care system "is abortifacient because it lessens notably the thickness of the internal part of the uterus, not allowing the embryo to become implanted between the 7th and 14th day after conception and eliminating it."

"The latest scientific advances in molecular biology prove that the penetration of the ovum by the sperm marks the beginning of human life," Caprile continued, "and therefore from that moment there is a unique and unrepeatable new individual who possesses all of the necessary information to develop his capacities."

"It is for this reason that it has the right to life mentioned in the Argentinean constitution, en in the Declaration of Human Rights and in the Rights of the Child. It should be treated with the dignity that it deserves as a person with a physical, biological and spiritual dimension and a sense of the transcendent," he added.

This week the government of Nestor Kirchner began distributing the morning after pill free of charge in public health care facilities throughout the country as a part of a national program of "sexual heath and responsible procreation."

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"In Cordibus Jesu et Mariae"

LIFE IS SACRED

An example of the traditional magisterial teaching which indicates that it is never morally licit to intentionally kill a child through abortion in order to “save the life of its mother” comes from the teaching of Pope Pius XII:

“Every human being, even the infant in the mother's womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral ‘indication’ that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life-which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit.”