In my prior post, I mentioned that I’ve received multiple requests for comment on the Connecticut Plan B situation. The following reader expresses the sentiments of many when he writes:
Jimmy,
What is going on in Connecticut right now? The Bishops there have
released a statement, explaining that they will now allow Plan B to be
administered in their hospitals…where they previously stated (or
implied) otherwise. Curt Jester & American Papist have coverage on
this, but I just don’t understand the issue.Specifically, why is contraception allowed after rape (since it’s
sex without the proper intent etc etc) but is NOT permitted after
casual, recreational sex that also lacks the proper intent?
It’s understandable, given the Church’s strong stand against contraception and abortion, why this issue would be so confusing. In order to make sense of it, we need to look at several things, but first
THE BIG RED DISCLAIMER: What I am about to write is not indicative of my own view. I’m trying to explain the apparent reasoning of the Connecticut bishops. I’m not saying that they are correct or incorrect. Rome could rule either way on this, and it may well get involved. What I’m trying to do is explain a position, not defend it.
The starting point to understanding the apparent reasoning behind the Connecticut bishops’ statement is a close reading of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical, Humanae Vitae. Here’s the key line in Latin:
Item quivis respuendus est actus, qui, cum coniugale commercium vel
praevidetur vel efficitur vel ad suos naturales exitus ducit, id tamquam finem
obtinendum aut viam adhibendam intendat, ut procreatio impediatur.
Now, I’ve given this in Latin so that you can see the key term coniugale commercium. Coniugale means "conjugal/marital/pertaining to or proper to marriage." Commercium means "commerce/traffic/relations/intercourse/sexual intercourse."
You could translate this literally as "conjugal intercourse," "conjugal relations," "marital intercourse," "marital relations"–things of that nature.
Which is how this passage is translated when it’s quoted in the Catechism:
2370 Periodic continence, that is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality. These methods respect the bodies of the spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil
Unfortunately, some translators are sloppy in how they handle this text (which is particularly unfortunate, since it’s a key text in a sensitive document). For example, the English translation of HV on the Vatican web site renders this:
Similarly excluded is any action which either before, at the moment of, or after sexual intercourse, is specifically intended to prevent procreation—whether as an end or as a means.
That’s a loosey-goosey translation, and if you go with that one, what the Connecticut bishops said will be absolutely inexplicable, since the use of Plan B to prevent ovulation or fertilization clearly would be "specifically intended to prevent procreation . . . as an end . . . after sexual intercourse" (rearranging the elements of the quote a bit).
But that’s not what the Latin original says. It doesn’t say "sexual intercourse," it says "conjugal intercourse" and "conjugal" means "marital."
Paul VI phrased himself very carefully in this area, and what he did
was say that you can’t use contraception to thwart the procreative
aspect of marital intercourse. His language does not explicitly
address the issue of the procreative aspect of intercourse
outside of marriage.
Of course, intercourse outside of marriage always involves grave sin to begin
with, and it seems reasonable to conclude that if contraception in
marriage is an evil, contraception outside of marriage only compounds
the evil of non-marital sex. One day the pope or the Congregation
for the Doctrine of the Faith may clarify that this is indeed the case.
But this goes beyond what can be shown from the language of HV. The way HV is phrased
in the original Latin (and in the literal translation of the passage
given in the Catechism), all you can say with certainty is that Paul VI
condemned all use of contraception within marriage.
He did not address–or cannot be ascertained certainly as addressing–the situation of sexual relations outside of marriage.
Thus, some have held that at least some forms of contraception (ones
that aren’t abortifacient, for example) might not compound the evil of
non-marital sex. Some might argue that, although non-marital sexual acts are gravely wrong,
contraceptive non-marital sex might be less gravely wrong than non-contraceptive non-marital sex since it has a lesser risk of bringing a child into the world outside of wedlock.
By divine law, children have a right to be conceived only within a
family that has a father and a mother who are married to each
other. To the extent that they may cause children to be conceived
outside of wedlock, non-marital sexual acts can be viewed as grave sins against
charity regarding the child that may be conceived, as well as other
affected parties (such as innocent spouses).
In case of rape, one pursuing this line of argument might maintain, there is no sin in the victim using at least certain forms of contraception since the victim is not married to the rapist (apart from cases of marital rape) and did not consent to the sexual act.
Thus the U. S. bishops Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (4th ed.) states:
Compassionate and understanding care should be given to a person who is
the victim of sexual assault. Health care providers should cooperate
with law enforcement officials and offer the person psychological and
spiritual support as well as accurate medical information. A female who
has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential
conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing,
there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be
treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm
capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to
initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or
direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the
implantation of a fertilized ovum [n. 36].
The issue of non-marital contraception is a theological hot potato that the Holy See will eventually have to sort out, because this issue is not going to go away, as the situation of the Connecticut state law illustrates.
But if–and note the "if"–the Church ended up endorsing the view that contraception is impermissible within marriage but potentially permissible outside it then it would allow for a variety of situations, such as:
-
Nuns in dangerous situations where they may be raped could use at least some forms of contraception
-
Women who have been raped could be given at least some forms of contraception
I’m not defending these views. I’m just pointing out that they are not expressly precluded by the language used in Humanae Vitae or, to my knowledge, by subsequent Magisterial documents.
You might find the above line of reasoning entirely implausible, but I’m not advocating it. I’m merely trying to help with the "What on earth are they thinking?" factor of this situation.
If you are of the opinion that the above views are wrong, you might well conclude that the Holy Spirit will prevent the Church from ever endorsing such views and that he may guide the Church into a clear-cut rejection of those views.
But that has not yet occurred, at least in Magisterial documents that I am aware of.
In fact–and this is pure speculation and should not be taken as anything other than the pointing out of a possibility–the Connecticut bishops may even have consulted with the CDF for advice about how to handle this issue.
That leaves the question of whether the policy they announced is a good one, and, speaking only for myself, I can only say that I find the announced policy to be troubling.
There are disputed claims about whether Plan B will prevent the implantation of a newly-conceived child. The manufacturer’s own label for the product (see links to American Papist and Curt Jester) say that it may have this effect. Legal disclaimers of this nature are notoriously broad–in order to prevent future lawsuits–and they frequently list potential outcomes for the use of drugs that are either not possible with the drug in question or which are very unlikely. Because of this kind of language in medical disclaimers, as well as a lack of knowledge about how Plan B actually works, there is ambiguity about whether or not it is abortifacient.
That ambiguity is what generates a lot of the tension within the Connecticut bishops’ statement, and it is one of the things that I find troubling about the whole situation.
I’m far from being an expert on Plan B, but any time there is a possibility that something is abortifacient, I want to apply the Deerhunter Principle: If you’re out in the woods hunting, you cannot open fire if the result is reasonably foreseen to involve the possible death of a human.
I want to apply the Deerhunter Principle: If you’re out in the woods hunting, you cannot open fire if the result is reasonably foreseen to involve the possible death of a human.
With all great respect for J.A., I respectfully disagree —
That’s similar to saying you cannot attack a hostile enemy’s territory if it is reasonably foreseen to involve the possible deaths of innocent human beings; which we know is acceptable given a just war.
Specifically, why is contraception allowed after rape (since it’s sex without the proper intent etc etc) but is NOT permitted after casual, recreational sex that also lacks the proper intent?
Well, in the latter case the woman intends to have sex, even if her intent isn’t proper. In the former case she intends not to have sex but is violently forced to do so against her will, sometimes with the very motivation of forcing her to conceive a child.
Does it make the least bit of sense for the woman to be required to say with her body, “I don’t want any part of you, except your fertility”? She bloody well doesn’t want her rapists fertility any more than any other part of him! Nor is there any unitive element to keep bonded to the procreative as there’s nothing unitive about being used 100% purely as a thing (something even the most exploitive consensual sex doesn’t accomplish).
Our local catholic hospital has just recently (2004) opened back its’ maternity wing b/c they refused to offer any abortions or “things” resulting in one.
It seems pretty cut and dry to me.
Plan B does a lot of things including abortion.
Jimmy, have you read any of Judi Brown’s stuff on Plan B and what it does?
And how is this different from the Amnesty International position on abortion after rape? Seems like the same to me.
Similar, except different, and not really the same at all.
A just war provides a proportionate rationale for accepting the unwilled but foreseen deaths of innocent human beings as an acceptable consequence. Deer hunting does not provide a similar rationale for accepting the possibility of shooting a fellow hunter. Nor is it acceptable to accept the abortion of a fetus even in the case of rape. I’m sorry, Esau, but you just don’t get how double effect works in Catholic moral theology.
The difference, so the argument would go, is that what the CT bishops are allowing at this time is at the very least most often not going to result in abortion, and that the good of preventing the rape-pregnancy justifies the (hopefully tiny) risk of induced abortion. I’m not saying I buy that, but that’s how the argument would go.
Jimmy,
This is perhaps the most clear, substantive, helpful and thoughtful post you have ever written. Bravo. Gave it a link in my own comments on the matter.
Policraticus: Read your blog post. One comment: Even when you actually have something nice to say, you have to couch it with a condescending put-down? What on earth is wrong with you?
As I mentioned before, the situation is really very similar to a woman who uses a hormonal birth control to treat a legitimate medical problem. The act is not immoral because the pill is taken with the contraceptive aspect as an unintended consequence. Fr. Vincent Serpa among other theologians has written that a married woman in this circumstance is NOT obligated to abstain from marital relations even though it could result in a miscarriage from the side effect of her medication.
Now, with Plan B, we have the same type of thing. The act of administering the pill is moral because it is repelling the unjust aggressor. I would say even if we KNOW that the Plan B medication could cause a miscarriage as a side effect, that is still permissible (just as it is in the instance above). If as a result of attempting to kill her aggressor’s sperm, a newly formed child is miscarried, that is unfortunate but it is NOT a moral evil. This is a classic case of the principle of double effect and it passes.
SDG,
To what are you referring?
And how is this different from the Amnesty International position on abortion after rape?
Contraception isn’t abortion.
Even in situations where they are both definitely sinful, they aren’t the same.
“Fr. Vincent Serpa among other theologians has written that a married woman in this circumstance is NOT obligated to abstain from marital relations even though it could result in a miscarriage from the side effect of her medication”
Can you supply a source for this that Fr. Serpa said? I believe that IF you have to take the pill for medical reasons, you are to abstain DURING your fertile time or about that time when you would have ovulated.
Here is what Fr. Serpa says:
“The use of the pill for medical reasons may cause an UNintended miscarriage. Women often have unintended miscarriages—sometimes without even knowing it. It is only miscarriages that are INTENDED that the Church considers immoral. The Church never allows the pill to be used as an abortifacient. But it does allow the use of the pill for medical reasons with the possiblity of producing an unintended miscarriage—without obliging the couple to abstain from sexual relations during that time.”
http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=4618
I think this is VERY applicable to the situation with Plan B. Even if we know that the Plan B can cause miscarriages, it can still be used so long as it is intended to kill the aggressors sperm and not to procure an abortion.
If as a result of attempting to kill her aggressor’s sperm, a newly formed child is miscarried, that is unfortunate but it is NOT a moral evil. This is a classic case of the principle of double effect and it passes.
Double effect only applies if the good end that is intended is as important as the evil consequence that is accepted.
Policraticus: Most of Jimmy’s regular readers aren’t caught by surprise when Jimmy’s posts show his characteristic balance. You can’t mean to say that it didn’t occur to you that your expression of surprise would read as a slight?
True, but you do have to take into account the comparative probability of the good effect versus the evil effect.
To give an extreme example, if I drive to Mass every Sunday rather than walk, I gain the good effect of getting to Mass faster, but I also incur a possibility, however slight, that I might get into an accident and injure someone, or even one of my own family, in a way far outweighing the good of getting to Mass faster. Accidents are one of the possible evil side effects of driving, but we accept that possibility because it is comparatively remote in relation to the reliable good effects.
A more serious variant: A 55mph speed limit results in fewer accidents and fewer deaths than a 65mph speed limit. For any given trip, the benefits of getting to one’s destination 10mph faster would certainly not outweigh an accidental death. Yet we accept faster speed limits because the comparatively lesser good is reliably delivered and the comparatively graver evil occurs only infrequently.
On similar principles, if a Plan B contraceptive induced abortions in a tiny fraction of cases, but the vast majority of the time it worked by preventing conception, it would seem a reasonable argument that in cases such as rape the good of preventing rape-pregnancy could be proportionate to the comparatively minor risk of induced abortion. (Obviously, that’s a very big “if” — I’m speaking hypothetically.)
Deer hunting does not provide a similar rationale for accepting the possibility of shooting a fellow hunter.
Obviously, protecting oneself from a rapist’s sperm is not deer hunting. Is it war?
It is an attack, an illegitimate invasion. It threatens to bring about a violation of one of the most basic human rights, the right to be conceived and born through an act of conjugal love. I think it is reasonable to apply self-defense principles.
The debate is not about Plan B in general for a rape victim outside ovulation with the purpose of preventing ovulation, there isn’t a whole lot of disagreement on that.
The debate is about using Plan B without checking for ovulation, or using Plan B despite ovulation– knowing that there is at least a possibility of killing a baby. In those murky situations is where this question lies.
If others think I’m incorrect, please correct me, since I may not be understanding the actual issue.
That being said– the entire purpose of using Plan B, in these situations, is to prevent ovulation. To use Plan B when a person IS ovulating, or to refuse to allow checks for ovulation (which is what this law does) is to do only one thing.
That one thing is to INTENTIONALLY seek out the evil of causing a miscariage during certain circumstances. Double effect doesn’t apply when the good caused and the bad caused are the same thing.
That being said, SDG, I don’t see how self-defense principles apply in anyway.
“Among the Greek ecclesiastical writers, Athenagoras records that Christians consider as murderesses women who have recourse to abortifacient medicines, because children, even if they are still in their mother’s womb, “are already under the protection of Divine Providence.”
John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae (sec. 61) quoting from Apologia on behalf of Christians
More recent (h/t Michaelus posting in the Curt Jester blog):
“”Consequently, from the ethical standpoint the same absolute unlawfulness of abortifacient procedures also applies to distributing, prescribing and taking the morning-after pill. All who, whether sharing the intention or not, directly co-operate with this procedure are also morally responsible for it.”
Statement from the pontifical Academy for Life, 10/31/2000 via the Vatican website
Given the intentional ignorance regarding the law’s ovulation test restriction and the manufacturer’s declaration of Plan B’s abortifacient properties, can the double effect argument be upheld in this question?
I wonder if it’s now supposedly OK why did they so vigorously oppose it in the first place?
Where’s Bp. Wenski to mobilize public opinion? Oh, well, Judas Iscariot was the first bishop to sell the Christ to appease the powers at be…
Esau, you have missed the point. Quite.
Oh, I didn’t see SDG’s good reply. Didn’t mean to pile up on ole Esau. There are other ways to respond besides SDG’s but they end up the same place.
I can assure you, firing into a rustling bush that might have a deer, but did have a human being, is always an evil action (if only the evil of negligence, though I think more akin to reckless) and deserves punishment.
If I read the CONN bishops arightly, their stance permitting this action when “it might be killing a human being and it might not be” is incomprehensible.
THere is another problem here, which is secondary to the morality. If the Bishops allow the administration of Plan B under pressure from the state we are entering onto a very slippery slope. The Church must remain independant of the state even at the expense of persecution, and even if there is harm to her temporal mission in a particular area. Better that all Catholic hospitals be closed then to consent to an evil being committed. If anyone doubts that the government has a legitimate interest in requiring the Church to bow down is fooling themselves. This is clearly the advancement of an agenda, and it’s not compassion for women.
God Bless,
Matt
Jimmy speaks of sloppy translations of encyclicals. Here is one from Evangelium Vitae (99) on the fate of aborted infants which contradicts the not only the Latin version but the Catechism para 1216 and the most recent document released The Hope of Salvation For Infants Who Die Without Being Baptised 101 and 102.
http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/__P10.HTM
The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. You will come to understand that nothing is definitively lost and you will also be able to ask forgiveness from your child, who is now living in the Lord
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_lt.html
Pater vos exspectat ut veniam vobis offerat et pacem in Sacramento Reconciliationis. Infantem autem vestrum potestis Eidem Patri Eiusque misericordiae cum spe committere.
Faithful to the Latin translation
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae_en.html
The Father of mercies is ready to give you his forgiveness and his peace in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. To the same Father and his mercy you can with sure hope entrust your child.
I have heard a number of times but have never been able to nail it down that nuns have received permission to use contraception when they were in a war zone. Is this just an urban myth?
Victoria,
The words “who is living in the Lord” were in the original document. They were later changed in the official version published in Acta Apostolicae Sedis.
Bravo, Jimmy. I think you’re wholly on the track with this. I am not sure as to why you can’t get behind your explanation and support it, though your wanting to apply the Deer Hunter principle makes sense when it comes to the possibility of actual abortion.
As to:
Rape is a mere perversion of the real thing–the conjugal act of which Humanae Vitae speaks–and so is fornication. But the justification for delaying ovulation in cases of rape in cases of fornication is not applicable to the situation of fornication. As with cases of contraception within marriage, a culture of death, willfully abusive mentality is present in cases of fornication. The key distinction in cases of rape would seem to be this: Delaying ovulation and other such non-abortifacient procedures do not remotely stem from a culture of death mentality at all, but rather, stem solely from the desire–or imperative– to prevent further abuse of the reproductive faculties.
But fornication abuses the reproductive faculties too, right? Right. So would preventing further abuse of these faculties then mitigate the sin of fornication? No, because a culture of death mentality is present in this case, besides just the abuse of the reproductive faculty. These elements are not present in the case of a rape victim delaying ovulation. Rather, it’s all about the “sex as an end in itself” mentality, and the willingness to abuse the reproductive faculty–components which do not even remotely apply to a rape victim’s situation. Apples and oranges. A rape victim is preventing further abuse while fornicators are willingly abusing sex. A rape victim isn’t motivated to delay ovulation by a culture of death mentality, while contracepting fornicators are. That’s why contraception + fornication is still an evil which cannot mitigate the circumstances, let alone be condoned.
So would avoiding contraception in cases of fornication then mitigate the sin of fornication, or even be the right thing to do? We cannot say this either, because the Church also clearly teaches children’s rights to be conceived within marriage.
The truth seems, as I see it anyway, that idiomatically speaking, they’re “damned if they do” use contraception, but also “damned if they don’t”. It’s not even a matter of one case compounding a sin and not the other, because the sin of fornication will be compounded whether one uses contraception (corroborates the culture of death mentality) or doesn’t (risks infringing on a child’s right to be born within wedlock).
To say that fornicators should be open to children out of wedlock, if they’re going to have sex anyway, seems very contrary to what the Church teaches about children’s rights to be conceived in wedlock. Contraception would still still seem to be wrong, but in the unique case of fornication, it is wrong on the single count of its corroboration of a culture of death mentality by cheapening the sex act, by treating fertility as a “disorder” to be remedied, willfully treating the reproductive faculty as something to be abused, by entertaining the notion of sex as an end in itself. It’s not wrong, however, because fornicators, should be open to children in respecting their fertility, as married couples are asked to be when they let nature take its course during a conjugal act. It’s logically absurd, given other teaching, to say that fornicators need be open to children if they’re going to have sex. So the reasoning behind the sinfulness of contraception in cases of fornication and in cases of a conjugal act are very similar, but not purely identical.
That’s why the notion of compounding sin by using contraception in the case of fornication might just be moot–BOTH scenarios seem to compound the inherent severity of the root sin, fornication. Because it’s wrong to cheapen sex, and also wrong to risk children out of wedlock. So in the end, it’s all equalized, that I can see.
I think the distinction made in the Latin version of Humanae Vitae points to a critical lesson of which we should all be aware. It is brilliant that this distinction is made. We need to remember that the Church speaks in terms of ideals, and that Her use of certain words isn’t going to always parallel vernacular understanding and usage, or even the technical, clinical definitions. We can see this where “conjugal relations” was translated into just “sexual relations”, and how this mistake promotes misunderstanding. We saw it happen when the whole “perfidis” issue got dredged up recently, when “perfidis” was assumed to mean “perfidious” in the sense of “treacherous”, when that wasn’t the connotation we were meant to understand.
She is very specific. Conjugal relations are the ideal–they are TRUE sex. That’s because they’re the only proper form of sex, in order with God’s design. Anything that is not a pure, consensual, conjugal relation is no more than a perversion, a mere shadow of the real thing. It can only be considered “sex” in the vernacular sense. But by God’s design, it just isn’t the real thing, and is not really sex. God says what “sex” really is. Perversions don’t redefine “sex”.
The care taken, is striking. We need to take care to think about where our idealistic Church is coming from, and recognize that we speak differently in every day casual talk, when trying to understand the teachings.
When we don’t take this idealism into account, we run the risk of applying teachings where they don’t apply. We run the risk of saying that something is contraception and that Church teaching applies in situations where it does not, e.g. cleaning a rape victim, delaying ovulation, because we’re going by clinical definitions where the Church isn’t. We also use terms like “oral sex”, “a*** sex” (I don’t want to be more graphic than I have to in making my point)–when the fact is, those are perversions, not true sex.
When you understand that fornication is therefore, by virtue of not being proper sex in order with God’s design, not REAL sex, and neither is rape, then it is easier to understand why clinically contraceptive measures take on a whole new light than they do within proper, marital situations. In one case, rape, there is a contraceptive mentality at all, or a conjugal act, both of which seem necessary for the application of Church teaching on what She calls “contraception”, outside of its clinicallycorrect definition. There’s more to contraception than just the clinical definition of contraception which some assume to be sufficient, with no other components to complicate the issue. In another case, fornication, the use of artificial contraception is wrong, but not for the reason that fornicators are also mandated to be open to conceiving children out of wedlock, like married couples are.
Wording is important, and so is the fact that the Church’s wording–as guided by the Holy Spirit–is extremely careful in that terminology is used in an idealistic way, not a clinical way or in the way society assumes certain connotations in common vernacular. For example, is sodomy “contraceptive”? It’s really moot, because sodomy isn’t really “sex” in the first place. It’s an abuse of the body, but just because we’re habituated to referring as oral and a*** sex as “sex”, doesn’t actually make it so. It fails to meet the criteria of the ideal–what the Church considers to be actual sex.
Someone here briefly mentioned a saint here, about a year ago, whose theology centered upon these notions of ideals. It really got my attention, but now I no longer remember the saint’s name, or where the post was. Can anyone remember and tell me?
Should have been,
And
Should have been:
Typo central today, sorry! Wish Typepad could let us edit comments.
Your last comment is correct, but I have one caveat.
I agree that the law itself deliberately seeks to blur the issue between contraception and abortion and prevent Catholic hospitals from distinguishing between the two. The law is thus an evil law.
Having said that, if we assume (and again, that’s a big “if”) that Plan B works in a substantial majority of cases by preventing conception, and causes abortions only in a small minority of cases, then under the moral ambiguity wrongly imposed by this evil law, it would seem Catholic hospitals have a choice either to help to protect most rape victims from a rapist’s sperm even though this will unavoidably mean in some cases unknowingly inducing abortion, or to refuse to help most rape victims in order to avoid unknowingly inducing abortion in a small number of cases.
In that case (again, assuming that big “if”), it seems at least possible to me to adapt Esau’s collateral-damage analogy in a way that arguably could apply.
In war, you drop bombs on structures that you believe probably contain enemy combatants, even though you know that at least some of the time your intelligence is faulty and the structures could house only innocent civilians. Obviously, if you could do a test to determine whether the occupants of the structure were enemy combatants or innocent civilians, you would know which structures to bomb and which not to.
Now, if you could do such a test, but were prevented from doing so for political reasons, that obviously would be a great evil, since such a policy would prevent you from distinguishing between legitimate targets and innocent civilians. However, even under such circumstances, you would only be back where you started from, knowing that you have to bomb structures that you believe probably contain enemy combatants, even though at least some of the time this will mean killing innocent civilians.
Similarly, under the evil circumstances wrongly imposed by this evil law, it seems at least arguable to me — again with the “if” — that it could be legitimate to administer Plan B to a woman where there is a substantially greater probability that you will help her by preventing conception, weighed against a substantially smaller probability that you may inadvertently induce abortion.
If you reread my post, you will see that I was responding to a question specifically about a woman protecting herself against a rapist’s sperm. I did not say that Plan B constituted legitimate self-defense in any and all circumstances, including after conception had occurred.
Are you Hobby-Horse Traditionalist John who has been disinvited from the blog? If not, carry on. If so, your chutzpah and rudeness beggars description.
LCB is right about the scope of the Plan B question, and shows why Different’s view and his quote from Fr. Serpa is inapplicable. If an ovulation test shows ovulation, taking Plan B can’t be said to prevent ovulation (the pro-abort scientists agree about this). Ovulation has happened or is already happening. Taking Plan B at that moment aims primarily and probably exclusively at the object of preventing implantation. That object cannot be called a secondary effect–it’s the very reason for taking Plan B–it’s the designed means by which Plan B achieves its intent of preventing “pregnancy” from the rapist in that circumstance. So Fr. Serpa’s quote is different, because taking the pill to regulate a cycle does not include the intent or object of preventing implantation, and preventing implantation in that circumstance is not the means by which the cycle is regulated. Whether or not you agree with Fr. Serpa’s quote, it is inapplicable here.
Are we sure of our biological understanding here?
I understand there is a race between the ovaries, and that more than one egg is involved. The first egg to break through a follicle wins, and the other eggs recede and do not actually burst through a follicle, due to the hormone release from the first, winning egg.
That means that eggs can be prevented from bursting through a follicle. We know this because it’s precisely what the first egg *does* to the other eggs.
An ovulation test can only predict that ovulation is likely to happen within 48 hours, if it already hasn’t. A positive ovulation test result ≠ “ovulation”, not 100%. You need an ultrasound for that. “Ovulation” is actually the moment at which an egg bursts through a follicle, followed by the egg’s short life of about 24 hours. The period leading up to this point, where an ovulation test might indicate “ovulation”, does not mean that ovulation is happening at that moment. Ovulation isn’t ovulation until one egg actually bursts through a follicle, regardless of what an ovulation test says.
So when an ovulation test indicates “ovulation”, it might not be too late to administer a hormone to prevent ANY of the eggs from bursting through a follicle. I’m assuming that Plan B contains the hormones which would do that very thing, mimicking the effect that one egg would have on the other eggs that lost the race.
To know for sure whether it’s too late, we’d need an ovarian ultrasound. We’d want to look for a burst spot on an ovary (and it can be seen with an ultrasound). If we don’t see that, then no matter what the ovulation test indicates, it would be okay to use a hormone to prevent the impending ovulation. Like I said, one egg can do this, so I’m presuming it can be done with Plan B.
Ovulation tests therefore may not be required, as they don’t do the job. Ultrasounds would, however.
But what happens to this moral calculus when an evil law suspends the first six words from your comments above? Or suppose there were no ovulation test, so there was no way to know whether ovulation had occurred or not. Is it necessarily wrong to do what you can to delay ovulation if it has not occurred given that this measure may also prevent implantation if it has? Even if (again with the big “if”) the latter was a much more likely outcome than the former?
If an ovulation test shows ovulation, taking Plan B can’t be said to prevent ovulation (the pro-abort scientists agree about this). Ovulation has happened or is already happening.
No, see my post, two posts ago. An ovulation test isn’t accurate enough to say that ovulation is already happening, let alone has happened. It will give a positive result within about 48 hours before the actual event, and during the event. Up until the actual ovulation, the positive ovulation test result only means, “Ovulation is likely to happen”. You need an ultrasound to know for sure whether the ovulation test is indicating actual ovulation, or merely predicting an impending ovulation, then. You can’t know whether it has already happened or is happening without an ultrasound. The 48 hours leading up to ovulation will show positive for ovulation, though ovulation is not happening until an egg bursts through a follicle.
SDG: That’s a good question. But the law doesn’t prohibit an ovulation test. It just makes it irrelevant. The law says you must administer the drug, unless you have a positive *pregnancy* test.
Karen: Scientists on both sides seem to agree that if an ovulation test is positive, it’s too late for Plan B’s anti-ovulatory effect. My understanding that I can double check for you is that Plan B’s anti-ovulatory mechanism is to suppress the luteinizing hormone, but a positive ovulation test shows it’s too late to stop the LH surge or that it already happened. So you’re talking about the relationship between LH and the egg bursting through, but I’m talking about the relationship between Plan B and LH.
Matt: Good point. I was focusing on the sentence from the bishops’ statement that “To administer Plan B pills without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act.” However, as you note, the statement also acknowledges that the law doesn’t simply prevent the hospital from requiring an ovulation test, as before, it also “does not allow medical professionals to take into account the results of the ovulation test” even if it is administered.
So what the bishops statement doesn’t address at all is the case of a woman who first requests and receives an ovulation test, gets a positive result, and then wants Plan B anyway. The bishops could be right in arguing that “To administer Plan B pills without an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act.” But what about administer Plan B even with a positive ovulation test, as the law would also require them to do? I don’t see how you’re going to argue that’s not intrinsically immoral. In which case, I don’t think the bishops are off the hook.
(Karen, sorry to ignore your distinctions and caveats — I don’t have the expertise to comment there. FWIW, “ovulation test” can be read as as “whatever procedure best determines whether or not ovulation has occurred and/or whether or not it is too late for Plan B’s anti-ovulation effect.” I’m just discussing principles.)
*sigh*
I read a feminist blog on this topic. The feminists were certain that the ovulation test was conclusive proof that what they were really after was “control of women’s bodies.”
So what the bishops statement doesn’t address at all is the case of a woman who first requests and receives an ovulation test, gets a positive result, and then wants Plan B anyway.
That’s where the issue of what Plan B actually does comes into play, where the Bishops state, “because of such doubt about how Plan B pills and similar drugs work.” Even if an ovulation test were positive, there remains doubt that Plan B is abortifacient.
Which, on this theory, would be the goal because… why? What’s the purported motive? Unconscious Freudian resentment? Sheer patriarchal Eeeevil? Isn’t it just simpler, as well as true, to say “Those life-happy Catholics just don’t want to see even a zygote artificially aborted”?
Karen,
Whoa, whoa whoa, slow down. Your posts are great, and you’re contributing a great deal… but we must remember, ‘First Things’ always come first.
You wrote a long and complicated post regarding the moral issue of a child being conceived in wedlock. It’s all a moot point, because the primary issue (the First Thing) is free will. Once a person freely engages in sexual activity, they have also freely accepted the consequences of such action (not using consequences in a pejorative way).
A rape victim has not freely engaged in the sexual activity, and as such has not freely accepted the consequence of that activity (possible pregnancy).
In all situations and all circumstances a child’s right TO BE CONCEIVED trumps the child’s right TO BE CONCEIVED IN WEDLOCK, since the later is dependent upon the former.
Because of that your conclusion, “So in the end, it’s all equalized, that I can see” is wrong, since you started in the wrong place.
I was a little sloppy in my terms above, but the main point still holds.
The rape victim has the right to prevent conception, but not the right to cause an abortion. Thus Plan B seeks to prevent ovulation. The woman’s right not to conceive does NOT trump the child’s right to live once conceived, since life is a greater good than being free from pregnancy.
A person willingly engaging in sexual act must accept the consequences from that act. By willingly fornicating, they are perverting one meaning of the sexual act (unity in marriage etc), and secondary to that by willingly contracepting they are perverting the other meaning of the sexual act (creating new life). Since the the second is dependant upon the first, it does not apply in the case of rape victims.
It may seem strange to focus in on this, but if the distinction isn’t VERY clear, there is a reverse argument for the moral acceptance of contraception in fornication. It is not morally acceptable.
So, Plan B has two possible actions, preventing ovulation or preventing implantation. If it only acted preventing implantation that would be wrong. The action of preventing ovulation though in this case is a good act. Since the ovulation test cannot tell us definitively whether the ovulation has occurred or is about to occur doesn’t really matter. Either way, the Plan B could be administered in the hope of preventing ovulation. The risk of preventing implantation is an acceptable risk and is not intended.
To whomever said Fr. Serpa’s analysis does not apply. It certainly does here because we don’t know whether the Plan B MIGHT prevent ovulation or not. If it has a chance to prevent ovulation, we should take it. According to your reasoning the married couple would have an obligation to ascertain when ovulation occurs and then avoid marital relations so as not to risk a miscarriage. But he says clearly, they DON’T have to abstain even when they KNOW ovulation is occurring.
Does anyone know if Plan B acts to kill sperm?
As SDG has mentioned this is not the same as the deer hunter situation.
But if ovulation has occurred, is there any established mechanism other than one that would obstruct implantation that by which Plan B might prevent pregnancy?
I know it’s been proposed that Plan B could hypothetically interfere with fertilization even after ovulation, though I don’t know what the proposed mechanism for such an effect would be, let alone of any evidence that this actually occurs.
I know it hasn’t been conclusively shown that Plan B’s effects actually do prevent implantation, although the proposed mechanism there seems clearer and more plausible. At any rate it seems to me that if Plan B prevents pregnancies after ovulation, the most likely mechanism, going by our current state of knowledge, would be by preventing implantation, not by preventing conception.
Therefore, if administering Plan B after ovulation thwarts pregnancy at all, it would seem that induced abortion is a more likely mechanism for this than preventing conception. Although some doubt may remain, this greater probability would seem to make it intrinsically immoral, at least given our current state of knowledge, to administer Plan B when it is known that ovulation has occurred.
SDG, I’m glad we’re so closely ‘on the same page’ with this issue. I greatly respect your opinions, and would find it troubling if we were as far apart as I originally though. Rereading your original post with fresh eyes, and with your clarifications, brings clarity.
In your most recent post you wrote, “Having said that, if we assume (and again, that’s a big “if”) that Plan B works in a substantial majority of cases by preventing conception, and causes abortions only in a small minority of cases, then under the moral ambiguity wrongly imposed by this evil law, it would seem Catholic hospitals have a choice either to help to protect most rape victims from a rapist’s sperm even though this will unavoidably mean in some cases unknowingly inducing abortion, or to refuse to help most rape victims in order to avoid unknowingly inducing abortion in a small number of cases.”
You are correct, that is a big IF. The law is an evil law– AND THUS IS NO LAW AT ALL. It has no binding force. It is not valid. It is not licit. It is not to be followed. It would be better to close every one of those hospitals, and stop doing all the good that they do, then to actively participate in the intentional taking of even one human life.
Further, the good of preventing many contraceptions from rape NEVER outweighs the evil of knowingly causing even one abortion in the other instances. Especially because a simple test (the results of whcih are now forbidden to consult) can prevent the possibility of causing abortions entirely. Deer Hunter Principle right down the line– I have a 100% foolproof way of making sure I don’t kill a hunter, not taking the shot if I have even a shadow of a doubt.
The war analogy does not hold. War involves killing people. Treating rape victims does not (or rather, should not) involve killing people.
Ignoring the evil law (for a minute), this whole issue hinges on the question of if Plan B can cause abortions. The fact of the matter is, the label still reads (paraphrasing): This pill might cause abortions.
And that’s what we’re talking about here. Killing little babies when we can easily avoid it.
Well, wait a minute, let’s consider that. Obviously fornication itself isn’t morally acceptable, contraceptive or otherwise. But is it clear that contraceptive fornication — or adultery — is a greater sin than non-contraceptive fornication? Does contraception necessarily compound the sin of extramarital sex? Or could it conceivably (so to speak) even mitigate it?
I know Aquinas would probably argue that contraceptive sex is always more unnatural, and he’s probably right. But by the same token, IIRC, Aquinas argued that masturbation was more unnatural than adultery. He might be right about that too, in some sense, but while both are gravely sinful, I don’t have any real doubt that adultery is the greater sin.
Let’s consider the case of a pair of adulterers who use a condom. Condoms, of course, interfere both with the procreative and the unitive aspects of the conjugal act. However, in the case of adultery, which is the graver sin: an act of greater and more total union with one’s neighbor’s wife, or an act of lesser union? A more complete and absolute violation of one’s nuptial obligations, or a less complete and absolute violation? An act of greater openness to violating a baby’s right to be born of conjugal love, or an act of mitigated or non-openness to life in this context?
It seems to me at least arguable that while contraception is clearly a great offense and sin within marriage, in the case of sex outside marriage contraception might not only not compound the evil, it might even mitigate that evil.
The same would seem to be true of adulterers who engage in unnatural sexual acts not ordered toward procreation: These acts are always gravely evil, in marriage as well as outside it, but outside of marriage they might well be less gravely evil than ordinary sexual relations ordered toward procreation.
Obviously, this is not an easy point to make clearly; the Church can hardly be in the position of saying “Don’t commit adultery, but if you do, use a condom.”
By the same token, it would be very hard for the Church to say something like “Don’t have same-sex relations, but if you do, use a condom” — yet in that case obviously a condom is neither contraceptive nor anti-unitive, since no conception and no true unity are possible anyway.
From this it seems to follow that using a condom in a same-sex context does not in the least aggravate or compound the sin — on the contrary, it may well mitigate the sin and make it less gravely evil, on the grounds that any increased level of protection against STDs mitigates the level of sin against charity.
So even though it would be hard for the Church to say it, it would seem that condom use does not add to the objective evil of same-sex acts and may even mitigate that evil.
For the reasons noted above, something in a similar direction (though obviously not the same) may be the case regarding extramarital heterosexual sex. Contraceptive marital sex is a great evil. Outside of marriage, I am not clear that contraceptive sex is worse than procreative sex, or even that it is not the other way around.
There are rare times when a man must ruthlessly plagarize from another source, this is one of those times. From the ever ever enlightening Diogenes (http://www.cwnews.com/offtherecord/offtherecord.cfm?task=singledisplay&recnum=4354):
Barr Pharmaceuticals, the American distributors of the “morning-after” pill, continues to insist that their product can prevent pregnancy when it is taken after intercourse. And remarkably enough, the company has no problem finding reporters who are willing to believe that the pill can suspend the laws of biology and of logic, preventing something that has already occurred.
For example, Fox News gives some space to critics of the pill, but provides this gem:
Some critics– including Roman Catholic leaders– consider the pill tantamount to abortion, although Barr says it has no effect on women who are already pregnant.
Really? So if a woman has already conceived, the pill will do nothing?
If that’s what Barr wants us to believe, then let’s have a new advertising campaign for the “Plan B” pill. Right on the package, put a banner that reads: “If you’re already pregnant, this pill will do nothing.” See what that does to the sales figures.
*END QUOTE*
If Barr were to add that banner to the Plan B box I’d have no problem with giving it out to all rape victims. Go ahead Barr, add it to the box. We’re waiting.
I think that SDG’s analysis is excellent. I would only add that I believe (this is belief based on recollection only) that the actual studies that have been performed on primates are highly indicative that Plan B, in fact, either does not prevent or only rarely prevents implantation, even though hypothetically it would seem to have that potential. Now, it is doubtful that these studies can be regarded as definitive, so it is quite reasonable to encourage further study.
As to Different’s post above, I agree in large part, but I do think that whether Plan B is an “acceptable risk” is dependent on (i) its efficacy as a contraceptive and (ii) the risk that it actually acts or would act as an abortifacient. I disagree with the proposition that as long as it can do both it is permissible provided right intention. The principle of double effect does require a comparative risk analysis of both gravity and probability. And I disagree with the proposition that any hypothetical risk of abortion, no mater how remote, renders Plan B morally permissible without regard to contraceptive efficacy and quality of intention.
SDG,
Again, First Things. Willful sex outside of marriage = intrinsically evil. Doesn’t (except in rare occasions) matter the conditions, you’ve crossed the threshold into intrinsic evil and mortal sin. A greater degree or lesser degree of complete and total seperation from God is moot. Sin #1
Quoting CCC 1035 in full, “1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.”617 The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. ”
Contraception, condoms, etc are sin #2. Though dependent upon the first sin, they are still seperate and distinct. Commiting a seperate and distinct sin does not somehow mitigate the original sin.
Condom use and contraception do not add to the evil of the original act because they are seperate and distinct acts. Contraceptive or uncontraceptive fornication is still fornication.
This is precisely what I am questioning in the case of non-conjugal (non-marital) acts. I agree that such acts are always intrinsically evil in themselves. That doesn’t answer the question whether adding a condom to such an act adds a new sin (and, again, HV specifically addresses conjugal or marital acts).
In the case of same-sex relations it seems quite clear to me that while the act itself is gravely immoral, throwing in a condom does not add sin upon sin. Of course the act in which the condom is being used remains gravely evil. This is precisely why it’s so hard to make this point clearly. But adding a condom does not add a new level of sin.
It certainly does not add a contraceptive effect, since no conception is possible. Nor is there any sinful obstacle to unity here — that is already intrinsic in the nature of the act. So by using a condom in a sinful act, same-sex partners do not thereby commit an additional sin, or compound the evil of their sin. Indeed, as I argued above, I would argue that since disregard for possible STD infection constitutes an additional sin, using a condom may well mitigate that sin.
In the case of adulterous partners engaged in normal congenital sex, clearly to add a condom is to add a contraceptive effect. My question is: Does this constitute an additional sin outside of marriage? I noted above that it may seem strange to say “Don’t commit adultery, but if you do, use a condom.” But would it be truer, or less true, to say, “Don’t commit adultery, but if you do, don’t use a condom”?
Is it better for adulterers to be more open or less open to life within the context of their adultery? I am not sure that it is not worse to be more open to life within the context of adultery. Remember, by divine law every child has a right to be conceived by an act of conjugal love. Uncharity toward the possible fruit of adultery is part of the great evil of adultery. Whatever else it does, contraception within adultery at least mitigates that evil.
Again, a condom also interferes with the unitive principle, but here too I am far from sure that outside of marriage this constitutes an additional sin above and beyond the sin of adultery. If anything, I think it potentially mitigates it.
Look at it this way: With regard to the unitive principle, a condom is such an evil within marriage is precisely that by separating the partners with a latex sheath, they are saying in effect, “I am completely united to you, but not really, because we are separated by this piece of latex.”
In the case of adulterous partners, is it worse to say “I am completely united to you but not really” with a piece of latex, or worse to take the latex away and say “I am completely united to you without reservation”? It seems to me that the very reason why a condom is such an evil within marriage is precisely why it may not be outside of marriage.
You guys aer convrsing fast here! I just want to reapond to SDG from a few comments ago. An ovulation test is easy and a doctor could do it routinely. The notion that administering plan b without the test isn’t intrinsically evil is a smokescreen. Not performing the test is moral if not medical negligence–merely closing one’s eyes to whether the drug will kill an embryo. And saying it isn’t intrinsically evil is insufficient–things can still be evil without being intrinsically evil. Giving plan b when an ovulation test is positive, or in willful blindness to that fact, is evil in that circumstance regerdless of whether it is intrinsically evil.
JIMMY: “I’m not defending these views. I’m just pointing out that they are not expressly precluded by the language used in Humanae Vitae or, to my knowledge, by subsequent Magisterial documents”.
All Catholic teaching, always defends the dignity of life in any stage. Hairsplitting about whether or not a sexual act occurred within marriage misses the point entirely: it doesn’t matter how you were conceived or by whom; it isn’t your biological parentage that gives your life value; once conceived you are a child of God and your life, in that sense, is sacred.
An attitude that a life conceived in violence is less worthy than a life conceived in a loving marriage is a very serious misunderstanding of the fundamentals of constant Catholic teaching.
Marianne: You didn’t read the post carefully enough, to begin with. Nothing Jimmy wrote in any way suggests that a life conceived in violence is less sacred or less worth living.
That doesn’t mean we can’t attempt to prevent such a conception from taking place. Otherwise, as I noted above, a woman being raped could not break away from her attacker without committing coitus interruptus.
Having said that, I would hardly call use the word “hairsplitting” to describe the difference between “whether or not a sexual act occurred within marriage,” let alone the difference between marital union and rape!
What SDG said.
We should stay on track here, the debate is about a rape victim, so discussing the morality of contraception in voluntary non-marital relations is not relevent, is it? A good topic for another thread perhaps.
God Bless,
Matt
Matt,
What you say about the ovulation test only holds if: 1. We know that the ovulation test indicates that ovulation HAS happened. If it means it COULD happen or MIGHT happen soon, that changes the picture quite a bit. And 2. If we know that Plan B will only work as an abortifacient once ovulation has occurred. What if Plan B still has a good shot at preventing fertilization even if we think that ovulation has just happened?
On another note, it seems that many here are taking the position that once a pregnancy is known to exist or is at least possible, all efforts must be made not to cause a miscarriage. Yet, we know from other bio-medical situations that this is not always true. In the case of a woman with cancer, she may take a medication even if she knows she is pregnant and even if she knows it will cause a miscarriage. There is no law that a newly formed child can never ever be harmed as a consequence of seeking to remedy a physical evil.
Again, does anyone know if Plan B can prevent fertilization even if ovulation has occurred.
Oops, my post above mentions Matt as in Matt Bowman not the Matt who just posted…unless they are the same…sorry about that.
First of all it is safe to assume that there is a very high likelihood Plan B can prevent implantation, because we know that it is nothing more than a high dose birth control pill, we know that they cause changes in the lining of the uterus that make it inhospitible to the tiny human we’re discussing.
It seems to me that given that, even if we don’t intend to cause this effect, and we are not able to determine if ovulation has occurred due to a pernicious law, the case of proportionality needs to be considered. What is the proportionality between a possibility of preventing an unjust conception, versus the possibility of killing an unborn child? It seems to me that the evil act has occurred, and the damage already done. Testimony of the mothers and children of rape is that the conception was not a lasting or certain harm. Under these circumstances how can we take a chance on killing an unborn child?
Those who cite studies which don’t show the likelihood of abortion with these drugs ought to carefully consider the source of these studies. We are dealing with a very anti-life environment among the researchers, their results are very suspect.
I will re-raise the point that cooperating with a state that has such a pernicious intention is putting us in a place we ought not be. Consider the cooperation with Amnesty International? Why don’t we still deal with them on non-abortion issues?
God Bless,
Matt
God Bless,
Matt
SDG: “Otherwise, as I noted above, a woman being raped could not break away from her attacker without committing coitus interruptus.”
That’s ridiculous.
The “hairsplitting” refers to tortured attempts to distinguish between circumstances of conception, as though such a distinction has any bearing whatever on the need to protect the one who has been conceived.
This is what JIMMY wrote above:
“The issue of non-marital contraception is a theological hot potato that the Holy See will eventually have to sort out, because this issue is not going to go away, as the situation of the Connecticut state law illustrates.
But if–and note the “if”–the Church ended up endorsing the view that contraception is impermissible within marriage but potentially permissible outside it then it would allow for a variety of situations, such as:
Nuns in dangerous situations where they may be raped could use at least some forms of contraception
Women who have been raped could be given at least some forms of contraception
I’m not defending these views. I’m just pointing out that they are not expressly precluded by the language used in Humanae Vitae or, to my knowledge, by subsequent Magisterial documents.”
That’s what he wrote and it is what I was addressing. It is ridiculous to suggest that there will ever be a time when the Church deems contraception “permissable” outside marriage. Ridiculous.
Ditto to staying on topic, and ditto to what SDG said re: Marianne.
Different,
I think we’ve finally arrived at our exact points of disagreement.
I don’t think the inaccuracy of an ovulation test really makes that much of a difference, since it creates a very narrow band of time when Plan B can’t be used, apx 72-96 hours out of every 28 days (if my counting is correct). 85-90% of the days of a standard cycle are Plan B safe, 10-15% are not. Since the 10-15% are easily determined, don’t take the risk of causing an abortion.
You asked, “What if Plan B still has a good shot at preventing fertilization even if we think that ovulation has just happened?” So you’re citing double effect. The good of preventing fertilization outweighs the evil of possibly killing an unborn child? I don’t see how that is possible–because at this stage, the intended effect is no longer preventing ovulation. Plan B can not prevent fertilization once an egg has been released, it can only prevent a human life from continuing.
Remember, the purpose of taking Plan B is to PREVENT OVULATION. When ovulation can no longer be prevented, one crosses the threshold into seeking the ‘unintended’ evil out, making it an intended evil.
Ergo, when the possibility exists that an egg has been released, it would be illicit to prescribe Plan B.
You also wrote, “On another note, it seems that many here are taking the position that once a pregnancy is known to exist or is at least possible, all efforts must be made not to cause a miscarriage. ”
That is not what I (or others, in my opinion) are saying. There must be a sufficient reason to undergo a treatment that will result in the death of the newly conceived child. For example, preserving the life of the mother (in a cancer situation) is sufficient. Tubal pregnancies are another example.
Once ovulation has taken place, ovulation can no longer be prevented. Therefore, once crosses the threshold from desiring to prevent ovulation into seeking out the ‘unintended’ evil, making it an intended evil.
You asked, “Again, does anyone know if Plan B can prevent fertilization even if ovulation has occurred.”
Please consult my above post, quoting CWN’s Diogenes. The product label states that it may cause abortions. The burden of proof rests on those who advocate using Plan B in these contested situations, to prove that it won’t be causing abortions. Until it is otherwise proven, we must assume that abortions will be caused. The box of the product itself states the possibility.
The [three, fairly young, up-to-now orthodox?] bishops of Connecticut must have failed to consult the fiercely held conclusions of “Pharmacists for Life International,” who have NO DOUBT that Plan B acts mainly as an abortifacient (anti-implantation) agent.
For FAQ, see:
http://www.pfli.org/main.php?pfli=planbfaq
For details on Plan B and other hormonal anti-baby efforts, see:
http://www.pfli.org/main.php?pfli=kemikalkill
My point exactly. That’s why it’s called a reductio ad absurdum.
No one here is questioning or disputing the need to protect anyone who has been conceived regardless any circumstances. That you keep bringing this up suggests that you are not following the argument closely enough.
The question has to do with preventing conception from occurring in the first place. The language in your posts does not seem to deal with the fact that these are two different issues.
Your saying so doesn’t make it so. What we know from HV and the Catechism is that contraception is gravely contrary to the integrity of the conjugal act. Non-conjugal acts have no such integrity, and it is not clear that contraception in these cases constitutes an additional sin. In the case of rape victims, it is not clear that they sin at all by contraceptive efforts.
I agree it’s a tangent here. I think it’s helpful to consider, though, in that emphasizing the specifically conjugal dimension in the Church’s condemnation of contraception may be helpful in responding to those who see it like Marianne above.
Marianne,
You wrote, “That’s what he wrote and it is what I was addressing. It is ridiculous to suggest that there will ever be a time when the Church deems contraception “permissable” outside marriage. Ridiculous.”
That’s not true at all. Nor are we hair-splitting, rather, we’re axe-cleaving. These are BIG BIG differences.
Everyone agrees that once conception takes place, life is sacrosanct. However, if there are ways that can prevent conception from taking place, without risking an abortion, there would probably be some legitimate uses. FOR EXAMPLE: Nuns in war zones who risk rape. Victims of rape.
You also wrote, “The “hairsplitting” refers to tortured attempts to distinguish between circumstances of conception, as though such a distinction has any bearing whatever on the need to protect the one who has been conceived.”
We are talking about pre-conception here. With all Christian charity, may I suggest that you are reading the posts and getting “conception” and “contraception” mixed up, since the words look so similar?
LCB: Thanks for the “Christian charity”. However, SDG and JIMMY were speaking of “contraception” in the remarks I addressed.
SDG wrote: “What we know from HV and the Catechism is that contraception is gravely contrary to the integrity of the conjugal act. Non-conjugal acts have no such integrity, and it is not clear that contraception in these cases adds sin upon sin. In the case of rape victims, it is not clear that they sin at all by contraceptive efforts.”
“Conjugal”/”Non-jugal” as regards “contraception”.
marianne: You’re going to have to help me parse your final sentence fragment. I have no idea how to read that.
Marianne,
Yes they were speaking of contraception– which, by definition, means before conception has taken place. I quote you again, “The “hairsplitting” refers to tortured attempts to distinguish between circumstances of conception, as though such a distinction has any bearing whatever on the need to protect the one who has been conceived.”
You are talking about post-conception situations, we are talking about pre-conception and preventing conception when that same conception would be a continuation of the rapist’s attack. Once conception takes place, however, all bets are off. Life is life, and it is sacrosanct.
“Pulling out”, AKA coitus interruptus, is a form of contraception. If no contraception is permitted in lieu of rape, then you are forced to admit that a woman could not fight the attacker off to make him ‘pull out.’ It follows, then, that contraception must be permitted in incidents of rape… as long as they don’t result in an abortion.
LCB: Hi, pardon me for going too quickly at first. I was in a hurry this morning and wanted to post and get it over with.
I’m not sure I get your reasoning when you say:
Maybe you can clarify, because surely you don’t mean that every single month, non-entities have “rights”(?) to anything, let alone to be conceived, and that this trumps ALL, whether or not they’d be conceived in wedlock, and regardless of circumstance. Do you realize the implications of saying that non-existent people have rights to anything, let alone to be conceived? Any time any fertile person were to elect not to engage in sex during a fertile time, regardless of marital status, they’d be denying a non-entity a right to be conceived, and like you said, this “right” is paramount so as to make marital status moot. If marital status is moot, then so is all else, and unmarried couples, doctors and petri dishes, and rapists ought to start getting busy! It’s for the non-entities’ rights to be conceived, after all. To follow through on what you’re saying, then the severity of those sins might even be mitigated, because the sins provided existence to non-entities that had a right to be conceived.
A big problem is, the Church doesn’t say that non-entities have rights to anything, let alone to be conceived. That’s because it’s logically nonsensical for non-entities to have rights. Good intention, but you’re framing this all wrong. This is the kind of stuff that makes people laugh at Catholics and make inferences about our teaching which just aren’t true. What the Church does teach in the way of this, is openness to children in the context of marriage, and that any children that are conceived, have the right to have been conceived within wedlock. Clearly we can then infer that conceiving them outside of wedlock is an illicit thing to do, even though at the same time, we cannot call conception a bad thing in itself. Once it happens, once it is a reality, it’s a good thing. But like all good things, in the wrong context, they can be brought about through preventable, illicit means. We can never condone illicit means. Would you really follow through on your premise, and say that a serial rapist’s intention to impregnate as many women as possible, mitigates the severity of his crimes? Because non-entities had rights to be conceived, and he made it happen? No, no no. NO.
In the case of fornication, we can’t condone the use of contraception because it corroborates and fosters a culture of death mentality. But we also cannot condone conceiving out of wedlock either. Either option is condemnable.
I’m not trying to be a smartypants, I’m just having trouble in my search for better wording and making myself clear in this instance.
Karen,
I caught the mistake after I made the post, I got fast and loose with terms before my morning coffee. Read the post that followed for clarification.
I wasn’t trying to say that non-entities have rights. That would be absurd. I was trying to point out that I felt you focused on the wrong starting point, and thus had the wrong conclusion.
I am a pharmacist who has what is known as a ‘conscience clause’ in place and by that I mean that I do not have to dispense any abortifacients including the ‘morning after pill’ or Plan B nor do I dispense birth control pills. At one point in time, I took 8 years away from my profession as a retail pharmacist because I could not, in good conscience, be a part of the possibility of an abortion.
To have bishops now say that the ‘morning after pill’ is okay to use in hospitals for ’emergencies’ jeopardizes my position as a retail pharmacist with a conscience clause. It can be shown that our bishops are not against this emergency contraceptive, so permission for me to refuse to dispense these drugs can be revoked. And I work in a college town and I can tell you that there are many ’emergencies’ every weekend. And if is okay in one instance, then why not another? And another?
When our bishops do not stand up for what the Church teaches, it leaves us without a good handle to hold on to and makes a mockery of the true teachings.
The Pontifical Academy of Life in October 2000 condemned the use of the morning after pill writing, among other things, that:
3. It is clear, therefore, that the proven “anti-implantation” action of the morning-after pill is really nothing other than a chemically induced abortion. It is neither intellectually consistent nor scientifically justifiable to say that we are not dealing with the same thing.
Moreover, it seems sufficiently clear that those who ask for or offer this pill are seeking the direct termination of a possible pregnancy already in progress, just as in the case of abortion. Pregnancy, in fact, begins with fertilization and not with the implantation of the blastocyst in the uterine wall, which is what is being implicitly suggested.
4. Consequently, from the ethical standpoint the same absolute unlawfulness of abortifacient procedures also applies to distributing, prescribing and taking the morning-after pill. All who, whether sharing the intention or not, directly co-operate with this procedure are also morally responsible for it.
I am once again deeply disappointed and ashamed of the actions of some bishops. And I know that in my state and in others, this activity is going on in ‘catholic’ hospitals. There is the continued ‘wink and nod’ at the teachings of the Church, and then some just do what they want. Lord, have mercy on us! Lord, grant us holy and true shepherds!
I apologize for having missed it! I’ve just read it now, so don’t think you weren’t heard. I’d want some time to mull that over, though–I’m more strapped for time than I’d like to be, at this moment.
I hope you know that I’m clear on the distinctions made when a measure taken is actually abortifacient. And in the other thread, my post was not addressed to you, by the way 🙂
What SDG said, again.
marianne is confusing intensity of opinion with correctness of opinion.
Different: I accept your two prerequisites and claim they are both true with one modification to #1: an ovulation test can tell us whether the LH surge has occurred *or* is occurring such that plan b’s anti-ovulatory mechanism is too late (plan b ‘s anti-ovulatory mechanism is not on “ovulation” directly, as I mentioned to Karen, but in suppressing the LH surge, which is the same thing an “ovulation test” measures. Thus your #2 kicks in: how else could plan b work at that time? There are only two ways left of the three that anyone on either side ever discusses: slowing down the sperm migration and preventing implantation. Dr. Diamond commented in Ethics and Medics several years ago that at the precise time we’re discussing sperm migrate up to where the ovum comes out in about 90 seconds. I haven’t seen anyone argue that there’s a reasonable chance that plan b, if it “works,” will work by stopping sperm at this point. In fact the other side just argues that plan b isn’t very effective at all close to or past the LH surge–it’s one of their arguments to try to show that implantation is probably not prevented. But they do not rule out the possibility–meanwhile they make us wonder what is the medical purpose of taking it at all at this stage (unless they know it does “work” sometimes, and don’t care that the sometimes is implantation-preventing).
P.S. I am not the other Matt. He’s free to use that first name though. 🙂
Magdalen raises another incredibly salient point here, which furthers my premise, that even if we could find a potential moral loophole, the overall harm is great. In fact, I think that the question of rape and/or ovulation should be thrown out for fear that a court would not make such a fine distinction and force Catholics to distribute it under any conditions, never mind rape. We either stand by our principles or we don’t.
God Bless,
Matt
“I’m trying to explain the apparent reasoning of the Connecticut bishops.”
Why in Gods name would you want to do that?
Why in Gods name would you want to do that?
Perhaps because he doesn’t agree with the apparent dictum of the St. Blogs Combox Lay Inquisition that the words “bishop” and “witch” are interchangeable.
SDG wrote: “marianne: You’re going to have to help me parse your final sentence fragment. I have no idea how to read that” (referring to
“Conjugal”/”Non-[con]jugal” as regards “contraception”).
You are making a distinction between conjugal & nonconjugal acts as regards the licetness of contraception, aren’t you?
If, as you say, SDG, “contraception is gravely contrary to the integrity of the conjugal act. Non-conjugal acts have no such integrity, and it is not clear that contraception in these cases adds sin upon sin”,
then, contraception in connection with a “non-conjugal” act may be licit, or, at least, not sinful. That is what you wrote, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t it be licit or not sinful in all “non-conjugal” acts since, as you say, such acts have no “integrity”?
I wasn’t asking you what I wrote, Marianne, I was asking what you wrote. I don’t understand the syntax relating the words, if any — what “‘Conjugal’/’Non-[con]jugal’ as regards ‘contraception'” means.
I am.
As I have repeatedly had occasion to note, the point I am trying to make is very easily misstated or misunderstood. I would rather not say baldly that “contraception in connection with a ‘non-conjugal’ act may be not sinful” because it is hard to pick out one aspect of a sinful act and say “This is not sinful.”
I would rather say it the way I have been saying it: In the case of a non-conjugal act contraception may not compound, or aggravate, or add to the sin, may not constitute an additional or new sin. This would be consistent with the conclusion that in the case of rape, where there is no sin on the part of the victim, contraceptive efforts (as distinct from abortifacient efforts) would not be sinful at all.
If I may state the bloody obvious. The Vatican will have to weight in on this development. Until that happens all we can do is give our own non-authoritative opinions.
Could one argue that, since the victim is naturally entitled to make the act a coitus interruptus (by using force) in order to make conception less likely (an attempt which would be immoral in voluntary marital relations in the view of the Catholic Church), she is also entitled to non-abortifacient contraception in that situation, even if administered after the act?
Yes, Phil, I think so; and I think that argument is difficult to refute. That is not to say that it will convince those Catho-fundies who refuse to distinguish contraception, and why it is usually wrong, from abortion, and why it is always wrong. In fact, some of these folks are more likely to re-examine their assumption that an effort at coitus interruptus would be permissible in the context you provide. There are some people who just can’t handle qualifiers or anything other than simple absolutes. Of course, moral theology is not that simple, but that very fact scares some folks.
That said, thankfully most of the commentators on this blog appreciate and agree with the point you are making. The difficulty lies in our imperfect knowledge as to whether Plan B acts as an abortifacient. The most recent science seems to say that while it can hypothetically, it rarely if ever does actually. But this science is still developing and we will presumably know more in 5 or 10 years. Those who are uncomfortable with Plan B cite the drug’s label and a 7 year old statement from the Pontifical Academy of Life. The CT bishops presumably relied on the most recent science.
Finally, with the acknowledment that Plan B probably does operate as an abortifacient in at least some cases, there are those who would say that this answers the question — any risk of abortion, no matter how remote, is impermissible. And there are those who would say that as long as Plan B operates also as a contraceptive then its use should be permissible under the principle of double effect, assuming proper intent. The right view, I think, is in the middle. The principle of double effect is applicable here, but its proper application requires a careful and good faith assessment of the risk of abortion. I slight or remote risk of an unintended consequence is different, for example, from a likely consequence, even if not intended.
Double effect only applies if the good end that is intended is as important as the evil consequence that is accepted.
True, but you do have to take into account the comparative probability of the good effect versus the evil effect.
To give an extreme example, if I drive to Mass every Sunday rather than walk, I gain the good effect of getting to Mass faster, but I also incur a possibility, however slight, that I might get into an accident and injure someone, or even one of my own family, in a way far outweighing the good of getting to Mass faster. Accidents are one of the possible evil side effects of driving, but we accept that possibility because it is comparatively remote in relation to the reliable good effects.
Bad example.
If you walked to Mass, you would also risk injury — and it would probably be proportionately worse, as you and your family would not be surrounded by metal that would protect you.
That is not to say that it will convince those Catho-fundies who refuse to distinguish contraception, and why it is usually wrong, from abortion, and why it is always wrong.
I have to admit that statements like this make me less likely to consider nuances. Exactly how is it that contraception is only usually wrong? Has there been a definitive statement from the Magesterium regarding the licitness of birth control outside of marriage that we all missed?
Michael,
No, but it seems reasonably clear that there is nothing wrong with using emergency (non-abortifacient) contraception in cases of rape (hence “usually” instead of “always”). Or do you have a problem with that? And if so, do you have a problem with post-rape douching too? Do you think perhaps you were taking inferential liberties with what I actually wrote?
As a family practice physician who has been trained as a medical consultant for the Creighton Model NFP, I am appalled at the CT Bishop’s statement. It says that Catholic hospitals will be allowed to give the MAP to rape victims and all they have to do is have a negative pregnancy test. It claims that giving the morning after pill (MAP) would not be considered an abortion. This is misleading, because the MAP can act as an abortifacient.
What is the MAP? It is the same hormones as are in the oral contraceptive (OCP), only a much, much larger dose.
How does it work? There are 3 ways. 1)Prevent the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation); 2)Slow down transport of the sperm or egg (or the fertilized egg, also called a baby); and 3)Change the lining of the uterus to prevent the implantation of the fertilized egg (also called the blastocyst, also known as a baby). Preventing the implantation of the blastocyst (baby) is an abortion! There is no getting around this.
One problem is that the manufacturers and other interested parties (oh, I don’t know, lets see, maybe… Planned Parenthood? Just a wild guess) are trying to change the definition of conception to mean implanting in the uterus, that way they can say that the MAP only prevents conception. Conception is when the sperm and egg unite in the fallopian tube and a new human being is now present. Therefore the MAP can and does act as abortifacient.
That said there is no reliable means to discern whether or not a woman is pregnant when she asks for the MAP. For example a woman could be 4 days pregnant when she is raped and an ovulation test and a pregnancy test would both be negative and if given the MAP an early abortion could ensue. Alternatively, a woman could have ovulated 12 hours prior to the rape and the egg is making its way toward the uterus and by the time the woman comes to the hospital she could already be pregnant (it has been shown that sperm can make it to the fallopian tubes within 5 minutes) and there would be no way to know this. If you could know with 100% certainty that a woman was not pregnant, then there would be no problem with administering the MAP.
Rape is a terrible thing, but it doesn’t justify the potential killing of a human life.
I would be surprised if it were at all controversial that the risk of serious injury while driving is greater than while walking. Anyway, even if I am struck by another car on my way to Mass, at least I am not myself the agent of the injury, as I might if I were behind the wheel. So how can I morally get behind the wheel and potentially become the cause of serious injury or death?
What do you think of my other example, that driving 65mph is more hazardous than driving 55mph, etc.? If a 55mph law is safer than a 65mph law, does that make a 65mph law immoral? If so, why not save even more lives with a 45mph law?
Isn’t it the case that at some point a particular speed is judged safe enough — meaning that even though we know that at this speed more people will die than at lower speeds, the likelihood of any particular trip at this speed ending badly is sufficiently low, and the regular and reliable good of increased travel times for every trip sufficiently worthwhile, that we are willing to allow people to drive this fast, and accept the unwilled but foreseen effect of marginally increased mortality?
Michael,
Please follow this line of thinking:
I. Coitus interruptus is a form of contraception
II. It is acceptable (even laudable) for a rape victim to attemp coitus interruptus (that is to say,l to stop the rape).
III. Therefore, there are circumstances when contraception is acceptable.
From there, it doesn’t take a great logical leap to arrive at other forms of contraception being acceptable, as long as they don’t cause abortions.
Another way for Michael to distinguish it is that rape is an act of violence, rather than a sexual act, properly speaking.
The risks associated with Plan B® (Levonorgestrel) are very real.
Contrary to the statement of the Connecticut Catholic Bishops that there is “serious doubt” about how Plan B® (Levonorgestrel) works, the prescribing information is very clear.
The product is a synthetic progestogen (female hormone) which slows tubal transport of sperm to the ova. The product works by preventing sperm from getting to the ova.
However, if sperm have already reached the ova, slowing tubal transport also may have the effect of causing an ectopic pregnancy. Up to 10% of pregnancies in women taking this product are expected to be ectopic. This means that this product increases, by 500%, the risk of ectopic pregnancy.
Additionally, if sperm have already reached the ova and the fertilized ovum has already made it through the tubes, the product also alters the endometrium and may inhibit implantation. Once the process of implantation has begun, the product has no effect.
I suspect that the State of Connecticut threatened to stop Medicaid or CHIP funding to any hospital that did not use emergency contraception in their sexual assault protocols.
If you walked to Mass, you would also risk injury — and it would probably be proportionately worse, as you and your family would not be surrounded by metal that would protect you.
I would be surprised if it were at all controversial that the risk of serious injury while driving is greater than while walking.
Got any evidence for that assertion? Given that people drive a lot more than they walk, relative numbers of accidents is not evidence.
Anyway, even if I am struck by another car on my way to Mass, at least I am not myself the agent of the injury, as I might if I were behind the wheel.
There is nothing about getting behind the wheel that necessarily makes you the agent of the injury, and nothing about walking that prevents it. It doesn’t matter which you are doing if a car runs a red light and hits you. And if you run the red light yourself — well, you could also cross an intersection without looking both ways.
Janet,
I have a question for you. From what I have heard MAP cannot change the uterine lining because there is not enough time to do so, unlike non-stop birth control pills. This really is the only way that Plan B can be abortive, right? Or is there another mechanism Plan B uses to abort a new human?
Jimmy, You’ve been awarded…
http://catholicwarrior.blogspot.com/2007/09/mathetes-award-esther-of-catholic-mom.html
God Bless!
The only form of contraception that the Catholic Church has stated is licit is natural family planning. Periiod. If someone can show me differently please do.
LCB, you are not the Magisterium and your reasoning is your own. Do not condescend.
Contraception is “any action which, either in anticipation of the conjugal act [sexual intercourse], or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible” (Humanae Vitae 14). This includes sterilization, condoms and other barrier methods, spermicides, coitus interruptus (withdrawal method), the Pill, and all other such methods.
http://www.catholic.com/library/Birth_Control.asp
Michael,
You are assuming “conjugal act” to mean “sexual intercourse in all cases.” The Pope did not say “sexual intercourse in all cases”; he said instead “conjugal act.” Their equivalence happens to be your reasoning, and you would need to show that the Pope really did mean the one when he in fact said the other.
Two rather good arguments interpreting this phrase have been made: one using the etymology of the term “conjugal”, the other showing the ludicrous result if the phrase were to be expanded beyond the context of consensual sex. In order for your argument to be convincing, you would need to address and refute both.
Paul,
I follow the reasoning Jimmy put forward. I think it is important to point out though that even though the main emphasis of HV was to address the issue the use of Birth Control within the sacrament of marriage one cannot simply assume by that ephasis that the Catholic Church was implicitly teaching that birth control is licit outside of the marriage bed. It simply does not follow that by not specifically condemning something that approval is given. Someone correct me if I am wrong but it has been the consistent understanding and teaching of the Catholic Church that artificial birth control is always is illicit. That is why this decision by the Bishops is so stunning.
It is also worth pointing out that when the Anglican Communion allowed some recourse to artificial birth control at its Lambeth Conference in 1930, specific exceptions quickly snowballed into a universal acceptance. I suspect that Rome is wary about even starting down that path considering the history of it.
Michael,
The reasons that the use of artifical contraception is normally wrong are set out in HV. While those reasons may have imperfect or limited application in non-conjugal sexual relations, they still have application. This stands in contradistinction to rape, where they have no application, unless you see rape as in ANY way unitive in design and purpose. So if artificial contraception is wrong in the case of rape, then we are waiting for an explanation. HV did not address it, and you are wrong to suggest it does. Words are only so elastic; and the use of the term conjugal to describe rape is taking unfair liberties with that word.
This is getting really disturbing. Does so many here think they can apply their own reason and decide what Catholic morality actually is? I want to reprint what Mr. Akin wrote in his original post.
THE BIG RED DISCLAIMER: What I am about to write is not indicative of my own view. I’m trying to explain the apparent reasoning of the Connecticut bishops. I’m not saying that they are correct or incorrect. Rome could rule either way on this, and it may well get involved. What I’m trying to do is explain a position, not defend it.
Please try to understand that what is posted in the combox of Jimmy Akin’s blog is not definitive Church teaching. What this thread is is a discussion of some speculation about the reasoning behind a decision some Bishops made. It is nothing more than that. I cannot believe that we have jumped from that beginning to people here claiming without equivocation that HV only applies to artificial contraception within the sacrament of marriage. Excuse me as I mistook this for a Catholic and not a Protestant blog.
Michael,
Who exactly is “claiming without equivocation that HV only applies to artificial contraception within the sacrament of marriage”? I never remotely even suggested such a thing, and if you are suggesting that I have then you are wrong. What I have said is that the reasoning undergirding HV does not apply to rape, unless one sees the act of rape as fitting within the concept of unitive; and that HV does not speak to rape since it speaks to marital relations (a term which I think fairly assumes consent). I agree with you that it is doubtful that consensual sexual relations outside marriage are exempt from the moral prohibitions against artificial contraception, even if I suppose the question *might* possibly be regarded as open for the time being. But my agreement on this score is grounded in an application of the reasoning of HV, which would seem largely to obtain, abeit perhaps imperfectly, to consensual sexual relations outside marriage. Such reasoning, however, would seem to not apply at all in cases of rape, in which case neither the holding nor the rationale of HV would place a moral impairment on the use of an artifical contraceptive (that is not an abortifacient) as an act of defense in the case of rape. Until Rome says otherwise, we must each reach our own conclusions, with the guidance of our bishops, including those in Connecticut.
Straw men assertions are the stuff of dishonesty, you know.
Michael wrote,
“It simply does not follow that by not specifically condemning something that approval is given.”
And
“Someone correct me if I am wrong but it has been the consistent understanding and teaching of the Catholic Church that artificial birth control is always is illicit”
Michael,
I will, with all possible Christian charity, correct you because you are wrong. It is not the consistant understanding and teaching of the Church that all forms of artificial birth control are always illicit.
Consider Directive 36 from the USCCB Document on Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care services, “A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”
Remember, we’re talking about in circumstances of rape here. Rape is not a conjugal act, and we’re talking about trying to prevent a pregnancy. CCC 2356 is clear, “[Rape] is always an intrinsic evil.” Thus the use of the contraceptive (the taking of which is not always evil, since an object itself is not intrinsicly evil) is to prevent the continuation of the assault by forced pregnancy.
Michael,
I’d also like to suggest that you reread each post on this thread. Some of them are very complicated, and might need to be read more than once. I know I had to (as I suspect SDG and others did as well), and still we sometimes misunderstand each other.
We’re dealing with some tough moral theology here, and some tough science.
I mean this in all possible Christian charity, Michael, but I don’t think you’ve fully understood what’s been said in the combox. In addition, I don’t think you totally understand what and why the Church teaches about contraception.
As for your line telling me not to condescend– I have tried not to be condescending. If I have been, please forgive me. However, your erroneous authoritive pronouncments seem to carry an condescending tone.
Laying out my syllogism was only an attempt to help you and others better understand the issue and the thinking. That being said, if you think that I am wrong, and that the US Bishops are wrong, please refute the syllogism– since faith and reason can never be opposed to each other, my reasoning must be in error.
LCB,
I strive for your clarity and aspire to your charity.
Cheers,
I only read about 1/3 of the postings on this subject, and I apologize if this point has already been made, but I couldn’t read any more about “lesser evil”. I don’t want to state the obvious, but I think it needs stating…We are talking about an innocent life that is not responsible for the fact that his father is a wretched creep. Rapists come in all shapes and forms. Sometimes those whom we admire and elevate in society are scumbags who view women as objects for their pleasure or creatures to be subjugated and abused. The gene pool is as varied as all of the rest of society. A woman who is raped (and I am a woman) is put in a singular position (I ache for her). She must live with the evil consequences of the sin of another. As we saw with the crucifixion followed by the resurrection, God can take the most heinous of circumstances and bring about the most magnificent results. This appears to me as another case of us humans playing God and interfering with the Divine Plan. The rape victim needs spiritual counseling. She needs the tender care of all of us. Her child needs to know that the circumstances of his/her conception do not define him/her. This is a human being we are cavalierly discussing as if he/she were a tumor or parasite. I have heard countless stories of women who have borne the child conceived in rape. They say that the child helped them heal. The child was a source of joy. If they hadn’t had the child, they would have searched all thier lives for the answer to the question, “Why me?” If we are truly pro-life, we look upon this soul as a unique, never-before, never-again individual who has a place in the plan of God. Why do we insist on getting in His way?
Several folks have mentioned the principle of double-effect in regard to Plan B, but only in terms of the proportion of good sought vs. proportion/likelyhood of evil possible.
From my instruction, the argument for proportion only comes into play after determining if the action taken is 1) good in itself, 2) only the good is intended, 3) the good effect must precede the evil effect (i.e., the good cannot be a result of the unintended evil.
If Plan B works as an abortifacient, then the good of “non-child” is indeed sometimes a direct result of the unintended evil. The action taken, Plan B, is not a good action and so it’s a matter of doing/tolerating evil that good may result. That would not seem to be covered by double-effect no matter how low that probability was. So it really does all boil down to: does Plan B work as an abortificient. If it does, it’s not licit. If it doesn’t, then the purely contraceptive answers apply.
On another note, I’m not sure the “coitus interruptus” argument applies. A rape victim trying to stop the rape is not practicing “coitus interruptus” in the contraceptive sense in that she’s not trying to have intercourse (reach climax) without the transfer of semen. (Sorry about the specifics, but I’m not sure how else to be precise on this.) She’s trying to avoid coitus/intercourse culmination altogether.
I’m new at this so please forgive if any of this is unclear/incorrect.
Susanne, the discussion’s not about a child already conceived – no one is arguing against carrying the child to term.
As suggested above, you may want to re-read the posts. Some of them are detailed, technical and not a quick read. In other words, they said it better than I could.
addendum to above post: I’m not saying that I agree with any or all of the above, but there are some thought provoking comments made.
Since when did Jimmy Akin become a Latin scholar?
LCB “That one thing is to INTENTIONALLY seek out the evil of causing a miscariage during certain circumstances. Double effect doesn’t apply when the good caused and the bad caused are the same thing.”
I missed this post when I wrote my response. It is correct though I would reword it as the “…when the desired good result is a direct effect of a bad action.”
The use of plan B is a bad action because, unlike a cancer drug, Plan B may well get part of its effectiveness at preventing “pregnancy” by killing an existing pre-implanted child. The cancer drug’s anti-cancer effectiveness is in no way based on the possible killing of a child; it’s an unrelated, unintended second effect. Plan B’s goal is that there be no successful implanted child; it is said to achieve this by several means, one of which is abortifacient. The killing of the child adds to its effectiveness in reaching its goal. Thus, Fr. Serpa’s comment is not applicable.
Mary Kay,
the discussion’s not about a child already conceived – no one is arguing against carrying the child to term.
There are two discussions on this thread, one about the permissibility of contraception in case of rape, and one about the use of a potential abortifacient in the case of rape. The latter is expressly addressing the issue that Susanne raised.
On another note. If there is no physical evidence of rape, how is the Dr. to determine that he is in fact administering the drug licitly? Of course he can not, therefore, we add another layer of possible immoral act that the Conneticut bishops are permitting to occur in their hospital.
Matt,
Good catch on the evidence of rape issue. I’d have to mull over that, but my gut instinct says the following:
Without sufficient reason to suspect deceit, the law of charity requires us to presume the ‘victim’ is being honest, and is really a victim (with no ” around the word).
On another note. If there is no physical evidence of rape, how is the Dr. to determine that he is in fact administering the drug licitly? Of course he can not, therefore, we add another layer of possible immoral act that the Conneticut bishops are permitting to occur in their hospital.
1) What LCB said.
2) If a woman hasn’t really been raped, why on Earth would she go to the hospital and get the full (highly invasive) rape kit treatment? Why wouldn’t she just go to the local CVS and buy Plan B there? It makes zero sense. She’d have to a) be planning on framing a man or b) be mentally disturbed. A Dr. cannot be faulted for not assuming criminality and/or insanity in his or her patient.
“Since when did Jimmy Akin become a Latin scholar?”
About the time he became a Canon lawyer.
CT law does not require evidence beyond the allegation. And legally, the sexual assault could even be by the woman’s own husband. It could also involve, for example, a teenage girl who invited and consented to the sexual act to the full extent of her abilities, but the act is statutorily considered sexual assault because of her age.
The law requires that the female person be provided with information about emergency contraception and be told that it is available, but it must only be provided to her upon her request, but not if an FDA-approved test has determined she is pregnant.
If a woman hasn’t really been raped, why on Earth would she go to the hospital and get the full (highly invasive) rape kit treatment? Why wouldn’t she just go to the local CVS and buy Plan B there?
Maybe she doesn’t have the $45 CVS price tag? Maybe, if she’s a minor, her parents are involved? Maybe she wants to make trouble for some lacrosse players? Maybe she has mental issues? Could be many reasons.
LCB,
good catch on the evidence of rape issue. I’d have to mull over that, but my gut instinct says the following:
Without sufficient reason to suspect deceit, the law of charity requires us to presume the ‘victim’ is being honest, and is really a victim (with no ” around the word).
Yes, and with regard to empathy and assistance which is of a clearly morally good nature, we ought to be trusting, but now they’re asking us to fire a deadly shot into the unknown that may well kill a child. Bad situation.
Also, what Charles said. I’m not trying to cast aspersions upon anyone, I do know that false rape claim numbers are not inconsequential. You can’t cast this question aside with the “how could he know she was lying”. The action the doctor is required to perform is not innocuous.
God Bless,
Matt
Matt, yes I do know there are two discussions here. (Why do your posts always sound like you’re talking down to others?) Neither Susanne nor I were specific about which discussion we referred to. In re-reading the thread, I see where I had skipped some of the earlier comments. But I also assume that Susanne is a big girl and could clarify if she thought I didn’t get what she said.
Susanne, I may have missed the specific post(s) to which you referred. I do agree with you that women who have carried the baby to term have said that the child helped them deal with the rape. Given that, the comments were thought provoking, at least they’ve given me something to think about.
Matt, for too many rape victims, not being believed is an additional trauma and does damage beyond the rape itself. Perhaps for the topic of this discussion, it would be better to stick with an unquestionable rape.
“Since when did Jimmy Akin become a Latin scholar?”
Jimmy has been a student of *languages* for some time. I don’t know what qualifies someone as a Latin *scholar* in your estimation, perhaps you could clarify.
Jimmy knows a thing or two about canon law, but has never claimed to be a canon lawyer, so that charge is a little mystifying. Are you of the opinion that non-canon-lawyers should not be allowed to discuss canon law issues? Interesting concept. Maybe Ed Peters could weigh in.
In context, the “Latin scholar” jeer doesn’t even rise to the level of an ad hominem, unless someone is going to produce a counter-claim that Coniugale doesn’t mean “marital” after all.
It’s just an idle taunt.
Likewise the “canon lawyer” jeer, which would qualify as an ad hominem, in a dispute about canon law.
Can’t we do better than this?
A quote from a 2003 answer by Fr. Stephen Torraco:
“The question of a woman who is in danger of being raped properly protecting herself from a possible subsequent pregnancy by wearing a contraceptive diaphragm was widely discussed in the 1960s when the question was quite practical in relation to nuns in some regions of Africa. It has been the consensus of a number of competent moral theologians that a nun or indeed any woman in such circumstances could so protect herself from pregnancy by previously positioning a contraceptive diaphragm.
The moral reasoning why this would not be considered contrary to the Church’s teaching on contraception is the simple fact that rape cannot properly called “intercourse.” If it is truly rape, it is an act of aggression of the rapist alone, with no cooperation or consent on the part of the victim and therefore outside the context of the Catholic teaching on contraception. It is not an act at all on her part, and thus she is not obliged to leave herself open to the transmission of life. No one would deny that if the victim were able to repel the aggressor after the rape had begun she would be perfectly justified in forcing him away. Indeed, that would constitute coitus interruptus, one of the oldest forms of contraception and clearly not permissible in voluntary intercourse.
Since the rapist has no right to deposit his ejaculate into his victim’s body, and it is being done completely contrary to her willing it, she has no obligation either to receive or retain his semen. She would be justified in seeking to block its possible life-giving effect before conception takes place, but only in a way that would not endanger the survival of a new human life (albeit conceived by aggression, but not, in itself, an aggressor) in the event that conception would take place.”
How many bishops in CT (and the rest of New England) are owned by politicians who want to keep the “in cases of rape and incest” clause for allowing abortions?
Way to start of the month of “Respect Life”!
Now, more than ever, we need to pray the rosary (this is also the month of the Rosary) – when our bishops break bad, where else can we turn?
Jamie,
Lincoln, Denver, and Saginaw seem like good choices.
Tim J. – He deemed the translation at the Vatican website not up to his standards:
“That’s a loosey-goosey translation”. It’s up to him to demonstrate his Latin translation qualifications are superior to those of the Vatican.
SDG – It wasn’t a question against the man. It was about an attitude of certitude and superiority.
SDG & Ed Peters:
I apologize for making my initial comments clear.
My comments were more specifically aimed at the actual adoption of the Deer Hunter Principle as some sort of guiding principle in matters of moral judgment.
The example I submitted regarding an attack on an enemy’s territory
(i.e.,
That’s similar to saying you cannot attack a hostile enemy’s territory if it is reasonably foreseen to involve the possible deaths of innocent human beings; which we know is acceptable given a just war.)
is just one example where this principle fails.
The fact of the matter being that the violent invasion of an innocent woman’s body is wickedly malicious and wrong.
Any action taken to prevent any such pregnancy (that is, prior to the actual existence of an actual embryo developing into an baby in the woman) is a legitimate action since it is not aimed at the destruction of an embryo slated to become an actual infant but at the precursor materials themselves, which, at this point, would only be organic raw materials and nothing more.
Now, if it were an actual embryo, that would be an entirely different story altogether.
“It’s up to him to demonstrate his Latin translation qualifications are superior to those of the Vatican.”
Jimmy’s official qualifications don’t really have any bearing on whether the translation on the Vatican website is “loosey-goosey” or not. It either is or it isn’t. You might explain, according to your own Latin scholarship, why you think it is a good translation, but otherwise looking at Jimmy’s creds doesn’t move the discussion one way or another.
It’s a rather classic example of ad hominem. Rather than dealing with the actual liguistic question, you demand to see Jimmy’s Latin Scholar ID card, as if that might help settle the question one way or another.
I don’t know from Latin, myself. I’m hard enough on my own native language, and have no desire to go mangling others.
Esau,
Any action taken to prevent any such pregnancy (that is, prior to the actual existence of an actual embryo developing into an baby in the woman) is a legitimate action since it is not aimed at the destruction of an embryo slated to become an actual infant but at the precursor materials themselves, which, at this point, would only be organic raw materials and nothing more.
Now, if it were an actual embryo, that would be an entirely different story altogether.
I know this must be inadvertant, I don’t think you mean any action taken prior to conception is licit. Taking the abortion pill hours or moments prior to conception will certainly cause the abortion or serious damage to that embryo, so would be illicit. It is not about timing but about the intent and the effect. Here is the Vatican’s statement about this matter:
here
“the absolute unlawfulness of abortifacient procedures also applies to distributing, prescribing and taking the morning-after pill. All who, whether sharing the intention or not, directly co-operate with this procedure are also morally responsible for it”
Not a lot of wiggle room there, and it is referring specifically about Plan B.
Mary Kay
you said: the discussion’s not about a child already conceived – no one is arguing against carrying the child to term.
Your statement is false, I had to call you on it lest people be misled.
for too many rape victims, not being believed is an additional trauma and does damage beyond the rape itself. Perhaps for the topic of this discussion, it would be better to stick with an unquestionable rape.
I’m sorry, we can’t do that because it’s not reality, and we ought to stick with reality. This is not a personal assault on any rape victim, or an attempt to discuss how they ought to be dealt with in regards to investigating the veracity of their allegation, in fact that is just not relevent to the discussion, nor should it be relevent to emergency care workers, nor should they be forced by the state and by extension the bishops acting as agents of the state to make a moral assessment of the case before proceding with treatment.
You will say that it’s not the moral responsibility of the care worker to make such judgement, but I would say that it is, if they are potentially cooperating wiht a moral evil, they can be held accountable if they do not take due diligience to avoid it. The only way to protect them from this danger is to be relieved of the responsibility for distributing Plan B, and it is the bishop’s responsibility to protect the faithful, in this they fail.
Has anyone noticed that the Catholic Medical Association rejects the administration of Plan B.
God Bless,
Matt
Esau and Tim J., hear hear!
And Jamie, I cannot answer your initial question as I have no idea. But I don’t think the question you pose is especially germane to the Bishops statement.
Does human life begin at conception or not? It does so the bishops and their pretzel logic should leave the Catholic Church.
Matt,
You have wrongly labelled the kind of medical means I was speaking of as an ‘abortion pill’.
I have already stated plainly that it would be acceptable to eliminate the ‘precursor materials’ — NOT that of an actual existing embryo slated to become an actual infant.
Where is your confusion here?
If you are going to claim that even the most raw organic materials having the same status as that of an infant, then might as well look to skin cells as having such equivalent status as well!
They actually carry human DNA and can conceivably develop into a human being given the appropriate technological resources.
Considering that we sluff thousands of skin cells daily, we must all then be guilty of abortions as we do not take any effort whatsoever to prevent the sluffing of these!
Re the qualifications and quality of the Vatican website translation vs Jimmy’s.
I think that the Vatican website has copied one of the popular printed English translations of HV rather than undertake a fresh translation by its own world-class translators, who are probably busy enough.
As more than one popular translation into English of HV was published. We should not be surprised to see the Latin has also been rendered as
and also copied by the following websites
http://www.newadvent.org/library/docs_pa06hv.htm
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P6HUMANA.HTM
http://www.priestsforlife.org/magisterium/humanaevitae.htm
A search in books.google.com will reveal different translations.
Which translation should the Vatican website have used? As with Bible translations different parts may be translated better in one translation than another, so it is difficult to argue that translation X is everywhere superior to translation Y. There may also have been copyright/fees issues which led to that translation being copied.
Notice that some of this argument hinges on what would have seemed like a minor technical detail in the furore after HV was first published.
BTW I though SDG’s analysis re contraceptive adulterous intercourse was correct and measured. Perhaps some of the negative reaction was due to some people assuming that SDG was looking for ‘loopholes’ – which I am sure he was not.
Contraception is always wrong. Fornication is always wrong. Rape is always wrong. Abortion is always wrong.
Have the courage to stand up for the truths of the Catholic faith.
matt,
I have not encountered anybody relevant to this thread arguing against a mother’s obligation to take a conceived child to term, including the bishops. The key question is whether Plan B is intended to and does in fact act as an abortifacient. If the answer is in the affirmative, then Plan B cannot be permitted even in cases of rape. But the scientific literature is not that clear, and the more recent studies suggest that Plan B either does not act as an abortifacient or does so only rarely. It is only charitable to assume that the CT Bishops relied on those studies in making their assessment, in which case one’s argument with the Bishops is probably in prudential rather than moral territory.
The bottom line is that a woman probably is permitted to take a contraceptive after an incident of rape. The precise question, as I understand it, is whether and to what extent that license can or should pertain to a contraceptive that introduces a risk of an unintended abortion. This requires a pretty precise application of moral theology that involves first, as a threshold matter, an analysis as to whether the administration of the drug in question is intrinsically evil and, second, if so, a comparative analysis of both the probablities and gravity of the risks and harms.
Although not a moral theologian it seems to me that the administration of any drug is not intrinsically evil unless its object is such. I would think that such an assessment would require an understanding both of subjective intention as well as the objective operation of the drug — i.e., what is the drug designed to do by its nature. I don’t have enough knowledge of science to answer the latter question, but there is at least some reason to believe that its design is to act as a contraceptive but it does carry the collateral risk of an abortion. Many drugs have life-threatening unintended side effects such as liver or heart failure, but that doesn’t make their use intrinsically evil. If (and only if) this belief can be reasonably confirmed, then I would think that a the accidentaly second effect of abortion can be morally tolerable if its risk is sufficiently slight assuming that the primary contraceptive effect is highly efficacious.
There is a place for zero tolerance in moral theology, and intentional abortions is one of them. But unintentional abortions are morally evaluated using a weighing analysis informed by science and prudence.
Fornication is always wrong.
Really? Then God has seriously sinned against you, Enough hair-splitting, for it was He who in fact said to go out and multiply!
How else can this be achieved if not to fornicate?
Contraception is always wrong.
You have such a profound grasp of Catholic Moral Theology, I am in deep awe.
Have you not even considered the situation of a cancer patient who get a hysterectomy?
Do you actually believe that their action (which is basically contraceptive in nature) is wrong too?
Will you please exercise the intelligence God has given you and cease oversimplifying matters to the point of black-and-white?
Tim J. – “It’s a rather classic example of ad hominem. Rather than dealing with the actual liguistic question, you demand to see Jimmy’s Latin Scholar ID card, as if that might help settle the question one way or another.”
No, not at all.
On the basis of non-existent qualifications, Jimmy dismissed the translation at the Vatican in order to introduce a distinction without a difference as regards contraception. He tried to make the issue about contraception within marriage as opposed to contraception outside of marriage. He then went on to suggest that contraception outside of marriage might actually be a somewhat licit act:
“Some might argue that, although non-marital sexual acts are gravely wrong, contraceptive non-marital sex might be less gravely wrong than non-contraceptive non-marital sex since it has a lesser risk of bringing a child into the world outside of wedlock.”
It was his emphasis on a Latin translation that led to the discussion of circumstances in which contraception is acceptable – despite constant Church teaching to the contrary.
Paul VI didn’t address contraception outside of marriage in that quote for the same reason that Jesus didn’t condemn homosexual acts: it was so obvious and well-established by prior teaching, it went without saying.
“Jimmy’s official qualifications don’t really have any bearing on whether the translation on the Vatican website is “loosey-goosey” or not. It either is or it isn’t.”
His non-existent qualifications do have a bearing because it was Jimmy who dismissed the Vatican’s translation as “loosey-goosey”. He is the one who made a declaration and judgment about it and then he based his argument on that unqualified judgment. He did the same sort of thing when he took on the requirement for doing penance on Fridays, if you recall.
Matt, you responded to my statement once already and I said to Susanne that I may have missed what she was referring to. Why did you go out of your way to not only repeat it, but misrepresent my response?
Your entire next paragraph is a projection since you were the one who introduced questioning the of veracity of the rape victim.
You will say that…
Don’t put words in my mouth. What a classic straw man argument. In fact, I think I’ll use that when someone asks for a definition of a straw man argument.
And another thing,
Curious — what are your qualifications?
aat,
Your arguments notwithstanding, the *fact* is that the English translation and the Latin original have different literal meanings. The Latin original could have said what the English translation said, but it did not. We are then stuck with two options: we can follow whichever version we read last (which seems kind of silly) or we can agree that the Latin original governs (which is actually the rule, no doubt) and that the English translation is therefore simply imprecise, which is pretty much what is meant by loosey-goosey.
Enough Hair Splitting, And Another Thing–
I suspect you may not have read Jimmy is his entirity. It is NOT the consistant teaching of the Church that Contraception is always and everywhere wrong.
Consider Directive 36 from the USCCB Document on Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care services, “A female who has been raped should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault. If, after appropriate testing, there is no evidence that conception has occurred already, she may be treated with medications that would prevent ovulation, sperm capacitation, or fertilization. It is not permissible, however, to initiate or to recommend treatments that have as their purpose or direct effect the removal, destruction, or interference with the implantation of a fertilized ovum.”
With all possible Christian charity, I must inform you that you are incorrect.
and another thing –
You keep making my point for me.
You have provided no linguistic evidence or argument in support of the idea that the translation on the Vatican Website (most likely NOT a Vatican translation, as has been pointed out) is not “loosey-goosey”.
I have no problem with you arguing the point with Jimmy. I wish you WOULD argue it. You just refuse to argue at all, preferring to focus on Jimmy himself. This is the very definition of ad hominem… attacking the man instead of dealing with the substance of his arguments.
I ask you; what, in your opinion as a Latin translator, makes the translation on the Vatican website superior to Jimmy’s? I’m ignorant. Instruct me.
Also, please support your assertion that the distinction between the terms “conjugal act” and “sexual intercourse” constitute “a distinction without a difference”. I don’t see how you could MISS the difference.
And Another Thing,
He deemed the translation at the Vatican website not up to his standards
Why don’t you browse more on the Vatican website.
Have you even read the translations of those original Latin documents rendered in the various other languages such as English?
They’re horrific!
They don’t even convey precisely what the Latin original says.
For example, take a look at the translation errors for the most recent Motu Proprio:
Summorum Pontificum problems…. translation
Also, take a look at the translation errors for the previously released Apostolic Exhortation:
A serious problem in Sacramentum caritatis 23
As even the latter document demonstrates, these translations that have been rendered in the various languages such as English and the like were/are, in fact, atrocious!
As these two instances demonstrate, the translation services of the Vatican unfortunately are greatly lacking in this competency.
And Another Thing:
It’s hardly a question of Jimmy’s Latin kung-fu versus the Vatican. Let’s not forget that Jimmy points to the official English edition of the CATECHISM, which the Vatican vetted for accuracy much more closely than the document translations slapped up at http://www.vatican.va, as a case in point of the correct translation.
Also, AFAIK, we aren’t talking here about a subtle grammatical point like a Granville-Sharpe construction (yes, that’s Greek, not Latin, sue me for not being able to come up with a Latin example) where the authority of the scholar might be a relevant point.
I’m not aware that there is any dispute whatsoever about the precise meaning of coniugale. AFAIK, anyone who knows anything about Latin, including the people responsible for the Vatican website translation in question, would acknowledge that coniugale literally means “marital” and that the translation in question is thus “loosey-goosey.”
BTW, it just so happens that Jimmy has commented before on the specific meaning of coniugale in Latin and has cited critical documentation.
Are you sure it is fair, or merely convenient or otherwise gratifying, to turn discussion about the meaning of a term into a personal charge of “superiority”? It behooves us all to remember that the measure we measure with will be measured back to us.
The question was not: Does Jimmy Akin have access to a Latin/English dictionary?
The question is: Is Jimmy Akin fluent and proficient in Latin?
If the answer is “No”, as undoubtedly it is, then caution might be in order when reading his unequivocal pronouncements as a little learning is a dangerous thing.
Well, I just got off the phone with a Latin teacher, who returned my earlier call to confirm Jimmy’s explanation. She agreed that the English version is imprecise in respect of its translation of “conjugal.”
“If the answer is “No”, as undoubtedly it is…”
And you know this how?…
You have very deftly (well, not really) avoided commenting on the merits of the translation itself, so I will assume that you really have nothing to say on the subject and no expertise in the area.
Again, Jimmy’s “fluency” in Latin has no bearing at all on the proper translation of the word “coniugale”, does it? Isn’t that sort of a matter of objective truth, rather than “my translator can beat up your translator”?
This kind of reminds me of the arguments of another sometime visitor in Jimmy’s combox, who insisted that J.D. Crossan’s theories MUST be correct because, after all, he had COLLEGE DEGREES and had written a lot of books…
Maybe this will help us to stop beating this dead horse…
And another thing –
Let’s just leave Jimmy out of this altogether and focus on the actual substance of the argument;
Do you think the Vatican website translation or that of the English version of Catechism is superior, and why? Explain.
Fornication is always wrong.
Really? Then God has seriously sinned against you, Enough hair-splitting, for it was He who in fact said to go out and multiply!
How else can this be achieved if not to fornicate?
Go lie down until you feel better.
You are feeling better when you feel capable of looking up the term “fornication” in the dictionary and do so.
You are feeling better when you feel capable of looking up the term “fornication” in the dictionary and do so.
Go lie down until you feel better.
You are feeling better when you feel capable of looking up the term “irony” in the dictionary and do so.
Well, I just got off the phone with a Latin teacher, who returned my earlier call to confirm Jimmy’s explanation. She agreed that the English version is imprecise in respect of its translation of “conjugal.”
I’m not surprised considering all the errors in the English translations of other documents found on the Vatican website.
Unfortunately, amongst the most recent samples are those from the Holy Father himself — like the ones displayed on Fr. Z’s website.
What B16 actually meant is not being conveyed in its precise meaning in the English translation.
That sounds remarkably like an “unequivocal pronouncement,” AAT.
Caution in reasoned debate is indeed an admirable quality.
Caution in how we treat one another in even more so.
You don’t mind diagnosing “an attitude of certitude and superiority” and making confident assertions about other people’s “non-existent qualifications.”
At the same time, you are deeply concerned about the basis for Jimmy’s confidence that ecclesiastical Latin dictionaries are right about the meaning of a word regarding which so far no one has documented any dispute.
You keep talking about “the Vatican translation,” conveniently ignoring the fact that the English text with the best claim to that description is the one in the official English edition of the Catechism — not the one at http://www.vatican.va.
I won’t pretend to know anything about your attitude or your qualifications. All I can say is that you inspire distrust.
Beyond that, I reiterate Tim J’s challenge. Stop harping on Jimmy and let us know if you are aware of any reason why we shouldn’t trust the Catechism translation and the Latin dictionaries.
SDG,
No offense, but could you cease from callin And Another Thing by the abbreviation AAT?
AAT has other meaning for me (e.g., the AAT codon). It can also be, to others, Alpha-1-Antitrypsin.
Thanks.
Esau, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I personally would prefer the ambiguity you cite to that of everyone beginning their posts “And another thing…”
If it really bugs you, I will think about which word to abbreviate “And Another Thing” to. (“And” or “Thing” would seem to be the two obvious candidates.)
No offense, but could you cease from callin And Another Thing by the abbreviation AAT?
AAT has other meaning for me (e.g., the AAT codon). It can also be, to others, Alpha-1-Antitrypsin
You’ve got to be kidding me.
SDG,
Can you stop using your initials? I keep thinking you’re talking about the System Dynamics Group at MIT (http://web.mit.edu/sdg/www/). Others might be confused and think you’re referring to the United Counties of Stormont, Dundas, & Glengarry (http://www.sdg.on.ca/).
“Do you think the Vatican website translation or that of the English version of Catechism is superior, and why? Explain”.
I have no idea. I am only minimally proficient in Latin. I don’t make any statements based on what I may or may not think is the correct translation.
My question – never answered and therefore presumed now in the negative – is: Does Jimmy have the expertise in Latin his posts suggest he has?
Why does this matter? Because an entire argument of his is based on the translation of a word – a word that is not crucial to the meaning of the doctrine. I contend that his argument is fallacious and a distraction, that there is no meaningful distinction between married and non-married contraception as regards Church teaching. It was suggested by Jimmy that unmarried contraception might be a good thing, or at least less grave than married contraception because no child would be born out of wedlock. Following this, then, one might argue that homosexual sex is less grave than unmarried heterosexual sex because no child can be conceived under any circumstances. Is this a useful argument to consider when trying to understand Church teaching on contraception? I don’t think so.
“Stop harping on Jimmy”
I asked a question. Is he fluent and proficient in Latin?
You’ve got to be kidding me.
Smoky Mountain,
Coming from my biotech background, it just struck me as funny.
It looked as if SDG was speaking to a codon.
I could almost imagine SDG speaking to it while in the midst of protein translation.
Yeah — I know — it’s almost like being entertained at grass growing but hey, science can sometimes have its dull moments that you look for entertainment even in the stupidest things.
That sounds remarkably like an “unequivocal pronouncement,” AAT.
ROFL!
And Another Thing:
You seem to have valid concerns, but judging by the fact that only the Latin version has binding effect in the Church, it would therefore make sense that Jimmy concentrate on the Latin in this regard in order to aim at not only the precise meaning but also the authoritative version.
As to a valid translation of the Latin, I, myself, cannot judge whether Jimmy is, in fact, correct in his rendering.
For all we know, he can be wrong in his assessment.
However, I believe I would be better convinced that his rendering was the wrong one by somebody who actually has expertise in Latin than by someone who barely has any mastery of it whatsoever.
If we concede that the risk of Plan B causing an abortion is minimal (I don’t know anything about the science so I’m not saying anyone should or shouldn’t concede this point), it seems to me that the question is whether or not that risk is intentional or an unintended side effect of taking the drug.
Even if the chances of Plan B causing an abortion are incredibly minuscule, can it morally be prescribed after a rape if causing an abortion is its intended effect when preventing conception has failed? I would think not.
On the flip side, even if taken at a time when the possibility of abortion is higher (say during a positive ovulation test), can it be taken after a rape if abortion is an unintended side effect of the drug? I would think yes as long as the possibility is still reasonable small (I’m not a doctor or theologian so I can’t pinpoint exactly how high of a risk is acceptable).
It seems that the evidence is unclear as to whether Plan B’s possible acting as an abortificant is intended or an unintended side effect. Is it the manufacturer’s claims that determine the intent? Is it the intent of the person administering it? Is it the intent of the woman receiving it? Or some combination of the above?
As to a valid translation of the Latin, I, myself, cannot judge whether Jimmy is, in fact, correct in his rendering.
FWIW, I took two years of college Latin (‘A’s all the way through) and I’d say that Jimmy and the Catechism’s version is obviously the correct one.
Also, I seem recall reading one of the priests at EWTN’s experts forum years ago saying that HV only addressed marital contraception and that whether a fornicator is committing an additional sin by using contraception is a matter open for debate (he himself came down on the side of contraception being an additional sin).
I was reading all this it leaves more questions than answers. One of them being:
If a married woman is raped, will they use Plan B? How would they know if they are preventing the pregnancy from the non-marital act vs. the marital act?
I have more questions, but not enough time. At any rate, in my opinion this is a slippery slope.
Esau,
You have wrongly labelled the kind of medical means I was speaking of as an ‘abortion pill’…If you are going to claim that even the most raw organic materials having the same status as that of an infant, then might as well look to skin cells as having such equivalent status as well!
Sorry you misunderstood. I wasn’t doing that, and there’s no way to interpret it that way, so read my post again, and you’ll probably understand. You really ought to learn not to jump to conclusions like that.
God Bless,
Matt
Publius,
Thank you for your feedback!
I was hoping you’d comment on this given your background.
Appreciate it.
Mary Kay,
Matt, you responded to my statement once already and I said to Susanne that I may have missed what she was referring to. Why did you go out of your way to not only repeat it, but misrepresent my response?
I was responding to your last post to me, I didn’t misrepresent your response, I cited it. A courtesy that you generally don’t use.
Your entire next paragraph is a projection since you were the one who introduced questioning the of veracity of the rape victim.
Again, no citation. You know what I said, and you ignored it. The bishops introduced this problem of putting Catholic doctors in the situation of having a moral obligation to decide if the claim is true or not in order to avoid cooperating with evil.
You will say that…
Don’t put words in my mouth. What a classic straw man argument. In fact, I think I’ll use that when someone asks for a definition of a straw man argument.
Have you read any Aquinas? That’s not a strawman it’s anticipating your response. You can either say, no, I wouldn’t respond that way or yes, it’s very simple. I note that you did cite me, but not in any sort of context, again,
God Bless,
Matt
“a word that is not crucial to the meaning of the doctrine…”
You keep saying that, but have not backed up your assertion with any kind of evidence. If the term were not crucial to the meaning of the doctrine, then why is it there at all? There *are* other terms that might have been used. I don’t think they just pull these things out of a hat.
“It was suggested by Jimmy that unmarried contraception might be a good thing, or at least less grave than married contraception because no child would be born out of wedlock.”
May I call your attention to Jimmy’s BIG RED DISCLAIMER, which you seem to have missed?;
“What I am about to write is not indicative of my own view. I’m trying to explain the apparent reasoning of the Connecticut bishops. I’m not saying that they are correct or incorrect. Rome could rule either way on this, and it may well get involved. What I’m trying to do is explain a position, not defend it.”.
I’ll let Jimmy give an answer on his qualifications to translate Latin, if he likes, but it is entirely irrelevant, as he did not perform the translation used in the Catechism. Do you maintain that he is not allowed to have an opinion on the matter, or is it that you just don’t like his opinion and would prefer that he shut up?
AAT,
I believe you A) Misunderstand the translation issue B) Misunderstand the contraception issue in play.
With all respect, AAT, I suggest you reread Jimmy’s post and the major posts in this thread without assuming you already know what they say.
God Bless,
LCB
And Another Thing, just to point out…
You have already stated that James Akin is not proficient in Latin.
So your question seems to be less than genuine, as well as uncharitable.
If the term were not crucial to the meaning of the doctrine, then why is it there at all? There *are* other terms that might have been used. I don’t think they just pull these things out of a hat.
Tim J. here makes a good point.
It’s like the terms that were discussed in the past concerning reatus poena and reatus culpa.
I’ll not re-hash the arguments but just to say that terms are selected precisely for the meaning they’re meant to convey — especially in Latin.
Obviously, this is what should be the objective in English as well; although in that regard, the total lack of a sophisticated lexicon might be a hinderance to some such as I.
And Another Thing:
It seems to me that we have two material questions:
1. What is the meaning of coniugale? Specifically, does it mean precisely “marital,” or does it have a broader or looser application?
2. Is the choice of this word rather than another by Paul VI significant?
In addition, you have raised the following semi-material question:
3. What is Jimmy’s expertise in Latin?
as well as non-relevant (and IMHO ill-advised and graceless) concerns about Jimmy’s “attitude,” etc.
Although your own posts seem a bit hazy on this point, it ought to be noted that any relevance of your semi-material Q3 is limited to the confidence with which non-Latin scholars reading this blog might have regarding Jimmy’s answer to Q1.
Assuming that Jimmy is right about the answer to Q1, the question of Latin expertise has no bearing on the answer to Q2.
If we accept that coniugale means precisely “marital,” and that “sexual” is therefore a “loosey-goosey” translation, questions about whether or not the choice of this word rather than another is “crucial to the meaning of the doctrine” fall outside the question of Latin scholarship and within the realm of hermeneutics and theology.
You seem to tacitly admit this, inas much as, although you yourself acknowledge that you yourself “have no idea” regarding the superiority of the Catechism text to the http://www.vatican.va text, you are not simply agnostic about the larger issue, but take the definite stand of contend that you consider Jimmy’s argument “is fallacious and a distraction” and take the definite position that “there is no meaningful distinction between married and non-married contraception as regards Church teaching.”
For you, a non-Latin scholar, to be able claim this, you must essentially be saying “Regardless of the precise meaning of coniugale, the choice of this word rather than another is not determinative of the extent of the Church’s teaching in this regard.” In other words, you are presuming to answer Q2 while having “no idea” as to the answer to Q1.
Now. I certainly can’t settle Q1 for anyone else, but speaking solely for myself, having checked a number of Latin-English dictionaries, I’m fairly satisfied that coniugale means precisely “marital” without significant remainder on either side; that as Jimmy says “this is not rocket science” but a straightforward case of a word in one language very precisely corresponding to an equivalent term in another language. Barring correction from a serious Latin scholar, I’ll go with that.
Moving on to Q2: I think I can read as well as you can, and I would venture to guess that I know as much or more not only about the Church’s teaching about contraception, but also the various theories and approaches that have been used to explicate the Church’s teaching, from the personalism and theology of the body of John Paul II to various natural law approaches.
Speaking for myself, as one non-Latin scholar to another, I find your contention, that the choice of the word “coniugale” regardless of meaning does not affect the substance of the Church’s teaching regarding contraception, to be wholly unpersuasive.
You are welcome to try to make your case based on exegesis of HV, but so far you have offered no argument for your answer to Q2. And I don’t think you can. And that is why you continue to harp on the semi-material Q3 and its significance for Q1, regardless of its irrelevance to Q2.
“I contend that his argument is fallacious and a distraction, that there is no meaningful distinction between married and non-married contraception as regards Church teaching…”
Again, I’m ignorant… please SHOW me how the argument Jimmy presents (not actually “his argument”, but one possible argument) is fallacious. I’m afraid that just saying it over and over isn’t helping me. Like my old math teacher used to say, please “show your work”.
It may very well be fallacious, and Jimmy may think so as well, but just *contending* this doesn’t help numb-skulls like me.
Matt,
Since you seem to be more interested in scoring debate points than a genuine discussion, this will probably go nowhere, but here’s my response.
I was responding to your last post to me
No, you weren’t. You pasted for the second time, my 9/30, 5:36pm comment, after your first response of 9/30, 7:26 pm.
I didn’t misrepresent your response, I cited it.
Once again, not accurate. You cited my first post and misrepresented my second post.
A courtesy that you generally don’t use.
Broad stroke generalization, eh? For someone who accuses others of discourtesy, you can be outright rude yourself.
Again, no citation.
What part of “your entire next paragraph” do you not understand?
You know what I said, and you ignored it.
Yes, I ignored it. You seemed so determined to strong-arm the comments to fit what you wanted that you weren’t listening, nor made any effort to understand what I was saying. You were so busy anticipating my response that you did not listen. I can’t say that emphatically enough to you.
You will say that…
Again, you were so busy anticipating my response, so busy constructing both sides of the discussion without bothering to listen. That’s what a straw man argument is – setting up a argument other than what the person said and then shooting it down. I did not recognize that phrase as a device, but that only reinforces my point that you’re out to score debate points rather than engage in a discussion.
Mary Kay,
it’s not about scoring points it’s about seeking understanding, and it’s very difficult to do that when you don’t cite the substance of the post you are responding to. It requires the person to hunt back through to try and reconstruct what it is you’re answering.
Now, citing half a sentence and then saying something like “your entire next paragraph” does nothing to provide that understanding.
Now that I’ve explained it perhaps you will be easier to understand in the future.
Your definition of strawman is incorrect. Anticipating the other person’s argument is a common procedure, it’s entirely different then a straw man.
I get suspicious someone is building a strawman when they do not cite the other person’s argument but characterize it. SOmething like you always do here.
Present a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position, refute it, and pretend that the opponent’s actual position has been refuted.
Quote an opponent’s words out of context — i.e., choose quotations that are not representative of the opponent’s actual intentions (see contextomy).
Oversimplify a person’s argument into a simple analogy, which can then be attacked
Hope that helps.
God Bless,
Matt
Mary Kay,
This is a heated topic, so it’s easy to get caught up in things. Please consider the following:
1) It is possible you are wrong. Views are supposed to change and evolve.
2) You seem to be focusing on attacking– the goal is to get to the truth of a confusing topic.
3) You seem to be writing with a distinct lack of Christian charity. A college prof. taugh me the ever valuable, “Charity and Clarity”
You are feeling better when you feel capable of looking up the term “irony” in the dictionary and do so.
Esau, you know perfectly well that people are capable of making that crack in all sincerity. And they post here.
Therefore, if you want to be taken as ironical, you ought to express yourself in an ironical manner.
LCB,
There’s a history to this that you may be unaware of if you are relatively new to this blog. What may look like “attacking” to you is simply sheer frustration with Matt.
With most people on this blog, I’ve enjoyed mutual discussions over a wide range of topics. With Matt, it’s inevitably about scoring debate points.
To respond to your points:
1) In my 10/1, 4:39am post, I said to Susanne that I may have missed what she was referring to. I have always acknowledged if I’ve missed something. Matt has never admitted that he may have missed a point.
2) As I said, what looks like attacking is simply frustration with him. I would love to get to the truth of a confusing topic, but it’s difficult when one side is not listening and out to score debate points. Discussion is a two way street which means listening and asking for clarification.
3) Charity goes both ways. Just in this thread, because I used the description “your entire next paragraph” instead of pasting it, Matt made the broad stroke generalization of you always don’t cite. It’s simply not true.
If Matt is truly interested in a discussion, it would be worthwhile to go back to a previous point, sort of like a “restore point.”
Charity goes both ways.
We should strive to be charitable in all of our speech, regardless of the charity of others.
Smoky, since you’ve echoed something about charity, let’s talk about charity on this blog.
What LCB saw as “attacking,” I would say was self-defense. I was as charitable in that self-defense as possible. But it’s not enough to remind one side to be charitable. With everything else, it goes both ways.
LCB and Smoky, if I had written either one of your posts, Matt would’ve jumped down my throat for not “citing” what was referred to by pasting it verbatim. He then would have added – erroneously – that I “always” did so and tossed in calling me “discourteous.”
There’s no discussion with Matt. It’s either agree with his view or be told emphatically that you’re wrong. As quick as he is to point out what he considers to be others’ errors, he gives no consideration to others saying that his words were inaccurate or inappropriate or that there’s an aspect that he missed.
And I’m really tired of his nitpicking about what he calls “citing” and his picking the one time out of ten that I don’t, then try to portray me as “always” being neglectful when it fact a) the one time did have a reference, it simply wasn’t the way he wanted it and b) it was only one instance.
On a board with various personalities, it is inevitable that some don’t see eye to eye. With most people here, I’ve enjoyed discussions about a multitude of topics. I try to simply not engage with Matt, but there are some things that need to be stated.
But it’s not enough to remind one side to be charitable. With everything else, it goes both ways.
It needn’t go both ways. One can react to a situation independently of external influences. I can reply charitably to anyone if I choose to, regardless of whether they return that charity.
What smokey said.
Someone else raises their voice, I lower mine. Or I just don’t respond.
Smoky, yet that’s true.
LCB, cross posted with you, trying to think of a “middle name” for Smoky (something he used to do).
I guess this thread has jumped the shark.
I found Bishop Lori’s statement about this decision on his blog (http://www.bishoploriblog.org/). Bishop Lori is part of the Connecticut Conference and Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus.
After reading his statement, I have decided that my disagreement with him falls within the realm of prudential judgement rather than the realm of moral principles.
Burnt,
“Reluctant compliance” emerged as the only viable option. In permitting Catholic hospitals to comply with this law, neither our teaching nor our principles have changed. We have only altered the prudential judgment we previously made; this was done for the good of our Catholic hospitals and those they serve.
If there’s no problem then why the reluctance? Because he altered his prudential judgement under pressure from the state. And why is the state opposed to the testing for ovulation? Because they have an AGENDA, and sadly these bishops have submitted to become part of it. The bishops had to know the headlines would read: Catholic Bishops Approve Plan B
God Bless,
Matt
“Do you think the Vatican website translation or that of the English version of Catechism is superior, and why? Explain.”
Well, nobody asked me, but why should that stop me?
I am not a Latin scholar, but I did grow up in the same house with one, I did take Latin as my high school major, and my mother the Latin teacher would have given a “D-” at best for anyone who translated HV as the Vatican site does, and a Bright Shiny A+ to Jimmy & the Catholic Catechism. (And this was a woman who could carry on a conversation in Latin…when she could find someone to speak with. Hence my own knowledge).
Conjugialis= marital. Period. It simply has no other sensible translation.
Thank you, Lily Cat.
The onus remains on AAT to offer any evidence or argument for his answer to Q2.
– System Dynamics Group
SDG,
Don’t be silly — you don’t expect a codon to respond to you, do you?
What are you? In the midst of protein translation?
Hey man, at least I’m not a massive topographical promontory.
*Blink* *Blink*
Charity must be so easy to preach about to the poor morally-challanged Mary Kay — but to actually walk the talk?
No surprise finding out that the mountain is indeed smoky.
Esau,
Do you really find good natured joking around to be uncharitable? I’m pretty sure SDG and I are just having fun…lighten up.
You may have been joking as well, Esau (sarcasm is often hard to pick up online, and you love to use it). But if not, one more comment:
Please re-read my posts above. I never accused Mary Kay of not being charitable. I simply responded to her statement that “charity goes both ways”.
Morally challenged? Esau!
A co-don might respond as easily as a co-ed. (Us morally challenged get to use the lowest form of humor. /eyeroll)
at least I’m not a massive topographical promontory
Are you calling me fat?
Smoky,
Hey, if you can have fun at my expense, I can certainly have fun at yours! ;^)
You may have been joking as well, Esau (sarcasm is often hard to pick up online, and you love to use it).
Holy Cow!
You actually knew what I was about to type at the time?
Also, Mary Kay might be morally-challanged to some, but she sure can cook!
*smile at M.K.*
Esau,
Unlike charity, fun-making does not go both ways.
You are hereby forbidden from further fun-making, tomfoolery, shenanigans, high jinks, horseplay, clowning, funny business, escapades, larks, merriment, monkeyshines, and other such related activities until further notice.
Esau, I’ll send you a cyber stir fry, my foray of the week. ;^)
um, did anyone get my pun?
um, did anyone get my pun?
No. Please explain in laborious detail.
Smoky Mountain, okay, but you’ve just crushed me because a humor that has to be explained isn’t funny but here goes:
You asked SDG if he expected a codon to explain. I figured a codon/co-don (aka Donald) could respond as well as a co-ed (aka Edward).
And yes, to paraphrase Dick Francis, I have a mind like a grasshopper.
I got the don=Donald thing. But I didn’t think it was right. Now that I know that it was, I am supremely pleased with myself.
Oh, good. I was pretty sure too, but now I know!
No, no. I’m saying you rise above the surrounding landscape!
And your head is made of rock.
I’m pretty sure SDG and I are just having fun.
Oh, good. I was pretty sure too, but now I know!
In what universe do two “pretty sure”‘s make a “now I know”?
Bush: Does Iraq have WMDs?
Rove: I’m pretty sure.
Blair: I’m pretty sure.
Bush: Now I know!
And your head is made of rock.
Rock candy, because I’m sweet.
Twas me, saith the monolith.
Smoky, as well you should be. :^) You’re quicker than I am. Someplace else, someone posted the following and I read it ten times before getting it:
Rene Descartes walked into a bar. The bartender asked, “Want a drink?”
Descartes said, “I think not.” And disappeared.
With that, I have to toddle off to a commitment tonight.
LOL @ the Descartes joke.
Cogito Ergo Sum — NOT!
Co-don, here…
Aw, shucks, guys, I’m flattered…I think!? I’ve become a living legend. Where’s my prize, hmmm \:(
If the topic of this thread weren’t so blamed frustrating/depressing, I would take you all on in a pun contest, with one frontal lobe tied behind my back (wait, that doesn’t sound right…).
Well, I must skulk away, now, and work on my Dmitri Mendeleev impersonation. I must be the only chemistry professor who gives a lecture on the periodic table in a Russian accent. I would have thought it was the obvious way to go.
P.S. I know, I know…chemistry, eweee…part-time humor scholars have to eat, too…
P. P. S. I really do have a long-winded, very pedantic, tedious analysis of this thread topic (complete with charts), but every time I start to talk about non-independent modal probability theory and its effects on deontic logic, people start to laugh. Maybe, if I tell it with a Russian accent…yeah, let me see…
P. P. P. S. Mary Kay, if you meant some other, Donald…never mind…
For x = 1 to 4, Do
P.
End
S.
I have found the discussion of this topic both sad and helpful. In the midst of all of the fussing, fighting, arguing, and making-up in this combox, I hope everyone has thought to say a prayer for those unfortunate people who are caught in the middle of all of this (bishops, lawmakers, laymen, and victims).
Sometimes, if we allow ourselves to become really, really small and very, very thin in our own sight — if we begin to realize who we are in God’s eyes — that very small, very thin wisp of loved dirt, that nothingness that stands blind and begging before Everything, then, then, we begin to realize something very big and wide: that small prayers and thin hopes can sometimes slip through cracks the mind cannot yet follow and solve a lifetime of problems in a single, Amen. I cannot, yet, tell if mind or prayer is being tested in this situation. I can only tell that I am being tested.
Aren’t we all…
Though personally pro-life, I do have some problems concerning the practical aspects of a possible legal ban on abortion. Specifically, I was hoping if some of you here could provide some sentencing guidelines for the hypothetical situation (which many of you are striving to make real) where abortion is a crime.
Now the reason for making abortion a crime would be that it is considered to be the murder of a helpless human being. Should a woman having an abortion and the doctor performing it get the death penalty for this crime, as they would in most states for other types of murder? Accessories to murder are also subject to the death penalty, so wouldnt’ that include anyone who assists the woman in getting an abortion from the boyfriend who persuades her to have one to the friend who drives her to the (now underground) clinic?
If abortion = muder, why shouldn’t the death penalty be imposed? A lesser puishment wouldn’t fit the crime of premeditated murder, now would it?
However, in a few states without the death penalty, life imprisonment is the punishment for murder. Should the millions of women who have abortions and the thousands of doctors who perform them, and the accessories described above, be given life in prison? Do you wish to build enough prisons to house an effective doubling (tripling?) of America’s already over crowded prison population?
What should the punishment be for the crime of abortion? Opinions please.
Yeah, I’m personally opposed to rape too, but despite the fact that its illegal it still happens. So why are we paying money for all the prison space to house rapists. We should just legalize the rapes. Problem solved for everyone.
*it’s*
So Elijah you are more in favor of life in prison without possibility of parole for those who commit the crime of abortion (the women, their doctors, accessories, etc.)
Wouldn’t it be more cost efective to have them all executed instead of spending all the money deed to double/triple the size of our prison system?
As a follow up Elijah, FYI, there are a little over 3,000 American convicts on death row (2005 data) for crimes committed over a period of many years, while about 810,000 abortions were performed during the same year.
Now counting the women who have abortions (along with their doctors and an assumed equal number of accesories) the number of people added to death row for abortion would be about double this number, or 1,620,000 EACH year (at current rates).
That would represent a 540x increase each year in our current death row population.
Meanwhile, America’s current prison population is 2,186,230 inmates (2005 data). Life in prison for abortion would result in annual increases of about 75% in our prison population.
Are you sure you all have thought this thing through completely?
Etal,
Why are you assuming that the number of abortions would stay exactly the same once abortion were illegal? No one proposes that those who’ve had abortions during the time that it was legal be charged with a crime. The whole point of making it illegal is to reduce the number.
Secondly, apply your reasoning to any other crime and it doesn’t hold up. Yes, it would be more ‘cost effective’ to execute all criminals rather than feed and house them. It just doesn’t follow that the solution is making their crimes legal.
Thirdly, and I’m not going to start the death penalty debate here since it’s not the topic, I don’t see why, after abortion is made illegal and everyone knows it and knows the penalty that will be imposed for commission of it, it shouldn’t be treated as any other murder since that’s what it is.
This ‘personally opposed, but…’ stuff never comes from concern for the victim of the violence.
Etal, I would guess that Elijah simply forgot to add /sarcasm.
I always interested in people who say they are “personally opposed to abortion, but…” Maybe it’s because 99.9 percent of their words support abortion. Your phrase, that you are “personally pro-life,” yet also say “If abortion = murder” (I cleaned up your typo) is inconsistent. Bottom line: I’m not buying into your attempt to provoke until you explain what you mean by being pro-life in terms that people here would recognize.
Asking if you all have thought through the consequences of making abortion illegal is a provocation?
Still waiting for an answer to my oriinal request for some definitive sentencing guidelines. How should illegal abortion be punished? What should the penalty be and who should receive it?
As a follow up, it should be noted that if abortion is clasified as “murder” it logically, legally and morally follows that miscarriage is at least potential “manslaughter” or “negligent homicide” – at least until a police investigation clears the mother of wrongful or negiligent behavior.
Do you want every miscarraige to be investigated by the police for possible wrong doing?
Etal, how can you demand an answer when you evidently have not been honest with us? Why should any of us answer your sentencing provocation – and yes, it was a provocation – when you walk and talk the very opposite of what you claim to be, pro-life.
Mary Kay, what makes you think that the legal/judicial route is the only way or even the best way to oppose abortion?
I’ll bite: sentencing is an interesting point. Murder is still murder, and abortion is objectively murder and always will be. Yet some people, recognizably, are still blind to this basic fact. Seeking capital punishment against those blind souls and destroying the otherwise good practices of some of these doctors would seem to be lamentable, if it were necessary, but out of charity I suspect it is going (way) too far. Originally, I just assumed that you can attack future illegal abortions by levying huge fines at the doctors. For the most part that would probably shut down abortionist doctors real quick, but for those with ultra rich clients, it just puts a price tag on the unborn’s life which is unacceptable.
Ok, sharks, feed on this proposal (below), which I hope has the merit of being practical. I don’t even endorse it yet myself since there is a lot to think about, but I can’t see it as a horrible first attempt either:
If abortions are illegal in this country, given our recent past where they were legal, then fine each doctor $1,000,000 for the first conviction with 1-3 years in prison, with $10,000,000 and life sentencing for further convictions. Don’t punish the women, despite their equal or worse complicitness in the crime, except by making them enter programs that feature a correct theology of the body, whereby they hopefully learn about the heinousness of their acts. The state then leaves their consciences to God which is about as best as the state can practically do.
I think if these laws were enforced, the abortion rate would practically disappear overnight without overturning society as we know it.
Ugh, what a mess, but give me the day when abortions are illegal first, then let’s talk about sentencing. Mary, Mother of God, pray for us.
Ben
Ben, why only fine those guilty of murder? Why are you letting them off so easy? Why not puish the women, aren’t they equally guilty under the law? And if abortion were not equal to murder, why make it illegal?
As for making them enter programs that feature a correct theology of the body, how is this different than living in a theocracy like Iran?
Without giving it much thought, I think Ben’s on to something — focus the punishment on the offending doctors.
Etal, I attempted to answer your question to give you a starting point to think about some possibilities. I sincerely hope it helps you, but from now on I’m just going to quote myself, my own advice I probably should have heeded a half hour ago: “but give me the day when abortions are illegal first, then let’s talk about sentencing”. Since we know abortion should be illegal, let’s concentrate all our efforts on making it illegal for the moment.
I have no issue with sending women to prison for having abortions. As a matter of prosecutorial discretion, I don’t think the matter should be pursued, much like SIDS isn’t thoroughly investigated and deaths in nursing homes aren’t. Pro-lifers make this a lot harder than it needs to be.
Ben, why should abortion murderers, including the women, be punished less then other types of murderers?
Why are you so squeemish?
Etal, you missed or ignored my last post. Please, out of charity, refrain from visiting sentencing comments addressed to me again. I’ll repeat myself (again) for you: “but give me the day when abortions are illegal first, then let’s talk about sentencing”.
Happy blessed St. Francis of Assissi day!
“but give me the day when abortions are illegal first, then let’s talk about sentencing”
The whole point of my original comment was to ask what happens after it is made illegal.
Apparently, none of you have really thought this through yet or examined all of the implications. Now if you don’t want to do either, feel free not to respond.
Ben, why should abortion murderers, including the women, be punished less then other types of murderers?
Society does not change overnight. We are still trying to weed out racism 140 years after slavery was made illegal throughout the Union.
Making abortion illegal, with any form of punishment attached to violations (fines, some imprisonment, etc.) would likely reduce the number of abortions and therefore would be better than not making abortion illegal. Even just punishing the offending doctors would likely severely limit the number of abortions performed.
As generations pass, hopefully society will grow in a collective belief that abortion is horrific, much as the majority of society now believes that racism is horrific.
As society’s collective views toward abortion changes, sentencing can become harsher. But better to start somewhere NOW than endure legal abortion for another 40 years.
Etal, you missed or ignored my last post.
Ben, etal ignored my post also. Etal has not responded to my request to do something other than walk and talk like someone supporting abortion. In fact, etal is proving my point that his/her post was a provocation as he/she is ignoring anyone who doesn’t rise to the bait.
It’s the same sort of duplicitous behavior demonstrated by the Aurora PP and the only effective response is to shine light on it.
The only thing that is apparent about my beliefs from my comments is that spending energy on talking sentencing is practically pointless when our energies should be concentrated on stopping abortion.
I gave you a point from which you could start your own thoughts. If that failed to help you, I’m sorry I wasted my words. If it did not help you, perhaps you can explain what preconceived position it is that you have to help us understand your questions. However, I strongly believe you are wasting your time at the moment in your antagonistic questions when you can be concentrating on ridding the world of the scourge of abortion.
Really, the only situation on why you want to even attempt to carrry on the situation is that you are sympathetic with the abortionist’s cause. I think you need to explain yourself more fully to earn people’s respect for your questions.
“I have no issue with sending women to prison for having abortions.”
For how long? Life without parole as with other murderers?
“As a matter of prosecutorial discretion, I don’t think the matter should be pursued,”
You wouldn’t pursue murder? Why not?
“much like SIDS isn’t thoroughly investigated and deaths in nursing homes aren’t. ”
How are these accidental deaths even remotely related to the premeditated murder committed during abortion?
Why are you all so afraid of taking your own beliefs to their logical and legal conclusions?
“As society’s collective views toward abortion changes, sentencing can become harsher.”
If society’s views towards abortion change, you won’t have to bother changing the law.
Its also extremely hypocritical and cowardly to call abortion murder and then not punish it as murder. Where is the courage of your convictions?
“you are wasting your time at the moment in your antagonistic questions”
My questions are antagonistisonly if you are afraid of the consequences of your beliefs.
Etal, you overlook the fact that most of the time, women are the VICTIMS of abortion, right along with their babies.
The doctors are under no mental strain, no duress… they are not teenagers making decisions in a panic based on bad information or advice. They coldly and calculatedly perform abortions in order to make money.
There might be women who will be the rare exception and could be legitimately accused of murder, but because of the kind of mitigating factors I mentioned above, that is doubtful. Even most women who murder their own children in their beds or drown them in the bathtub are understood by most people to be mentally ill.
This isn’t always the case. Women can be selfish monsters, as well as men. But in cases of infanticide that is rare. Abortion is not the same thing, but most of these young women – girls – are desperate and have been deceived, pressured or coerced to boot.
That is why prosecution should be reserved for only the obvious cases of callous disregard for the life of the unborn child.
No, making abortion illegal will not result in great numbers of women going to jail, and it shouldn’t.
For how long? Life without parole as with other murderers?
I think 15 years is reasonable. Life without parole is not a common sentence. Mitigating factors should be taken into consideration. If an abused child murders his parents, we don’t send him to prison for life. That doesn’t make us relativists.
You wouldn’t pursue murder? Why not?
How are these accidental deaths even remotely related to the premeditated murder committed during abortion?
There’s significant evidence that they aren’t accidental. The problem with these cases and abortion cases is proving criminality. As a practical matter, the woman will more often be given immunity to testify against the abortionist. This is no different than the girls at a house of ill repute not being charged with prostitution when charges are being pursued against the owner of the house of ill repute.
Why are you all so afraid of taking your own beliefs to their logical and legal conclusions?
I did take them to the logical conclusion. You don’t like my conclusion, but that doesn’t make it illogical.
“Etal has not responded to my request to do something other than walk and talk like someone supporting abortion.”
I am pro-life.
Now why don’t you respod to my question, what makes you think the legal/judicial route is the only or best way to oppose abortion?
Hint: Try changing the culture, not the law (compare the efforts of MADD to make alcohol uncool/unfunny and their positive results with the abject legalistic failiure of Prohibition in the 1920s).
Tim, women who have abortions are at least accesories to murder. In most states this buys you the death penalty as much as anyone who actually pulls a trigger.
So why are you all so afraid to be logically consistent?
Hint: Try changing the culture, not the law (compare the efforts of MADD to make alcohol uncool/unfunny and their positive results with the abject legalistic failiure of Prohibition in the 1920s).
Etal:
Are you seriously regarding acts of murder (which is what abortion basically is as the end result is the death of an infant) as being equivalent to that of alcholism?
There’s a substantial difference between the two!
“I think 15 years is reasonable.”
So you would put the 800K+ women who have abortions each year into prison for only MOST of their remaining lives. Why shouldn’t they get the death penalty?
“There’s significant evidence that they aren’t accidental.”
By your own statement you would agree with my previous point (which nobody seems to want to answer) concerning the equivalency of miscarriage to manslaughter or negligent homicide if abortion equalled murder.
“As a practical matter, the woman will more often be given immunity to testify against the abortionist.”
So do a lot of accesories involved in murder cases. Your point is what exactly?
“I did take them to the logical conclusion.”
No, you weren’t logically consistent. You want to ban abortion because its murder, but don’t want to punish it like murder.
OK Esau, how would you punish abortion? What would be the penalties and who would recieve them?
(BTW, you completely missed my point)
…the equivalency of miscarriage to manslaughter…
Why would miscarriage be equivalent to manslaughter?
There are those women where the miscarriage is a result of their unfortunate biology or perhaps even a hysterectomy they had to get due to cancer.
etal, you claim to be pro-life, but your all your posts suggest that you are playing word games. Does your definition of “pro-life” allow abortions?
Now why don’t you respond to my question and indicate why you are not the abortion supporter that you walk and talk like.
(BTW, you completely missed my point)
Not really —
Hint: Try changing the culture, not the law (compare the efforts of MADD to make alcohol uncool/unfunny and their positive results with the abject legalistic failiure of Prohibition in the 1920s).
Perhaps back then, instead of changing the law concerning Slavery, we should have just made Slavery sound ‘uncool’, huh?
Theoretically, 800K women behind bars won’t cause me to lose sleep at night. In several states, certain sexual acts were banned under law. This didn’t result in even a minority of offenders behind bars. There are some schools of jurisprudence that believe you should make the law very specific and enforce it vigorously. I do not come from that school. I come from the school that says law should establish principles, and judges (and prosecutors) should be given wide discretion. In practical terms, I would not support the suspensions of liberty required and resources that would need to be allocated for 800K successful prosecutions.
Etal-
You conveniently avoided commenting on anything I said, except to say that I was “afraid” of being logically consistent, without actually showing at all where I WAS inconsistent.
Why do you hate women?
OK Esau, how would you punish abortion? What would be the penalties and who would recieve them?
etal,
Just because we can’t/wouldn’t punish folks for acts of abortion doesn’t negate the fact that abortion still is MURDER — regardless of your playful attempts at semantics (not to mention, your either/or fallacy).
Tim, my guess is that etal’s avoidance of any real discussion is because he/she actually supports abortion and to go out on a limb, is trolling for material to use against those who defend life.
Etal,
“Still waiting for an answer to my oriinal request for some definitive sentencing guidelines. How should illegal abortion be punished? What should the penalty be and who should receive it?”
I don’t know why you’re still waiting; I answered this question immediately by saying that it should be treated just the same as any other murder. Did you even read my post?
“Hint: Try changing the culture, not the law (compare the efforts of MADD to make alcohol uncool/unfunny and their positive results with the abject legalistic failiure of Prohibition in the 1920s).”
Hello?! Drunk driving IS illegal! (It is Mothers Against DRUNK DRIVING). But perhaps you think it shouldn’t be?
Really, just be honest that you aren’t really pro-life. If abortion is murder then of course it should be illegal and be punished. If abortion isn’t murder then you have no reason to be ‘personally opposed’.
Gang,
stop feeding the troll.
Back to the subject at hand:
NCBC publishes statement on Connecticut Bishop’s Plan B decision (with commentary) – on American Papist
the NCBC understands the judgment of the Connecticut bishops that the administration of a contraceptive medication in the absence of an ovulation test is not an intrinsically evil act. However, it is immoral to violate one’s conscience, including the corporate consciences of health care agencies, and the unwillingness of the state to allow an exemption of conscience makes the law unjust and onerous.
God Bless,
Matt
I’m not sure if this has already been posted as I’m still reading through all the comments, but I thought it useful to point out that Plan B has three possible mechanisms of action. Prevention ovulation is only one, it can also effect the movement of sperm…
My ref here is Epocrates, a database commonly used by healthcare professionals for drug info.
https://online.epocrates.com/u/10a2474/Plan+B
Mechanism Of Action
alters tubal transport of ova and/or sperm, preventing ovulation or fertilization; alters endometrium, possibly preventing implantation
I’m not sure if this has already been posted as I’m still reading through all the comments, but I thought it useful to point out that Plan B has three possible mechanisms of action. Prevention ovulation is only one, it can also effect the movement of sperm…
My ref here is Epocrates, a database commonly used by healthcare professionals for drug info.
https://online.epocrates.com/u/10a2474/Plan+B
Mechanism Of Action
alters tubal transport of ova and/or sperm, preventing ovulation or fertilization; alters endometrium, possibly preventing implantation
DSJ:
Thank-you for that!
I had my suspicions, but just couldn’t be sure; which is one of the reasons why wouldn’t actually classify this as an abortifacient or find anything particularly immoral if the bishops actually permitted its use for rape victims.
Esau,
possibly preventing implantation
That is abortifacient. It’s preventing implantation of a fertilized embryo– a human being.
God Bless,
Matt
Matt, I’d like to retract my earlier statement After reading [Bishop Lori’s] statement, I have decided that my disagreement with him falls within the realm of prudential judgement rather than the realm of moral principles.
I now say that the Supreme Chaplain of the Knights of Columbus has made a moral error – not merely a prudential one. I was misled by the alleged remoteness of the possibility of death. After all, we do risk death every day under the assumption that the risk is remote (driving to work for example).
What separates the lawful activities which risk death from the unlawful situation of Plan B is that with Plan B, the desired result might be achieved through rather than despite the risk of death. The risk of killing in a car someone does not actually help us achieve the desired objective of getting somewhere faster.
But the risk of killing in Plan B does help achieve the desired objective. Not even in warfare or self-defense does death necessarily help us achieve our desired objectives. The cases where it does are classified as war crimes.
Achieving desired objectivities through rather than despite death is the very definition of the culture of death. The decision of the Connecticut Bishops has poisoned their Dioceses and the Knights of Columbus with the culture of death that Pope John Paul II implored us to overcome.
An Open Letter to the Bishops of Connecticut
by Michael Augros at the First Things blog
The spirit of Michael Augros’s open letter is most constructive, unlike the bishop-bashing going on elsewhere. I hope it affects discussion at the highest levels in the Church.
Doing rape is a wrong thing.
http://www.addictionrecovery.net/connecticut
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julianamercy
Yes Jimmy, You are right. According to me we can stop anything until they realize it.
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Betty
connecticut drug rehab