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Plan B and Ella: Morning After Contraceptives Can Induce Abortion

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A culture comfortable with viewing persons as products to be used rather than unrepeatable gifts to be received from the Giver of all life views human life, when inconvenient, as something to be discarded.

The U.S. Federal Government unilaterally decided to define pregnancy as beginning at implantation not fertilization."Plan B" can result in the taking of human embryonic life when it makes implantation of a newly fertilized oocyte impossible.

Highlights

P>WASHINGTON,DC (Catholic Online) - Last year, the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced that she had overruled a decision of the Food and Drug Administration to make "Plan B" available on the shelves of drug stores for teenage girls to ingest to either prevent pregnancy or to evict human life. This lethal chemical concoction is now deceptively billed as an "emergency contraceptive".

In 2003 the "Food and Drug Administration" (FDA) of the United States Government held a public hearing on "Plan B"  and recommended making it available over the counter without a prescription. Heralded by its proponents as a "morning after" pill, it was purported to be different from Mifepristone (RU-486), which induces a miscarriage at any time after conception.

Medical evidence disputes the claim that this self ingested chemical concoction is always "contraceptive" in preventing fertilization. Even the FDA's own Question and Answers admitted this with these words: "Plan B works like other birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation)."

The Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life's Statement released on October 31, 2000 explained: "The morning-after pill is a hormone-based preparation. which, within and no later than 72 hours after a presumably fertile act of sexual intercourse, has a predominantly "anti-implantation" function, i.e., it prevents a possible fertilized ovum (which is a human embryo), by now in the blastocyst stage of its development (fifth to sixth day after fertilization), from being implanted in the uterine wall by a process of altering the wall itself. The final result will thus be the expulsion and loss of this embryo."

In 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Holy See issued an "Instruction on the Respect for Human Life in its origin and on the Dignity of Procreation"  Among the many questions it answered with absolute moral clarity was: "What Respect is due to the human embryo, taking into account his nature and identity?" The answer given by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church: "The human being must be respected - as a person - from the very first instant of his (her) existence."

In a 2008 Instruction on the Dignity of the Human Person, considering "Certain Bioethical Questions" we find a thorough treatment of many Bio-Ethical issues of the hour. We also find a simple insight which cuts right through the fog surrounding this matter, "It must be noted, however, that anyone who seeks to prevent the implantation of an embryo which may possibly have been conceived and who therefore either requests or prescribes such a pharmaceutical, generally intends abortion."

Whether you listen to the Church or to the State, you get to the same place - "Plan B" can result in the taking of human embryonic life when it makes implantation of a newly fertilized oocyte impossible. This new human life, seeking shelter and nourishment in the first home of the whole human race finds that there is no room. "Plan B" renders this new human life homeless by subverting "Plan A" which is to welcome her/him into the mother's womb, the first home of every human person.

"Plan B" can thus become a direct chemical attack on a unique human life seeking refuge, a chemical landlord refusing shelter to the newest member of the human family. This legitimate concern does not even take into account the other danger, the unknown effects this massive dose of a hormone may have on the woman (girl) who ingests it.

"Plan B" contains a concentrated massive dose of progestin. It can therefore become a "Pre-Emptive" chemical strike, acting before that new life becomes some kind of "officious interloper" in the womb in some instances. In effect, the mother evicts her own child.

The Pontifical Academy wrote: "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."

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The U.S. Federal Government unilaterally decided to define pregnancy as beginning at implantation not fertilization. They have now become the purveyor of a kind of new secular "morality" of their own these days. Their "sanctioning" of what can be a lethal act seems intended to provide consolation to the woman who may be ejecting the very human life seeking to develop and grow within their womb

"Plan B" is in reality one more weapon against life in the culture of death. A culture comfortable with viewing persons as products to be used rather than unrepeatable gifts to be received from the Giver of all life views human life, when inconvenient, as something to be discarded.

In our foreign policy we understandably search the world for weapons of mass destruction before they can cause untold tragedy. Yet, in our domestic policy we seem eager to approve "pre-emptive" chemical concoctions for women - and now for girls. An agency of the most powerful government on the earth seems all too eager to equip children to kill children.

Then, there is that "emergency contraception" called "ella". Nancy Frazier O'Brien of the Catholic News Service explained in an article entitled "Ella's effects go beyond contraception to abortion, experts say" exposed the danger.

"In marketing materials for ella, the emergency contraception pill that will be available without co-pay or deductible to American women of child-bearing age under the new health reform plan, a cartoon character egg peeks out from behind a glass door while a cartoon character sperm stands on the steps, apparently cajoling her to come outside."

"I can't come out for five days," the egg tells the sperm. The ad goes on to tout the drug's "power to help keep these two apart" and says ella, known generically as ulipristal acetate, "provides extra time for extra pregnancy prevention."

"But that's not all it does. "Ella may also work by preventing attachment to the uterus," say the materials distributed by Watson Pharma Inc. of Morristown, N.J., which sells ella."

"It is that effect of preventing the fertilized egg from attaching to the uterine wall that can make ella (spelled with a lower-case e) an abortifacient and has led the U.S. Catholic bishops and others to criticize the Department of Health and Human Services' decision to include it among the preventive services for women that nearly every health plan in the United States will be required to cover.

"No emergency contraception would work very well if it only worked to prevent ovulation," said Dr. Kathleen Raviele, a gynecologist in private practice in the Atlanta area. "It has to have other effects."

As Christians, we proclaim the God who became Incarnate in the womb of a young woman; Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. This Jesus walked the way of every human person. That included taking that extraordinary journey into the first home of the whole human race, his Mother's womb. This chemical concoction called an "emergency contraceptive" may result in the eviction of an embryonic human person. It can ensure there will be no room in the womb for millions for whom He came.

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