Posted on 05/06/2005 6:23:19 AM PDT by St. Johann Tetzel
WASHINGTON, May 5, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A study funded by the radically pro-abortion organizations, the John Merck foundation and Catholics for a Free Choice, surveyed staff at all 597 Catholic hospitals in the United States and found that only 55% of them refused to dispense the abortifacient morning after pill.
Despite the deceptive name, “emergency contraceptive” works in many cases by stopping an already formed unborn child from attaching to the uterine wall. This effect is disputed by no reputable scientists. Catholic medical ethics is clear that abortion is, in all cases, and at all stages of development, the moral equivalent to murder and can never be condoned.
There could be trouble ahead for those Catholic hospitals who still adhere to Catholic teaching moreover. Washington State, Illinois and California have laws requiring emergency rooms to provide rape victims with information about the drug.
“What Catholic hospitals do is based on religious directives,” says Sister Sharon Park, executive director of the Washington State Catholic Conference. “They follow the teachings of our religious beliefs, which are protected under the First Amendment.”
The question remains, however, if Catholic hospitals adhere to Catholic moral teaching. The Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services which are supposed to be followed by Catholic hospitals in the US contain some serious ambiguities. One clause says, that a woman who has been raped “should be able to defend herself against a potential conception from the sexual assault.”
The rules say, “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.” The use of testing to determine pregnancy is, however, extremely unreliable before some time has elapsed in a pregnancy. The morning after pill requires that no more than 72 hours has passed to be effective. Even a blood test cannot determine pregnancy within 72 hours of conception. Sister Sharon Park said that the use of ‘emergency contraception’ could be allowed in some cases because the drug does not in every case cause an abortion.
This ambiguity is rapidly becoming par for the course in modern Catholic hospitals. The erosion of Catholic medical ethics can be seen in the widespread support among Catholic bioethicists for pre-term inducement of pregnancy with handicapped children and passive euthanasia.
Read Interim article on the prevalence of euthanasia support among Catholic bioethicists:
http://www.theinterim.com/2004/jan/03priestargues....
Why? I have not taken that responsibility on myself. It is unfortunate that the other person has to die, but I have no moral duty to help them.
Your logic is the groundwork for all socialist and communist programs run by government. Following your logic, if the government were to leave a comatose person in your living room and told you to take care of them, you would have a moral obligation to do so.
Corrected your statement.
They are fools who have fallen for the trickery. Every imbecile who has been cheated by a grifter or con man fell for the trick. It played on their greed.
I'm not a religious person, but if I were I would run screaming from any suggestion that my particular group get intertwined with government when it came to charitable works.
Or any other activity if they are smart.
The circumstances NEVER warrent killing an innocent person. If you want to put the rapist to death and liquidate his assets, so be it. But you cannot make innocent individuals who also did not consent to being put into this situation the victim.
Using your logic, were a newborn child to be orphaned through an automobile accident, the child's next of kin could leave him to starve on the street because they "did not consent to take on that responsibility in the first place."
The solution is to make childbirth safer. If you are talking about the burden of raising a child, that burden does not exist as there are hundreds of thousands of couples - here in the US - that will take a child even if they have severe medical defects.
Modernman,
Given your silly "correction" in 42, I am not convinced if your presence here is to argue objective truths. Most moderns are disinclined to do so, and your screen name makes modernity your distinguishing characteristic, which you seem to wear proudly. But here it goes.
Your moral duties are not limited to contractual duties, which arise from consent. Most people, for example, are free from contractual obligations to not murder anyone outside of your family, yet we have a duty not to murder.
Your second argument, regarding supposed justification of socialism, contains no logic. Most errors, and socialism is no exception, refer to objective truths as they reach wrong conclusions. This is no reason to discard the truth. For example, if an airplane is designed badly and falls on the ground, that would not falsify the laws of gravity. Where is the socialism's error? Socialism imputes a situation of dependence where none objectively exists. Generally, a poor man's life does not depend on the rich man's possessions. Since there is no dependence, there is no duty to distribute wealth. In the situation of pregnancy, the baby's life is directly dependent on the mother's body, so the motherly duty is objective rather than imagined. Similarly in the contrived example with the kidnaping and the gurney.
I find it ironic that your Tagline quotes a deathbed convert to Catholicism.
Sure. But without the mother's consent to such dependence, she has no moral duty to continue such dependence.
A moral duty cannot be forced upon you by the actions of another.
Your analogy in Post 20 fails to connect the issues. In your analogy, the beneficiary is being kept alive by extraordinary means, and would therefore not necessarily be entitled to live at the burden of others. In which case, non-consent is moral grounds to demand release from the imposed obligation to keep another person alive.
Because a person has no obligation to support the life of another or to risk her own life in support of another if that obligation was not first entered into with the consent of the person.
Both of you have been very helpful to me along with another poster in a thread on euthanasia yesterday. Not perhaps in the way that you intended.
Your posts and his yesterday demonstrate the total moral bankruptcy of the libertarian position.
I have often dabbled in libertarianism, a hold-over from my days prior to coming into the Church when I was a garden variety libertarian/republican.
Their arguments, like these are always so flowery and can be very persuasive as they pontificate about rights and choices and consent, but its sophistry and lethal sophistry at that.
You are your name for sure - modern man. Unfortunately that's not a compliment.
If you provide abortifacients, regardles of any other consideration, you assist in murder. You feelings, or absence of feelings, do not alter the objective subjective moral reality opinion.
Corrected your statement.
She quoted for your the determination of the teaching magesterium of the Church, supernaturally protected from error in matters of faith and morals - we are required to give assent of mind and will in such matters or your a protestant, plain and simple.
Many people misuse the word 'ironic.'
I am a man. The androgynous screen name reflects my desire not to abandon my wife Ann as I roam the wilderness of the Internet.
What about Pearl Harbor, perpetrated by the Japanese? What greater moral duty was there at the time but to register for the draft, which was forced upon U.S. citizens by law?
ACK!!! Mea culpa... anna = woman I thought LOL....
I'm a monarchist and therefore I despise democracy and republicanism, but it is what we have so I support the major party closest to my views and that would be the Constitution Party .
I support the restoration of Christendom including all illegaly deposed monarchs of Europe (Hapsburgs and Bourbons in particular) and the social Kingship of Jesus Christ as authoritatively adminstered by the Holy Roman Catholic Church
Monarchy and theocracy are not ideas congruent with a Free Republic.
I explained in 47 why consent does not antecede rights or duties.
Well, you think you explained it. But you failed utterly, as usual.
You have a rational argument in here somewhere?
By voluntarily living in a society, you consent to abide by its laws.
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