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It’s a curious thing, this absence of any mention of today’s Plan B hearing in the morning papers. How is it that the hottest controversy of the 2006 session rates no mention the day of the 2007 hearing for the same bill?

We sent an e-mail alert late Friday to our membership asking them to attend the hearing and, if possible, testify. The e-mail seemed to cause a panic on the Left, with dire warnings about our “working for months” to turn people out for today and sinister references to all the money we supposedly give to state legislators. So, to keep the fun going, we sent another alert this morning.

In truth, though, we’re not expecting a big crowd today–that will come later this month. But it is instructive to note the fear we apparently instill in those who insist they don’t take us seriously. Claims to the contrary notwithstanding, it seems they take us very seriously indeed.

Seriously enough, in fact, to honor us with the “lying liars”-style stuff they throw at the White House. So let’s say it again: Yes, Plan B may prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum–even the manufacturer’s web site says so. And yes, that is an abortion, because human life begins at conception, not fertilization. So yes, the real purpose of the Plan B bill is to attack the religious liberty of Catholic hospitals by forcing them to provide chemical abortions. And no, no Church leader opposes this bill because of his opposition to contraception–a suggestion made by, ironically enough, a blogger questioning the intellectual honesty of Plan B’s Catholic opponents.

For more on the Church’s response to Plan B see the information provided here.

25 Responses to “Hearing Today on Pro-Abortion Bill Attacking Religious Liberty”

  1. on 13 Mar 2007 at 1:46 pmSteve

    It is curious. Strange that the fair and balanced CT media would fall prey to such an oversight.

    What’s also curious is that liberal blogdom first came out insisting that since Catholic hospitals accepted state money, they were compelled to do whatever the state imposed — but once it was pointed out that the proposal would compel catholic hospitals to administer Plan B whether or not they accepted state funds, the argument changed to one of catholic hospitals’ adherence to accepted medical procedures.

    First, I’m wondering why the argument changed. Is it just me – or does it seem like the left is on a mission but in search of a reason?

    Second, I’m wondering how far the left will go with the second argument. Following that reasoning, shouldn’t catholic hospitals also be forced to perform surgical abortions? Shouldn’t every doctor since doctors are also licensed? It is a “medical procedure”, after all.

  2. on 13 Mar 2007 at 2:00 pmSteve

    (By the way, I hope my sarcasm in the first line above isn’t overly subtle…)

  3. on 13 Mar 2007 at 5:20 pmDoug

    Steve,

    Bravo! To the extent that any of them even really know or even care what the true history and definition of the “Separation of Church and State” is, that is why liberals do not refer to that phrase in the reverse chronology as the “Separation of State and Church.”

    Perhaps Catholic hospitals should refuse state funding to etsablish autonomy and then file suit against the state for religious discrimination when it still tries to force this tyranny down their throats.

    Beat them with their own rules!

  4. on 13 Mar 2007 at 7:15 pmchele

    Great idea Doug. I think that’s exactly what the Catholic hospitals should do!

  5. on 13 Mar 2007 at 8:52 pmLisa

    Catholic hospitals cannot refuse state money – they no longer would be able to operate on their own without that funding.

  6. on 13 Mar 2007 at 11:52 pmmatt

    The Compassionate Care day was fun, lots of good testimony. One of the original FDA commissioners that approved Plan B for OTC use gave a thorough description of what it does and does not do (for example, there’s some evidence that the progesterone actually promotes implantation, but prevents fertilization without damaging the uterine wall).

    It was a shame you had to head out without testifying, Peter, I was hoping to see you in action. The national Right to Life guy was a very poor proxy, he got winded on his way up to the microphone and couldn’t string two sentences together. Overall a poor showing by the right (many left early), such that testimony heard before the committee went at least 6-1 in favor of the bill. I was impressed by the lawyer for the Catholic hospital in Waterbury, though: he obviously had his marching orders, but talked through a lot of the hospital’s rationale in a very compelling way in discussing it with legislators.

    And much as I love covering him, Lou DeLuca doesn’t do you guys any great favors: having him saying “look, 400 rape victims a year don’t outweigh 2000 years of church history” is a profound net negative, and as his testimony got longer and longer, committee members were asking him questions just to prompt him to say something foolish.

    I’d be interested in reading something by the CT-based “natural law” guy (spoke right after the Right to Life representative), but I don’t remember the name and don’t know if he writes columns or LTEs.

  7. on 14 Mar 2007 at 7:24 amchele

    Lou DeLuca is a piece of art. I hope somebody got that “400 rape victims” line on tape.

  8. on 14 Mar 2007 at 10:28 amSimon

    Peter:

    You said “So let’s say it again: Yes, Plan B may prevent the implantation of a fertilized ovum–even the manufacturer’s web site says so. And yes, that is an abortion, because human life begins at conception, not fertilization. So yes, the real purpose of the Plan B bill is to attack the religious liberty of Catholic hospitals by forcing them to provide chemical abortions.”

    Just to be clear, accepting as true that in some limited cases the adminsitration of Plan B is the functional equivalent of an abortion does NOT mean that the real purpose of the Plan B bill is to attack the religious liberty of Catholic hospitals by forcing them to provide chemical abortions. Your argument is silly (in that you try to create a syllogism that just ain’t there) and it is wholly unnecessary.

    Look, just say that the bill would, in certain instances, force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions which is contrary to their being and end it there. You might even be able to argue that the bill impacts religious liberty (though I am not sure that it does). But even if it is true that religious liberty is impacted, that doesn’t meant that the REAL PURPOSE of the bill is to attack religious liberty.

    You have the opportunity to make a pretty strong and compelling argument without trying to make this look like a Catholic witch hunt. I’d suggest you sieze that opportunity, because in trying to make this look like a bill motivated by anti-Catholocism, you lose credibility. It seems much more evident that the REAL PURPOSE is to protect rape victims. This really isn’t motivated by anti-Catholocism notwithstanding the anti-Catholic effect.

  9. on 14 Mar 2007 at 10:53 amPeter

    Simon, I appreciate what you’re saying but I don’t think it’s true: either that the bill isn’t really about attacking religious liberty or that saying so out loud costs us credibility. Go back and look at state Victim Advocate James Papillo’s 2006 testimony again. Then and now no one has come forward to say “I was raped, went to a Catholic hospital and was denied Plan B.” The Church conducted its own study and, during the time period under review, found not one rape victim denied Plan B for the reasons this bill is supposed to address. Add to that the role of NARAL and Planned Parenthood–and the main rape crisis group’s membership in a “pro-choice” coalition–in pushing this billand it does indeed appear as if there’s another motivation at play here.

  10. on 14 Mar 2007 at 11:27 amChris

    So now victims of rape must come forward and admit to the world that they were raped and not given proper medical treatment? You’re a piece of work, Peter.

  11. on 14 Mar 2007 at 11:44 ammatt

    There was survivor testimony yesterday to the effect that it was not offered, though she wasn’t aware between all the antibiotics and blood tests etc that she hadn’t received contraception until some time later. I don’t recall whether or not it was in a Catholic hospital, because frankly, why hospitals are falling down on the job isn’t especially interesting to advocates of the bill. Victim services groups found in their survey that 18 hospitals — 3 Catholic, 15 secular — didn’t offer every rape victim the standard dose of EC. Whether or not a hospital or individual doctor is failing in their responsibilities because of religion or some other reason doesn’t really matter: it just needs to be fixed.

  12. on 14 Mar 2007 at 12:29 pmPeter

    Chris, your opinion of me is irrelevant. Matt, it does matter why a hospital did not provide Plan B to the victim you mention. Read the paragraph in today’s Courant story about the 47 patients who were not given Plan B in Catholic hospitals and why. Absent more information, my point about there being no victim to come forward and say she was denied Plan B “for the reasons this bill is supposed to address” stands.

  13. on 14 Mar 2007 at 12:52 pmtruebluect

    Peter–

    If your wife was brutally raped and impregnated by some criminal, you would want her to have the rapist’s baby?

    I’m sorry I just can’t believe that to be the truth.

    In this case your are pushing your ideology way too far, and putting it in front of commonsense and basic human decency.

    Stop and think about it. And if you opposing this law, I would like for you to state for the record that if a tragic rape happened to my wife, your wife or anyone else’s wife, –and a pregnancy resulted, — you believe the woman should then have the rapist’s baby.

  14. on 14 Mar 2007 at 1:37 pmmatt

    Well I suppose the CT Catholic hospitals’ advocacy position is interesting, insofar as it ignores that Plan B prevents fertilization and ovulation, but not implantation, making the drug entirely consistent with Directive 36 as well as all medical and scientific standards of care.

    But while some people at the hearing addressed the intellectually bankrupt position described above — almost all of whom were Catholic themselves — almost everyone who testified simply ignored the junk science you guys are pushing and advocated directly for victims.

    Part of my testimony was that despite cultural pressures against bearing a rapist’s child and moral and religious objections to contraception, the duty of the committee was to protect rape victims from either influence when it comes time to make that moral and medical decision for themselves. Is that anti-Catholic?

  15. on 14 Mar 2007 at 1:38 pmmatt

    TrueBlueCT, I would submit that, much to his possible chagrin, Peter would not get a say in that situation.

  16. on 14 Mar 2007 at 2:29 pmRobin

    I guess some of you don’t really understand what it means to protect the life of the unborn child and to be truly pro-life.

    Rape is a horrible thing to have happen to any woman. But our culture has come to devalue life to such a degree that we would take the life of a child conceived in rape, thinking that that would help take the memory of the rape away from the woman. We think nothing of the life created (in VERY, VERY rare instances) by the act of rape, except that he or she would be some horrid reminder of what happened.

    Instead we put the woman through a procedure or expose her to a drug so that she is assaulted once more, as is the life she carries.

    I am a woman with a legal right to abort a child. I’m sure I would speak for Peter and his wife that for no reason whatsoever would I feel a need or right to dispose of any life in the womb, no matter what the nature of his or her conception was. For those of you who still don’t get it: Yes, there are millions of us women who would lovingly bring a child conceived in rape to term.

    Psychologically you do nothing for a woman to assault her again with an abortion or plan B after she is raped. Unfortunately instead of providing love and support for these women and their child (again, conception from rape being a VERY rare occurrence), we have made them believe that the child they would carry from a rape would be just another beastly sexual predator like their father. We aren’t even willing to give that child a chance or counsel the woman otherwise.

    Of course the world’s mentality is that no one should suffer…period. That gives us the “right” to make an innocent life, hidden in the womb, suffer without a voice to scream out in pain. We commit another violent act to try to “undo” the initial act of rape. And then we have the nerve to want to force Catholic hospitals to provide for this disservice!

    Wake up, people!

  17. on 14 Mar 2007 at 3:04 pmchele

    Robin,

    I do sincerely hope that your fine sentiment and brave words are never tested in the real world.

    But fine as your words are, they are simply beside the point.

    If you were to be raped, and subsequently offered Plan B in an emergency room, you would be completely free to turn it down, allow fertilization to occur, and bear the child. No one will interfere with your freedom to do so.

    No one is attempting to force their beliefs on you.

  18. on 14 Mar 2007 at 7:19 pmRobin

    Chele,
    Agreed…although I don’t find it a brave act to carry an innocent child to term.

    My response was to truebluect who could not believe that a woman would be willing to carry a child of rape to term.

    No one is interfering with my freedom to carry a child to term. That is true. They are, however, interfering with that child’s right to life, a right that the Catholic Church upholds.

    By forcing Catholic hospitals to offer Plan B for all rape cases, even when it would destroy a human life, others are “forcing their beliefs” on this hospital’s standards of care.

    These are Catholic hospitals and this is the Catholic standard. No one forces a woman to go to a Catholic hospital for care. It’s all about choice, right?

  19. on 15 Mar 2007 at 7:59 amChris

    Robin, you made the point very well. Pro-abortionists are imposing their beliefs on Catholic run hospitals in effect saying by law, you don’t have the right to your religious beliefs and uphold them. Yes, I’d say that is an stepping on religious freedom. It probably wouldn’t matter if the Catholic hospital took state funding or not, the law would make the hospital act against its tenets. If it came down to it, the church would no longer be associated with running the hospital if they were forced to perform abortions. And that’s what the bottom line pro-abortionists and pro-gay agenda is: remove all religious influence from our society so they can feel good about what they are doing. After all, we are living in “it’s all about me” culture.

  20. on 15 Mar 2007 at 9:43 amTrueBlueCT

    Robin–

    I would vouch that the vast and overwhelming majority of women, if given the choice, would not want to have the child of their rapist. Never did I say that every last woman would opt to prevent a pregnancy following a rape.

    Chris–

    The RC hospitals and one lone bishop are the ones doing the imposing. They are forcing their beliefs on the health care consumer, in this instance the rape victim.

  21. on 15 Mar 2007 at 12:09 pmchele

    Robin, Chris, et al.

    Plan B is NOT an abortifacient. It does NOT interfere with implantation of the fertilized egg.

    Dr. Frank Davidoff offered expert medical testimony at the legislative hearing. You can read his entire statement here:

    http://www.myleftnutmeg.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=6149

    The facts important to this discussion are:

    “It’s also extremely important to make it clear that Plan B is not the abortion pill, RU-486, although many people confuse the two. Plan B does not work if a woman is already pregnant and will not have any effect on an existing pregnancy. In fact, data show that when Plan B is used after pregnancy is established, it increases neither the rate of pregnancy loss nor the frequency of fetal abnormalities.

    How does Plan B work?

    I recently co-authored an article in the October 11, 2006, Journal of the American Medical Association, which summarized what’s currently known about the mechanism of action of Plan B. Our study was based on all of the available research to date. What we found, first, was published evidence clearly indicating that Plan B can prevent sperm from reach the egg to fertilize it. The drug does that by thickening the layer of mucus that covers the uterine cervix, and through which the sperm need to travel.

    Second, the research also shows that Plan B prevents ovulation if it’s taken prior to the ovulation stage of a woman’s menstrual cycle. Despite claims that Plan B may work to prevent fertilized ova from implanting, an exhaustive review of the available studies on the mechanism of Plan B has revealed no evidence to support that hypothesis. In fact, the most careful and rigorous study that’s been done to date, which was published just last month in the scientific literature, showed that while Plan B was nearly 100% effective in preventing pregnancy when it was used before ovulation occurred, it was almost completely ineffective in preventing pregnancy when it was used after ovulation and fertilization had occurred.

    Taken together, the available scientific evidence is incompatible with the possibility that Plan B prevents implantation or development of a fertilized egg. Let me say that again. There is no convincing scientific information to support the claim that Plan B interferes with implantation or development of a fertilized egg.”

    Catholic hospitals aren’t trying to stop “abortions.” They’re trying to stop contraception. They should be honest.

  22. on 15 Mar 2007 at 12:12 pmchele

    Chris,

    If Catholic hospitals cannot operate according to the standard of care and offer medical treatment unencumbered by religious doctrine, then they should get out of the hospital business and concentrate on religious business.

    Doctors are not priests; priests are not doctors.

    Hospitals are not churches.

  23. on 15 Mar 2007 at 12:16 pmChris

    TrueBlue-RC hospitals are not forcing their beliefs on the consumer, they are practicing what they believe. The health consumer is treated compassionately and given all the options. The consumer has free will to make the choice for themselves. Not all hospitals offer specialized care, there are many instances where patients have to be transferred to a different facility because it can’t be taken care of at that particular hospital. Are we going to pass laws so that every hospital is required to offer specialized services to avoid being transferred? Enough laws already and leave the Church alone.

  24. on 15 Mar 2007 at 8:09 pmChris

    Chele- The Catholic hospitals are giving plan B before ovulation but not after. As you indicated in your article Plan B has no effect after ovulation and fertilization has occured so what’s the point? If the patient still wants Plan B after ovulation, it can still be had and the Catholic hospital does let that option be known.

    Regarding your 2nd post; true drs. are not priests etc. However, the Church = the people who also hold those beliefs. Perhaps the doctors and staff that choose to work at Catholic hospitals do so as not to compromise their morals. Patients may also choose a Catholic hospital for the same reasons, knowing their beliefs won’t be conflicted there. Freedom to practice ones faith is what being attacked here. So, yes, let’s be honest, the Catholic hospital is denying no one proper care. Besides, if you don’t think you’ll get the service you want at a Catholic hospital, there are secular ones to choose from.

  25. on 16 Mar 2007 at 5:30 amSteve

    If Catholic hospitals cannot operate according to the standard of care and offer medical treatment unencumbered by religious doctrine, then they should get out of the hospital business and concentrate on religious business.

    You see Chris, the left doesn’t just want to separate religion from the state, they want to separate it from anything public by law. Religious freedom is a great thing – provided you keep it to yourself.

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