Plan B Negotiations Still in the Works
April 11th, 2007 by Peter
Despite continuing negotiations with the Catholic Church, the state Senate plans to press forward with a vote today on a bill that would require all hospitals to provide emergency birth control pills to rape victims…
The bill the Senate plans to consider today would allow Catholic hospitals to contract with an independent health care provider who would conduct the rape examination and provide the pills in the emergency room.
Contracting with an independent provider could allow the pills to be dispensed in a Catholic hospital without violating the abortion ban.
But is that last sentence true? The article itself notes that the Church is still waiting for an opinion from a Catholic ethicist on whether the proposal violates Catholic teaching.
More:
The compromise proposal also would require the Catholic hospitals to drop their requirement that rape victims submit to an ovulation test before they could get Plan B. Lawmakers would allow a pregnancy test as a prerequisite for prescribing emergency birth control pills.
This is potentially a more serious sticking point than the “3rd party” part of the proposal. It’s the New York and New Jersey standard that pro-abortion forces are so eager to have Connecticut’s Catholic hospitals adopt. Remember the Church’s response regarding it:
10) Do Catholic hospitals in New York and New Jersey follow a different protocol than Connecticut?
Yes.
However, the protocol followed by Connecticut’s Catholic hospitals is endorsed by the National Catholic Bioethics Center. Illinois and Pennsylvania follow a protocol similar to Connecticut’s and we anticipate that these will become the mainline standard for Catholic health care nationally [emphasis added]. When New York and New Jersey adopted legislation concerning the distribution of Plan B to rape victims, no such standard was in place.
And my take on that response:
It seems that Connecticut’s Catholic hospitals have incurred the wrath of the abortion industry by being among the first to adopt a policy that will eventually be adopted by all the nation’s Catholic hospitals. In addition to the obvious infringment on religious liberty, Connecticut’s Plan B bill may be intended as a pro-abortion threat to the Catholic hospitals of other states: If you craft a protocol that faithfully adheres to the teachings of your Church we will do to you what we are trying to do to your peers in Connecticut.
