More on Plan B in Connecticut

I may have been a bit harsh in my rhetoric regarding the Connecticut Bishops decision to allow Plan B pills to be given to Rape victims. As I have looked into the issue a bit more the facts of the case become a bit greyer.

There are, in fact two separate issues going on here. 1) Is plan B an abortifacient? and 2) Is it permissible to use a contraceptive outside of the context of marriage?

Tackling question two first; I would venture to guess that most faithful catholics would answer in the negative, however this may not be the case. Jimmy Akin has put forward an argument (not one he necessarily subscribes to) that Humanae Vite (that is the papal encyclical that condemned contraception) does not address the use of contraception outside of marriage, and thus the issue is still up for some debate:

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 [Humanae Vitae]. 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.

Given this argument I am not prepared to deny contraception to rape victims until and unless the Church comes down with a statement on the issue.

Which leads us to the first question, Is Plan B an abortifacient? Unfortunately there is ambiguity on this question. Here is what the Manufacturer of the product says:

Plan B® is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization This would be OK if contraceptives outside of marriage is OK (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation i.e. kills the fetus by preventing implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun. [emphasis added and comments in red]

in other words, we're not really sure what this stuff does, or we really do know what it does, and aren't going to tell you. Neither case is good. So the bishops of Connecticut have stated that it's OK to administer Plan B without an ovulation test because we don't know what it does.

The argument that we can actively do something that may kill someone as long as we really don't know that it will is specious at best. You can't fire your gun in random directions and then claim that it's OK as long as you have your eyes closed. We must err on the side of life, and this is not what the Shepherds of the Connecticut faithful are doing. So while their argument that "Catholic moral teaching is adamantly opposed to abortion, but not to emergency contraception for victims of rape." may be true, it does not address the the issue of life and it fails to take that life seriously.