What is up with medical ethicists?

Stevens Point Journal - Catholic ethicists disagree on definition of procedure

Posted August 27, 2007

Catholic ethicists disagree on definition of procedure By Shenandoah Sowash Journal staff Members of the Catholic community vary in their definitions of emergency contraception, some believing it causes abortions.

"The science tells us that it is an abortive agent as life begins at conception. One of the effects of emergency contraception is to change the environment inside a woman's body, thus making the contraceptive an abortive agent," said Marie Hilliard, director of bioethics and public policy for the National Catholic Bioethics Center, a Catholic think tank based in Philadelphia.

[. . .]

Susan McCarthy, director of clinical ethics for Ministry Health Care, disagrees with Hilliard's definition of emergency contraception. "Accepted medical practice is that EC is not an abortive agent. It's noncontroversial and well accepted among Catholic theologians that it is not an abortive agent. I have not read anything that indicates otherwise," she said.

Hilliard also discussed post-abortive stress syndrome, a controversial "illness" comparable to post-traumatic stress disorder, often a resulting diagnosis after a sexual assault. "It normally comes 10 years after an abortion and can be very painful," Hilliard said. Data is currently unavailable as to the possibility of a woman taking emergency contraception and developing post-abortive stress syndrome. However, a majority of literature addressing the syndrome comes from pro-life sources, including crisis pregnancy clinics.

An article from the Journal of the American Medical Association discredits the concept of a post-abortive illness, calling it a myth. McCarthy was unfamiliar with the syndrome, saying a woman who had taken emergency contraception would not experience the illness. "We're talking about pre-fertilization here. A lot of things are theoretically possible, but abortion just doesn't even come into the equation here," she said.

---

Dear editor,

Comments made by Susan McCarthy as quoted in the August 27th article "Catholic Ethicists Disagree on Definition of Procedure" by Shenandoah Sowash misrepresent the Catholic position on emergency contraception and require correction. Ms. McCarthy stated that emergency contraception is, "noncontroversial and well accepted among Catholic theologians that it is not an abortive agent. I have not read anything that indicates otherwise." Sadly, it seems that Ms. McCarthy is a little behind on her professional reading. It is nearly universally accepted among moral theologians that the contraceptive act is not a concern in the case of rape, since rape already steals the sexual act of the meaning and purpose that Catholic moral teachings on sexuality seek to preserve. However, there is still a lot of discussion among Catholic theologians about the moral acceptability of emergency contraception, precisely because of its abortifiacient potential.

Ms. McCarthy seems to be unaware that the "accepted medical practice" defines pregnancy differently than do Catholic moral theologians. Accepted medical practice has redefined pregnancy to mean the point at which the embryo is embedded in the uterus. Rejecting the marginalization of any human being or group of human beings that robs them of human dignity, moral theologians pinpoint of the moment of fertilization as the beginning of pregnancy, since science shows us that an embryo has human DNA from the moment of conception. So, when "accepted medical practice is that EC is not an abortive agent," or that EC has no effect on an established pregnancy, "accepted medical practice" does not consider an action of preventing implantation an abortion because it does not consider pre-implantation fertilization a true pregnancy. However, as a Catholic ethicist, Ms. McCarthy should realize that chemical interference with implantation is considered an abortion by the Catholic Church. The controversy among moral theologians revolves around the possibility of identifying whether a rape victim is pre-ovulatory or post-ovulatory. If the point of her cycle can be pinpointed, EC could be administered to pre-ovulatory women to suppress ovulation, but could not be administered to post-ovulatory women because the only action it could have at that point would be abortive. Since current practice and protocols make it difficult to ascertain whether or not a woman has ovulated, some theologians say that EC should never be used. Other theologians say that it is enough to take reasonable measures to determine the point in the woman's cycle.

I do not mean to make an ad hominem attack here, but I have to scratch my head at a medical ethicist for a Catholic hospital system that fails even to get the question right.

Powered by ScribeFire.