Imposing Plan B

The Associated Press reported yesterday that a growing number of states are considering enacting laws which would require all hospitals to make the morning after pill, also known as "Plan B," available to rape victims. This obviously isn't going to sit too well with the Catholic Church, which has always said that morning after pill is for one thing contraception and therefore always wrong, and for another thing will rather often double as an abortifacient, which is murderously wrong.

Seven states already require all hospitals to give it out, and twelve more states are considering it. And if you want to talk about media bias, have a look at the description attributed to the Merger Watch Project, the activist group behind this legislation: "A New York-based group that fights religious restrictions on patient rights and health care."

Yet again, we have a mainstream news organization framing the debate, taking for granted that the morning-after pill is a "patient's right" that can be legitimately described as "health care." Meanwhile they leave it up to the specifically Catholic sources in the story to frame the debate from the other perspective, namely that this is an attack on Catholic institutions, particularly (although this was never stated explicitly in the story) on the Church's "freedom of conscience"--which is so integral to the practice of religion free of government intervention. I guess the First Amendment is a red herring when reproductive empowerment is involved.

The main objection to this not just from the activists but from many in the "conflicted middle" is: Yes, but we are not talking about reproductive empowerment. We are talking about relieving a young lady of the terrible burden of carrying a child who was conceived during an act to which she did not even give consent.

These situations are certainly tragic, but sanctioning abortions in these circumstances, be they medical abortions (as in the case of the morning after pill) or surgical (as in suction, saline, or partial-birth abortions), would imply that the deliberate killing of the most defenseless human beings among us could conceivably be the solution to a problem if the problem is bad enough. But the Church has always recognized the contrary: that abortion in whatever form it takes is not the solution to a problem, but quite a traumatic problem in itself. It is not that the Church cares nothing for the best interests of the victims of rape who come into hospitals. It is that the Church cares too much to make the woman a victim twice, first by rape, and then by abortion.

This issue actually gives me a good opportunity to address a question that was posed to me by a student of mine a few weeks ago. Not long ago, in an address to the Pontifical Academy for Life, the pope made rather plain (or strongly implied) that it is the Church's position that new human life begins at the moment of conception. The immediate context was explaining why the Church cannot endorse research procedures that destroy human embryos, even if those embryos are not implanted. The same argument applies to the morning after pill.

But this student was confused because she had heard on television (that wonderful source of timeless wisdom) that it says in Leviticus that "a thing is not living until it has blood running through its veins." Now, we all know today that it takes a good three weeks or so for a child to form a vascular structure and a beating heart. Well well well, this TV program mused, if it takes this length of time for those blood structures to form, and a thing is not living until it has blood running through its veins," then perhaps Moses wouldn't have such a big problem with Plan B?

My initial response was that i would have to see this verse, since I had never read it. But I also pointed out that the Bible is not a scientific treatise but a divine revelation, and that it cannot be read the same way a biology textbook is read. Even so, I was curious and went looking for this verse, but was unable to find it. Unfortunately, my student couldn't recall the exact citation or the program on which she had heard of this.

But lo, a few days ago I was putting together "New York Times violates pro-choice orthodoxy," and I came across a page on the Concern Women for America site that directly addressed what this student had told me about. It was an article entitled "Life is in the Blood" by CWA contributor Kelli Wait. She talks about a recent episode of the CBS crime drama CSI , in which one of the main characters presents his argument for the point at which life begins. He actually cites a passage from, that's right, Leviticus, chapter 17 verse 11: "The life of a living body is in its blood" (NAB).

But as Wait points out:

Scripture has to be taken in context. The full passage in Leviticus 17 reads, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (NKJ). This reading makes it obvious that the Biblical reference is about sacrifice and atonement, not about when life begins.

Leviticus 16 and 17 have been called The Laws of National Atonement. In these chapters, God tells His people how to atone for their sin. He emphasizes the necessity for sacrifice.

Nothing in the chapter has anything to do with when life begins, and it is erroneous for anyone to use the Leviticus passage as support for abortion. While it is true that blood enters the embryo on the 18th day, one cannot argue that Leviticus 17:11 supports a pro-abortion position.

Neither then can such pseudo-intellectual games be played by those who favor the morning-after pill. The temptation may be very great to try to reframe or redefine life, particularly in cases of rape, so as to provide an easy out.

Neither then can such pseudo-intellectual games be played by those who favor the morning-after pill. The temptation may be very great to try to reframe or redefine life, particularly in cases of rape, so as to provide an easy out.

But the Church's belief, and the fact of the matter, is that life is always a blessing, even when to the human mind it seems most burdensome and its circumstances the most tragic. And when some activists lobby to require the Church to supply abortifacient drugs to rape victims or anyone else, they are not merely asking the Church to change her practice, but thereby to ignore that fundamental attitude towards life: that it is not a liability, but a gift.