Emergency contraception in Connecticut
Kasia September 28th, 2007
I’m not particularly well-versed in bioethics, so someone with more knowledge is (as always) welcome to correct me in the combox.
The Connecticut bishops have dropped their opposition to a new law setting standards for emergency contraception in Connecticut. (See Thoughts of a Regular Guy, The Curt Jester, American Papist, etc.) Their argument is that they’re not convinced an abortion really could take place with EC.
My understanding of the matter was that EC acts in two ways: it suppresses ovulation if it has not already occurred, and it prevents implantation if ovulation has already occurred and the egg is fertilized. The former is morally permissible for victims of a sexual assault, according to Catholic teaching; the latter is not. Thus Catholic hospitals made it standard practice to perform an ovulation test before administering EC.
The law expressly prohibits a hospital from making anything other than an FDA-approved pregnancy test the basis for its decision to withhold EC. Trouble is, if you’re talking about a victim coming in twelve, twenty-four, thirty-six hours after being raped, I don’t think a pregnancy test would register yet. Wikipedia cites the earliest possible pregnancy test as testing for early pregnancy factor (EPF), which is detectable within 48 hours after fertilization. Fertilization can happen what, as early as 30 minutes after sex?
I’m assuming from the text of the law that if I, God forbid, am raped and turn up in a Connecticut hospital, I can still ask for an ovulation test before I decide whether to take EC. I hope I’m right. I’m still concerned about overanxious hospital administrators being reluctant to administer ovulation tests, but let’s assume they’d give me the test if I asked for it.
The rest of this, however, is still troubling. What the legislature has effectively done is stacked the deck against Catholic hospitals trying to follow Catholic teaching.
I don’t know what proportion of hospitals in Connecticut are Catholic, and I don’t know whether they are actually owned by the Church or whether they are simply private hospitals that were originally Catholic and have retained the name and some vestiges of Catholic identity. But I am really uncomfortable with the direction this law takes us in, both morally and legally.
In other news, I saw a post about a Methodist facility in New Jersey losing its tax-exempt status because it refused to allow same-sex ceremonies. Which brings me back to my primary objection to gay marriage: it’s not my business what consenting adults choose to do, but to force religious institutions to acquiesce is more than a little troubling. And I had a feeling years ago that it was not just about being legally able to marry, but about whether anyone else had the right to refuse to participate in it. It looks like the State of New Jersey is suggesting that churches don’t or shouldn’t have that right. We’ll see what happens with that.
)