USCCB: 'Does the HHS mandate include abortifacients?'
April 24, 2014
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities has published a fact sheet entitled “Does the HHS mandate include abortifacients?”
“One problem is confusion about the word ‘abortion,’” according to the publication. “HHS uses it to describe only the disruption of an already implanted pregnancy. However, because a human life begins when sperm and egg meet to form a new living organism, the moral problem of abortion arises whenever a drug or device destroys the new embryonic human being, for example by preventing his or her implantation in the uterine wall needed to survive.”
The fact sheet concludes that “the abortifacient potential of Plan B is disputed but cannot be dismissed at our current state of medical knowledge. There is a broader consensus on the anti-implantation potential of the copper IUD and Ella -- and on Ella’s ability to disrupt pregnancy (induce abortion) even after implantation. So the ‘contraceptive’ mandate also raises an abortion problem.”
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