Press Releases and Correspondence
CMA Responds to Connecticut Plan B Law
June 24, 2009
DATELINE November 5, 2007 – The State of Connecticut recently passed a law (which took effect on October 1, 2007), intended for the benefit of rape victims, which unfortunately violates both professional integrity and religious freedom. The Connecticut law, “An Act Concerning Compassionate Care for Victims of Sexual Assault,” forces physicians, health care providers, and institutions to provide Plan B medications to victims of sexual assault at their request, without regard to the actual need for such medications and without respect for the rights of conscience and religious freedom of these providers and institutions. This law is all the more unjust and egregious because it is unnecessary, as Plan B is already available over-the-counter.
The passage of this law has exposed divisions in the Catholic community over what constitutes appropriate treatment options for victims of sexual assault and how best to respond to laws that unjustly coerce the conscience of physicians, health care personnel and institutions. The bishops of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, in the face of significant debate (among scientists, about the mechanism of post-rape medications; among ethicists, about whether post-ovulatory effects of Plan B on implantation are best described as direct or indirect), lack of definitive Church teaching on this particular issue, and questions about how to best respond to the powerful legal and financial pressures exerted upon them by the state made a prudential decision, as is their right and duty, to apply Catholic moral principles in a way that permits compliance with Connecticut law for the time being. The Catholic Medical Association (CMA) has analyzed studies of post-sexual assault medications over the last several years. In the considered judgment of CMA representatives, scientific evidence supports the conclusion that all these formulations have some potential to prevent the implantation of a newly conceived human being.
The Catholic Medical Association believes that the most responsible course of action following sexual assault is to do everything possible to treat the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of the victim. Every caregiver should have as a goal the provision of compassionate and competent care. It is the task of physicians, health care providers and institutions to provide treatments guided by their clinical and ethical judgment. The crime of sexual assault should not be compounded by an action, the intent or direct effect of which causes the death of a human being in the first days of gestation. All human life is sacred and deserves protection and respect – even the life of a child conceived as a result of sexual assault. And no physician, health care provider or institution should ever be mandated to violate their conscience in offering treatment.
The Catholic Medical Association pledges its assistance to the bishops of Connecticut, and to other leaders in the Church and Catholic health care, in an effort to answer the outstanding questions that exist and to formulate an effective response to unjust and oppressive laws. The CMA calls upon these leaders, and upon representatives in law and medicine, to take all possible steps to protect human life and the right of conscientious objection in the course providing competent and compassionate care to victims of sexual assault.
The Catholic Medical Association is the nation’s largest professional organization of Catholic physicians. More information on the CMA can be found at http://www.cathmed.org.
