Pope Benedict told a delegation of Catholic pharmacists that they should exercise their right of “conscientious objection” by refusing to provide “products that have clearly immoral purposes such as, for example, abortion or euthanasia.” Benedict specifically warned against the use of “certain molecules that have the goal of preventing the implantation of the embryo.”
The statement follows a controversial decision by Connecticut’s bishops to allow that state’s Catholic hospitals to administer the so-called morning-after pill, Plan B, to rape victims without an ovulation test. The church permits contraception in cases of rape (something I didn’t know until I read this), but the bishops’ critics warn that giving Plan B to an already pregnant woman could provoke an abortion, which the church forbids in all cases.
Yet the pope’s remarks do not necessarily refer to Connecticut in particular. Hard as it may be for us Americans to believe, Rome has a whole world to think about. As A.P.’s Nicole Winfield notes: “The issue came to a head on Monday in Chile, when the government warned it could close drugstores that refuse to sell the morning-after pill, which has been legal in Chile since last year for sale to girls as young as 14.”