Prayers requested to revoke FDA decision on Plan B

August 31, 2006

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

One of the primary responsibilities of a bishop is to teach. In today's Globe, I assume that role on a topic that is critically important to all Catholics. This is serious business and I indulge you to read my words carefully as I address the theological implications of a government decision that is nothing short of appalling.

PLAN B

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved Barr Pharmaceutical's emergency contraceptive drug "Preven," also called "Plan B," for over-the-counter sales to women over 18. With that decision, the government has now made it more difficult to buy a dose of Sudafed than it is to buy a pill that potentially could interfere with the creation of a human life!

The Church consistently teaches the sanctity of every human life from conception to natural death. This kind of drug does not respect the sanctity of life. It is promoted by the "culture of death," and it is a great spiritual danger in our midst.

So-called "emergency contraceptive" drugs are designed to prevent a successful pregnancy in several ways. They may suppress or delay ovulation, or they may inhibit the movement of sperm; these mechanisms are indeed contraceptive. The drugs may also slow the movement of an ovum through the Fallopian tube; this may prevent contact between ovum and sperm, but it also dramatically increases the risk of potentially fatal ectopic pregnancy. To address this risk, the drugs also inhibit implantation of a fertilized ovum; this results in an aborted pregnancy.

Whether this kind of drug prevents conception (if taken prior to ovulation) or prevents implantation (if taken after ovulation), it clearly represents a grave moral evil.

I don't think I need to emphasize that, if this drug is an abortifacient, and taking it for this purpose could involve one in directly procured abortion. There is also the question of the selling of this drug. This, too, could be a seriously moral issue. From the very beginning, the Catholic Church has consistently taught that this is absolutely opposed to divine law: "You shall not kill" includes every human being at every stage of development, from the moment of conception, since "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you" (Jer 1:5; cf. Job 10:8-12; Ps 22:10-11). "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2270).

CHURCH TEACHING ON CONTRACEPTION

The Church has been consistent and clear in her teaching about contraception. Even in those situations in which ovulation has not yet occurred when emergency contraception is taken, use of these drugs still represents a grave moral evil. The Catholic Church holds and teaches that contraception is always a moral evil: "'[E]very action which, whether in anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render procreation impossible' is intrinsically evil" (CCC 2370, quoting Humanae Vitae 14).

Let's look again at why we teach this truth. "When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created" (Gen 5:1-2). The complementarity of male and female is devised and sanctioned by God our Creator as an intrinsic part of our human nature (CCC 2331). By it, we learn that we are not self-sufficient creatures. Socially, emotionally, physically, spiritually, we are made for communion. Ultimately, of course, we are made for communion with God, not merely with other people; but we can never be fully human in isolation from others.

Sexuality is one of the most profound aspects of this complementarity (CCC 2332-3). We cannot "be fruitful and multiply" (Gen 1:28) singly, or in groups, but only in pairs of one male and one female. Thus marriage is part of the intention of God from the moment of creation, and the morally licit context for sexual activity (CCC 2335-6).

Within marriage, sexuality promotes both the communion of the spouses with each other and with God (unitive aspect; CCC 2360); and also the creation of new life (procreative aspect; CCC 2363). "These two meanings or values of marriage cannot be separated without altering the couple's spiritual life and compromising the goods of marriage and the future of the family" (CCC 2363).

SEXUALITY AND MARRIAGE

Thus, the proper, divine meaning of sexual activity, intended by God and promoting spiritual and physical wholeness, is this: by a sexual act, one gives oneself totally and without reservation to one's spouse, and therefore also to God, in submission to the risen Christ's absolute, providential reign over creation. This includes one's re-commitment to one's spouse uniquely, to whom one ever pledges one's physical, emotional, and sexual fidelity (CCC 2365). This also includes one's willingness to accept as a divine gift any life that might result from sexual intercourse. "A child does not come from outside as something added on to the mutual love of the spouses, but springs from the very heart of that mutual giving, as its fruit and fulfillment" (CCC 2366). Contraception is a moral evil precisely because it short-circuits this meaning, separating the unitive and procreative aspects. When one engages in a contraceptive sexual act, one withholds part of one's self-gift from one's spouse, and from God. One declares that one rejects Christ's providence; that one is more in control of the history of salvation than God; that one's own will, not His, be done.

That this contraceptive intent is now possible outside of the sexual act itself merely highlights the idolatrous promotion of one's selfish will in rejection of the divine will. In choosing to prevent conception after the fact of intercourse, one is second-guessing God's omnipotent mastery of His creation. "Taste and see that the Lord is good" (Ps 34:8) does not mean license to sample creation's delights, and then decide that the Lord is not, in fact, that great after all.

This is the moral teaching of the Catholic Church on contraception generally; we should, however, recognize the special situation created by sexual assault. In this case, "[a] woman who has been raped should be able to defend herself from a potential conception and receive treatments to suppress ovulation and incapacitate sperm. If conception has occurred, however," it is contrary to Catholic morals to "dispense drugs to interfere with implantation of a newly conceived human embryo" (Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services, 4th ed., 2001: ¶ 36). In this one case, because the violence of the assault itself has already disordered the sexual act, contraceptive intervention may be licit - provided it is truly contraceptive, and not possibly abortifacient.

My brothers and sisters, I ask you to join me in praying daily for the revoking of this FDA decision, and, until that happens, for the grace that women will refuse to make use of this immoral tool. May our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Light, shine in our hearts and minds at all times.

Your brother in Christ,

Most Reverend R. Walker Nickless
Bishop of Sioux City