THE DEBATE OVER MIFREPRISTONE (RU-496) -
increasingly used for 'medical' abortion
Mons. Fisichella also has a front-page editorial in today's OR (8/1/09) about RU-486, which I hope to translate later.
Vatican official urges women
to consider morality, safety of RU-486
By Cindy Wooden
VATICAN CITY, July 31 (CNS) -- Even though taking the abortion pill RU-486 may be less traumatic than a surgical abortion, it still involves the taking of an innocent human life, said Archbishop Rino Fisichella, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life.
"It is still abortion," the archbishop said in an interview with the Italian newspaper
Corriere della Sera after Italy's drug-regulating agency approved nationwide use of the RU-486 abortion pill July 30.
The administrative council of the Italian Drug Agency voted to authorize the sale of the abortion pill, but placed two conditions on its use:
-- To comply with Italy's abortion laws, the pill must be administered in a hospital or clinic and the woman must remain there until the abortion is completed.
-- While most European countries have authorized use of RU-486 up to the ninth week of pregnancy, the Italian regulatory agency restricted the period to the seventh week of pregnancy.
In Italy, abortion is legal in all cases through the end of the third month of gestation, but the agency said that adverse reactions and the need to resort to a surgical intervention increased when RU-486 was used after the seventh week of pregnancy.
Archbishop Fisichella told
Corriere della Sera that "it is obvious that the canonical consequences" of using RU-486 are the same as those incurred for getting a therapeutic abortion: automatic excommunication.
[But if the woman chooses to take the medicine at home and against hospitalization, then the Church would be none the wiser, and so the 'automatic' excommunication may well be meaningless in practice.]
But he said women also should understand that according to information given to the Italian Drug Agency by Exelgyn, the distributor of RU-486 outside North America, 29 women have died after taking the drug, which was legalized in France in 1988 and is now available throughout most of Europe and North America.
"Do not take it, first of all, because it is evil," the archbishop said. "Do not do it because the collateral effects are not known. Do not do it because science should serve life, not death."
Taking the pill "is a direct and deliberate" abortion, he said.
"The fact that taking a pill can be less traumatic for a woman does not change the substance; it is still abortion," he said.
Here is a translation of the editorial that Fisichella wrote for the OR today (8/1/09). I must say that Fisichella's language and style are neither as forceful, expressive and clear as one expects from someone with his reputation.
When life is trivialized...
Editorial commentary
by Mons. Rino Fisichella
President, Pontifical Academy for Life and
Rector, Pontifical Lateran University
Translated from
the 8/1/09 issue of
There is a sad tendency that is imposing itself little by little into some fragments of contemporary culture: banalization.
From life to death, everything seems subjected to a simplifying process that tends to enclose everything in a private sphere without any reference to others. In this way, conscience is soothed and becomes progressively incapable of serious authentic judgment.
The use of the RU-486 pill as an abortion method has been a way to recover the capital invested after the failure of the clinical trials for the purpose it was originally intended.
Already, this 'banal' particular says much about the ends of the research that is being done in pharmaceutical laboratories.
To forget that science and technological research ought to have as their primary objective that of promoting life and the quality of life leads to an inevitable downslide that replaces this purpose with the thirst for profit rather than safeguarding nature.
Proclamations about the neutrality of science thunder forth at particular moments for the sole purpose of accrediting a product rather than the fundamental value of the research itself.
One cannot be complicit in these situations, courageously denounced by Benedict XVI in his last encyclical,
Caritas in veritate, when human life itself is at stake.
To stop at merely analyzing cost and benefits in order to introduce RU-486 into the market is a very Pilate-like position which demands reflection to avoid falling into other forms of similar hypocrisy.
There should be an authority that is up to the task of considering the grave risks to which women are subjected the moment they decide to have recourse to this drug.
How can one minimize the fact that there have been too many deaths resulting from this treatment? How can the ethical aspects of the use of this pill not be considered? How can one ignore the impact it will have on the new generations of women who will now have much easier recourse to abortion because of this pill?
These questions are, in fact, not obvious, and require a response that must ndertake specifically not to resort to commonplaces. Sophisms, in this case, can serve personal satisfaction but cannot persuade as to the tragedy of the situations which must be confronted.
It is futile to equivocate. RU-486 is an abortifacient because it tends to suppress the embryo that has newly implanted in the mother's uterus. That the use of this pill is less traumatic than a surgical abortion has yet to be demonstrated.
The first trauma begins from the moment when the woman decides she does not want the pregnancy, and it is precisely at this point when one must intervene to help her, to make her understand the value of the life that has just begun.
The embryo is not just a mass of cells nor a kind of fungus as someone recently had the gall to call it: it is a human life, true and complete. To suppress it is a responsibility that no one should take on without really understanding its consequences.
The use of Ru-486 does not make abortion any less traumatic - it simply encloses it even more in the solitude of a woman's privacy and prolongs the trauma.
One must reiterate that those who do use it are performing direct and deliberate abortion. They should know its canonical consequences, but most of all, they should be aware of the objective gravity of their action.
Abortion is an evil in itself because it suppresses human life - a life which, even if initially can only be seen through a microscope, already possesses the full dignity that is due to every person.
The respect merited by an embryo is not any less than the respect we have for any person out on the street and who only asks to be treated for what he is: a human being.
The Church can never be passive to what is taking place in society. It is called on to render ever present that proclamation of life which has allowed it over the centuries to be the visible sign of respect for human dignity.
The path that must be followed becomes at certain times much more laborious, because it is difficult to make it understood that the way to maintain the primacy of ethics is not to calmly provide an abortion pill but rather to form consciences.
This task is arduous because it requires not just first-hand involvement but the ability to make oneself be heard and to be credible.
The opposition of the Church to every method of abortion affirms daily the YES to life that it means. This also signifies reiterating our alert about the educational emergency, so that young people may understand the importance of adopting those values which live on as a patrimony of Christian culture and of personal identity.
We can never habituate ourselves enough to the beauty of life, from the first moment when it makes itself felt in the womb of a mother to that extreme moment when it has to leave the world.
For this reason, in the face of the superficiality that so frequently imposes itself on our life, our commitment must persist to form consciences capable of grasping everyday the need to experience sexuality, affection and love - with joy and not with concern, anxiety or anguish.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 02/08/2009 05:18]