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Friday, August 1, 2014

When Catholic Academics Abandon the Unborn



by Austin Ruse
Crisis Magazine

A few weeks ago Lisa Fullam, a featured blogger at dotCommonweal, the blog of the politically liberal magazine Commonweal, posted “Hobby Lobby and Science” in which she clarifies for us how the “science” does not support the claims made by the Hobby Lobby plaintiffs and, incidentally, the Catholic Church.
She writes, “In medical terminology, a woman is not considered pregnant until the developing embryo implants in the uterine wall, approximately a week after fertilization, (so on average about 7-10 days after ovulation). Since one can’t have an abortion until one is pregnant, by medical standards contraceptives that block implantation by changing the uterine lining are not abortifacient.”
Fullam then says, “Roman Catholic magisterial teaching on the other hand, holds that the developing embryo should be treated as a person from conception.” Have you ever noticed it is usually those with a thing about the Church who use “Roman” rather than just “Catholic?”
Having established the fact that pregnancy begins not with fertilization but with implantation, Fullam explains how none of the contraceptives objected to by Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood—Plan B, Ella, and two forms of IUDs—could cause abortions because each of them only inhibits ovulation and none of them harm the implanted embryo.
continue reading at http://www.crisismagazine.com

Austin Ruse is president of C-FAM (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), a New York and Washington DC-based research institute focusing on international legal and social policy. The views expressed here are not necessarily those of C-FAM.

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