Distribution of morning-after pill prohibited in Chile

Santiago, Chile, Jun 23, 2009 / 11:50 am

The National Comptroller’s Office of Chile, which oversees a wide range of government activities, issued a decree on June 16 prohibiting the distribution of the morning-after pill by all municipalities and by any private or public organization.

The decree states that municipalities are legally forbidden from implementing any policies or programs that imply the use or distribution under any title of the morning-after pill. It also ordered all public health care facilities to refrain from making the drug available through their services.

Attorney Carmen Dominguez, director of the Family Center at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, said the organization sent a petition last October to the Comptroller’s Office requesting a ruling on whether municipalities could distribute the pill, even though the Supreme Court previously prohibited its sale in similar circumstances.

Dominguez explained that the decision by the Comptroller directly confronts the actions of the government, which had used local municipalities to distribute the pill in order to get around the ruling by the Supreme Court.

The president of the Chilean Bishops’ Conference, Bishop Alejandro Goic, underscored the Church’s position in support of human life, even in difficult situations. “We must save lives, because the child who has been conceived through rape is not an aggressor. The aggressor is the one who abused that woman,” he said.

Speaking on Radio Cooperativa, the bishop stated, “I would tell women and candidates to look for the causes that produce these situations and not to focus only on the effects. I feel they are attacking the effects but not the causes of the problems,” he said.