Morning-after pill “is not emergency contraceptive but rather emergency abortion”

Buenos Aires, Argentina, Mar 8, 2007 / 10:32 am

The director of the Institute for Bioethics of the Catholic University of La Plata, Juan Carlos Caprile, said this week the morning after pill should not be called an “emergency contraceptive, but rather an emergency abortion,” since its many effects include the prevention of implantation of a fertilized ovum.

Caprile said the morning after pill that the government has begun distributing free of charge in the public heath care system “is abortifacient because it lessens notably the thickness of the internal part of the uterus, not allowing the embryo to become implanted between the 7th and 14th day after conception and eliminating it.”

“The latest scientific advances in molecular biology prove that the penetration of the ovum by the sperm marks the beginning of human life,” Caprile continued, “and therefore from that moment there is a unique and unrepeatable new individual who possesses all of the necessary information to develop his capacities.”

“It is for this reason that it has the right to life mentioned in the Argentinean constitution, en in the Declaration of Human Rights and in the Rights of the Child.  It should be treated with the dignity that it deservers as a person with a physical, biological and spiritual dimension and a sense of the transcendent,” he added.

This week the government of Nestor Kirchner began distributing the morning after pill free of charge in public health care facilities throughout the country as a part of a national program of “sexual heath and responsible procreation.”