New York City High Schools Dispensing 'Plan B' to 14 Year Old Girls is Social Lunacy

Does it make sense to give 14 yr old girls a chemical weapon to ingest? This "emergency contraceptive", may result in the eviction of an embryonic human person. Even if it does not, does it send the correct signal about the dignity of every human life and about that girls own dignity?  Does its distribution respect the role of parents and serve the common good? To dispense "Plan B" to 14 year old girls in High School is social lunacy.

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P>WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) - The Associated Press reported that  "New York City is dispensing the morning-after pill to girls as young as 14 at more than 50 public high schools, sometimes even before they have had sex."  This is part of a program which bears the acronym CATCH, "Connecting Adolescents To Comprehensive Health".

The program bypasses the primacy of parents in their indispensable role in the lives of their children way of its use of an "opt out" requirement rather than an "opt in". The presumption of the Nanny State social engineers in New York City is that these girls as young as 14 have some kind of right to get these drugs, free of charge.

This is the same City which will not allow these girls to buy sugary soda out of a feigned concern for their health? We are losing our collective mind! We are now handing out so called "Plan B" to 14 year old girls, at taxpayer expense, in High School! In fact, such practices will soon become normative if the "Affordable care Act" or "Obamacare" is fully implemented.

In 2003 the "Food and Drug Administration" (FDA) of the United States Government held a public hearing on "Plan B"  and recommended making it available over the counter without a prescription. Heralded by its proponents as a "morning after" pill, it was purported to be different from Mifepristone (RU-486), which induces a miscarriage at any time after conception.

Medical evidence disputes the claim that this self ingested chemical concoction is always 'contraceptive' in preventing fertilization. Even the FDA's own Question and Answers admitted this with these words: "Plan B works like other birth control pills to prevent pregnancy. Plan B acts primarily by stopping the release of an egg from the ovary (ovulation). It may prevent the union of sperm and egg (fertilization). If fertilization does occur, Plan B may prevent a fertilized egg from attaching to the womb (implantation)."

The Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life's Statement of October 31, 2000 explained: "The morning-after pill is a hormone-based preparation which, within and no later than 72 hours after a presumably fertile act of sexual intercourse, has a predominantly "anti-implantation" function, i.e., it prevents a possible fertilized ovum (which is a human embryo), by now in the blastocyst stage of its development (fifth to sixth day after fertilization), from being implanted in the uterine wall by a process of altering the wall itself. The final result will thus be the expulsion and loss of this embryo."

In 1987, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of the Holy See issued an "Instruction on the Respect for Human Life in its origin and on the Dignity of Procreation"  Among the many questions it answered with absolute moral clarity was: "What Respect is due to the human embryo, taking into account his nature and identity?" The answer given by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church: "The human being must be respected - as a person - from the very first instant of his (her) existence."

In a 2008 Instruction on the Dignity of the Human Person, considering "Certain Bioethical Questions" we find a thorough treatment of many Bio-Ethical issues. We also find a simple insight which cuts right through the fog surrounding this matter, "It must be noted, however, that anyone who seeks to prevent the implantation of an embryo which may possibly have been conceived and who therefore either requests or prescribes such a pharmaceutical, generally intends abortion."

Whether you listen to the Church or to the State, you get to the same place - "Plan B" can result in the taking of human embryonic life when it makes implantation of a newly fertilized oocyte impossible. This new human life, seeking shelter and nourishment in the first home of the whole human race finds that there is no room. "Plan B" renders this new human life homeless by subverting "Plan A" which is to welcome her/him into the mother's womb, the first home of every human person.

"Plan B" can thus become a direct chemical attack on a unique human life seeking refuge, a chemical landlord refusing shelter to the newest member of the human family. This legitimate concern does not even take into account the other danger, the unknown effects this massive dose of a hormone may have on the woman (girl) who ingests it. "Plan B" contains a concentrated massive dose of progestin. It can become a "Pre-Emptive" chemical strike, acting before that new life becomes some kind of "officious interloper" in the womb in some instances. In effect, the mother evicts her own child.

The Pontifical Academy wrote: "It is clear, therefore, that the proven "anti-implantation" action of the morning-after pill is really nothing other than a chemically induced abortion. It is neither intellectually consistent nor scientifically justifiable to say that we are not dealing with the same thing."

The U.S. Federal Government has unilaterally decided to define pregnancy as beginning at implantation not fertilization. They have now become the purveyor of a kind of new profane secular immorality posing as morality. Their sanctioning of what can be a lethal act seems intended to provide consolation to the woman who may be ejecting the very human life seeking to develop and grow within their womb

"Plan B" is one more weapon against life in the culture of death. It is also another sign of our moral decay. A culture comfortable with viewing persons as products to be used rather than unrepeatable gifts to be received from the Giver of all life views human life, when inconvenient, as something to be discarded.

In our foreign policy we understandably search the world for weapons of mass destruction before they can cause untold tragedy. Yet, in our domestic policy we seem eager to approve "pre-emptive" chemical concoctions for women - and now for girls. An agency of the most powerful government on the earth seems all too eager to equip children to possibly kill children.

As Christians, we proclaim the God who became Incarnate in the womb of a young woman; Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. This Jesus walked the way of every human person at every stage of development throughout the continuum of human life. That included taking that extraordinary journey into the first home of the whole human race, his Mother's womb, and living it what was once the safest place on earth. Now, that once safe place is bombarded with chemical weapons.

Does it make sense to give 14 yr old girls a chemical weapon to ingest? This "emergency contraceptive", may result in the eviction of an embryonic human person. Even if it does not, does it send the correct signal about the dignity of every human life and about that girls own dignity?  Does its distribution respect the role of parents and serve the common good? To dispense "Plan B" to 14 year old girls in High School is social lunacy.

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