Lima, Peru, Feb 12, 2009 / 14:55 pm
The Director for Latin America of the Population Research Institute, Carlos Polo, expressed his bewilderment this week at the “efficiency” of Peru’s Ministry of Health in coordinating the distribution of the morning after pill at all of the country’s health care facilitates just days after the a federal Court in Lima ruled the pill is not an abortifacient.
Speaking to Catholic News Agency, Polo pointed to statements by Lucy Del Carpio, National Coordinator for Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare Strategies of the Ministry of Health, who said on Peruvian radio that “in all the healthcare facilities of the country the Emergency Oral Contraceptive, also known as the morning after pill, is being distributed free of charge.”
“Could the Ministry of Health be so efficient in correcting this ‘deficiency’ of morning after pills for poor women in just a few days? Does the Ministry act just as quickly in the case of antibiotics, vaccines and other basic medicines?” Polo questioned.
Polo noted that in 2004, then-Minister of Justice, Baldo Kresalia, said the morning after pill could be constitutional and could therefore be distributed if it was shown that it was not an abortifacient.