Lima, Peru, Sep 18, 2005 / 22:00 pm
The Bishops’ Conference of Peru has issued a statement demanding the country’s Ministry of Health make public the international scientific information that has not discounted the potential abortifacient nature of the morning-after pill. Likewise the bishops denounced an effort to keep Catholics from participating in public debate on the issue.
Released by the Conference’s executive committee, the statement warned that health authorities are being deceptive by claiming that the scientific debate has been settled when the international scientific community has not disproved the pill’s anti-implantation mechanism, which would make it abortifacient.
A review of current scientific studies shows that the pill’s anti-implantation effect has not been disproved; rather, it is a part of the effectiveness of the misnamed “emergency oral contraception.”
The bishops questioned the publication by the Health Ministry of only seven scientific studies to justify the distribution and sale of the drug in a country where abortion is illegal, and they said the information lacks transparency and objectivity.