World Renowned Theologian: No Plan B

World Renowned Theologian Renders Possibly Decisive Blow in Debate on Plan B in Catholic Hospitals
Says that "even if the pill in Plan B is only 'dubiously' abortive, we simply may not use it at all"

WASHINGTON, DC, October 22, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In what is likely the most significant contribution to date in the debate over the use of the so-called "emergency contraception" pills at Catholic hospitals, renowned theologian Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner has written on the subject. The Doctor of Sacred Theology who has been teaching theology in Franciscan universities and seminaries in the US and Italy for forty years, has questioned the basis on which the whole issue is based - namely whether it is permitted for Catholics to administer Plan B even if it acted as a contraceptive rather than causing abortions...

Fr. Fehlner, who was the North American Superior for the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate in the United States from 1996 to 2002, dismissed outright the use of Plan B at Catholic hospitals where there is any doubt as to it possibility of causing an abortion. "The fact is, if we have any doubt about whether a given action would directly risk someone's life, entail a violation of justice or threaten the salvation of a soul, we may not act on the basis of a scientific probability," he writes. "That means even if the pill in Plan B is only 'dubiously' abortive, we simply may not use it at all..."

However, beyond the question of the abortifacient effects of the pills, Fr. Fehlner - a familiar name to those who watch EWTN, points out that the Church teaches that contraception is intrinsically evil and thus is not permissible even in cases of rape.

An excellent article at LifeSiteNews.

More here.

There is this as well:

Editor's note: Fr. Fehlner's two essays on the topic also address the 'lotio' and the concepts of natural and unnatural sins which are key to a full Catholic theological understanding of this debate. Interested readers may read Fr. Fehlner's essays on the subject here:
http://www.airmaria.com/?p=576 (Part 1)
http://www.airmaria.com/?p=602 (Part 2)