Action urged on morning-after pill

Abortion rights supporters urged House Speaker Thomas M. Finneran yesterday to allow debate on legislation to make the morning-after contraceptive pill more easily available, over fierce objections from Catholic Church leaders who say that the bill would force Catholic hospitals to violate the church's teachings on abortion.

The bill, approved by the Senate June 16, would require all Massachusetts emergency rooms to distribute information about the morning-after pill to rape victims and, if requested, to make the pill available to the patient. The bill also would allow specially trained pharmacists to issue the pill to women without a prescription.

Yesterday, the bill's House sponsors sent a petition signed by 56 representatives to Finneran, demanding immediate action on the bill. If the matter does not go to the House floor by the close of the legislative session, expected to be at the end of July, it will die. Six other states have similar legislation.

In Massachusetts, the Catholic Church and other abortion opponents have mounted a lobbying campaign against the legislation. An editorial in The Pilot, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese, said the bill "will oblige Catholic hospitals to cooperate with the evil of abortion" and labeled the measure "an attack on religious freedom."

"It's trying to force our Catholic hospitals to do something we shouldn't and couldn't do," said Gerry D'Avolio, executive director of the Massachusetts Catholic Conference. "It's trying to force a standard of care in emergency rooms not everyone agrees on."

A spokeman for Finneran, an abortion opponent, declined to comment.

Supporters of the bill say the bill is necessary to ensure that rape victims have quick access to the pill. The drug is most effective within 72 hours after intercourse. If the pill is taken within 12 hours of intercourse, the chance of pregnancy is 0.4 percent.

"We see women every year who were raped and not told about [the pill] and have an unintended pregnancy," said Petra Langer, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts.

A survey done by NARAL Pro-Choice Massachusetts and the Emergency Contraceptive Network found that 12 of the state's 71 hospitals do not provide the morning-after pill. Only six of those 12 hospitals were Catholic. In addition, 36 percent of the state's Catholic hospitals offered the contraceptive pill to those who asked, the survey found.

Representative Martin Walsh, a Dorchester Democrat who sponsored the bill, said: "The horror for a rape victim will never go away. . . . We don't need to add to the problems of that."

Walsh said he would like to see the bill moved out of the Ways and Means Committee and approved within the next five days, to provide time for the Legislature to override a veto by the governor.

Shawn Feddeman, spokeswoman for Governor Mitt Romney, declined to comment on the governor's position on the bill. "We'll have to review it when it reaches the governor's desk," she said.

The Food and Drug Administration approved the pill in 1999, and since then more than 2.4 million doses have been administered in the United States, according to Dr. Michael F. Greene, a former FDA official who appeared at a press conference held by bill supporters yesterday. In December the FDA decided that the pill would not be made available over the counter nationally.

According to Greene, the pill works like a birth control pill, blocking ovulation and preventing fertilization or implantation of an egg. It has no effect on women who are already pregnant, he said.

But under Catholic doctrine, preventing implantation is equivalent to abortion. The church's position is that preventive measures should be given to rape victims only if conception has not occurred. Any treatment that would interfere with a fertilized ovum is forbidden by church directives.

"They're trying to redefine pregnancy," said Darby Duffin, communications director for Massachusetts Citizens for Life.