Chilean leader sees "emergency contraception" as justice issue

Dec. 19, 2006 (LifesiteNews.com/CWN) - Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet has called her government’s program to distribute abortion-causing emergency contraception as a matter of social justice, despite the outcry from Chile’s political and Church leaders who say the program violates parental rights and is the first step to overturning Chile‘s constitutional protections of unborn life. The New York Times reports that Bachelet, “a feminist physician who used to practice pediatric medicine at public clinics in poor neighborhoods,” has argued for the distribution of free abortifacient contraceptives because “not everyone is equal and not everyone has the same possibilities.” She claims her duty is “to guarantee that all Chileans have real options in this area, as in others.” The coalition government under Bachelet has legalized the “morning-after pill”, also known as Plan B, and has ordered state hospitals to provide these high-dosage contraceptives free on demand to girls and women over 14 years old. The government has pushed ahead despite objections from the Catholic nation’s conservative and religious leaders who point out the high-level hormones in emergency contraceptives cause an abortion by making the womb inhospitable to a newly conceived human embryo, and thus would violate Chile’s constitutional ban on abortion.