It was decided at the Swiss Catholic Bishops Conference that women who have been raped may use Emergency Contraception, echoing similar rulings made recently by German bishops. However, the Swiss bishops confused the issue by stating that EC can only be used when there is a contraceptive effect and not when it induces an abortion, incorrectly implying that EC pills may potentially cause an abortion. (Scientific research shows that Emergency Contraceptive pills only work by preventing fertilization from occurring, therefore even under the Church’s definition of pregnancy as beginning at the moment of conception, EC can only have a contraceptive effect and cannot induce an abortion.) The article reports that the Bishops’ decision to allow women who have been raped to use EC was based on the recommendation of the Conference’s Bioethics Committee and that “rape is an act of violence which transgresses the fundamental rights of women and cannot be accepted.”
