Pope gives OK to birth control to f ight Zika
It is a lesser evil than abortion, Francis argues
POPE Francis has supported the use of contraception by women who are threatened with the Zika virus, but he said abortion was an evil that could never be allowed.
The explosion of Zika cases has prompted some governments in Latin America to urge women to avoid getting pregnant and has fuelled calls for an end to the many anti-abortion laws in the region.
In response, the Pope said that abortion ‘is an evil in and of itself’ but he added that ‘avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil in certain cases, as in this one [Zika]’.
POPE Francis has hinted that women threatened with the Zika virus could use artificial contraception, saying there was a clear moral difference between aborting a foetus and preventing a pregnancy.
The Pontiff was asked yesterday if abortion or birth control could be considered a ‘lesser evil,’ when confronting the Zika crisis in Brazil, where some babies have been born with abnormally small heads to Zika-infected mothers.
The World Health Organisation has declared a global emergency over the Zika virus and its suspected links to birth defects. The virus has been reported in at least 34 countries, many of them in Central and Latin America. The WHO has advised pregnant women to consider delaying travel to Zika-infected countries.
The explosion of Zika cases has prompted some governments in Latin America to urge women to avoid getting pregnant and has fuelled calls from abortion rights groups to loosen the strict anti-abortion laws in the overwhelmingly Catholic region.
Pope Francis excluded abortion absolutely from the debate. ‘Abortion isn’t a lesser evil, it’s a crime,’ he told reporters. ‘Taking one life to save another, that’s what the Mafia does. It’s a crime. It’s an absolute evil.’
But the Pope drew a parallel with the decision taken by Pope Paul VI in the Sixties to approve giving nuns in the Belgian Congo artificial contraception to prevent pregnancies as they were being systematically raped.
Abortion ‘is an evil in and of itself, but it is not a religious evil at its root, no? It’s a human evil,’ he said. ‘On the other hand, avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil. In certain cases, as in this one [Zika], such as the one I mentioned of Blessed Paul VI, it was clear.’
The Rev James Bretzke, a moral theologian at Boston College, said the Pope’s remarks did not amount to any change, but were in ‘perfect consistency with the traditional moral teaching’ of the Church’.
Mr Bretzke said Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical, Humanae Vitae, which affirmed the Church prohibition on artificial birth control, allowed for some circumstances under which ‘contraceptive means’ could be used for treatment or disease prevention.
Angelica Rivas, of the Feminist Collective for Social Development in El Salvador, said the Pope’s remarks would not be much help since the Church in her country has consistently opposed sex education on the use of contraception, and birth control would not help the many women who were already pregnant. ‘ We have to give them the alternative of interrupting the pregnancy,’ said Ms Rivas.
Pope Francis has tended to downplay the moral preoccupations with sexual ethics that preoccupied his predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He has said the Church should not be ‘obsessed’ with such issues.
Coming home from Africa last year, Pope Francis dismissed a question about whether condoms could be used in the fight against AIDS, saying there were far more pressing issues in Africa, such as poverty and exploitation, and that only when those problems were resolved should questions about condoms and AIDS take centre stage.
Pope Francis did urge doctors to come up with a vaccine to prevent Zika from spreading. ‘This needs to be worked on,’ he said.
Several of Latin America’ s conservative churchmen have reasserted the Church’s opposition to abortion and artificial contraception as more reports of Zika cases and brain-damaged babies emerged.