Senior Vatican official Monsignor Elio Sgreccia wrote in Italy’s Avvenire newspaper today that the Roman Catholic Church considers emergency contraceptive pills an “abortion technique” and opposes their distribution to ethnic Albanian women who have raped at a Serbian army camp. Sgreccia urged women to separate “the act of violence suffered and the reality of new human beings who have begun their life.”
The U.N. Population Fund is providing emergency reproductive health kits to about 350,000 women in the region. The kits contain instruments for use in delivering babies in emergencies, pictorial instructions, emergency contraceptive pills for rape victims and a variety of other contraceptives.
Lawmaker Annamaria Procacci expressed her disdain and disappointment in the Vatican’s position, saying, “From the Vatican… we expect comfort for the suffering of women.”
