No more graphic example of that lack of understanding can be found than the message Pope John Paul II sent to Bosnian Muslim women who had been raped during the 1993 conflict. And, rather than giving raped women inaccurate information about what constitutes a pregnancy or characterizing aid workers as perpetrators of violence for offering voluntary emergency contraception, the church would do better if it respected both the conscience and moral capacity of women, including women who have been raped. Women can and do make good decisions about when and whether to bring new life into the world. Moreover, moral and policy discourse would be advanced if the church were able to acknowledge that these situations are morally complex, rife with respectable but differing views on reproductive biology and moral rights and responsibilities. There is no quick cure, medical or otherwise, for the devastation experienced by women who have been raped.
Emotional recovery is long and painful, if ever fully achieved.
Few women, even those in stable and supportive circumstances, feel they have the emotional resources to continue such a pregnancy. Let us not mince words, denying emergency contraception to women who have been raped is as coercive as the practice of forced abortion reported in China which church leaders criticize so vehemently. For the record, such experts as the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say that pregnancy starts when a fertilized ovum implants in the lining of the uterus, about six days after fertilization. Emergency contraception, which is simply two double doses of regular birth control pills taken twelve hours apart, works best immediately after unprotected sex and is effective only up to seventy-two hours after coitus. It is not prescribed for women who are already pregnant.