Church backtracks on threat to excommunicate Aquino

by abs-cbnNEWS.com with Agence France-Presse

MANILA, Philippines - Catholic bishops on Friday softened their stance that President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III could be excommunicated for promoting contraceptives.

Bishop Deogracias Yñiguez, chairman of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines public affairs committee, said that under canon law, a Catholic can be excommunicated from if he commits a serious offense against the laws of the Church.

He said a person excommunicated from the Church cannot receive any of the sacraments including communion.

"It's more of an interpretation of canon law. Excommunication is imposed on someone who deliberately commits that offense. Kung ang Pangulo, halimbawa, ay intensyon niya na labagin ang utos na iyon ng pananampalataya at gawin ang patakaran na ito ay he may be liable to excommunication," Yñiguez told ABS-CBN's Umagang Kay Ganda.

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Not abortifacient

Dr. Junice Melgar, executive director of the Likhaan Center for Women's Health (LCWH), said that contraceptives, particularly birth control pills, do not induce abortion.

Melgar said that just like any contraceptive, birth control pills are only used to prevent pregnancy but is not considered as an abortifacient, a type of drug that induces abortion.

The Church has been saying that the use of artificial methods of birth control is a form of abortion.

"In medical science, contraceptives are preventive [medicine]," she said, adding that birth control pills are labeled by the World Health Organization as an "essential medicine."

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