RU 486 Users Risk Automatic Excommunication

Bishop Elio Sgreccia says use of it incurs "automatic excommunication", but Archbishop Fisichella refuses to concur
By Hilary White, Rome Correspondent
ROME, August 3, 2009

(LifeSiteNews.com) - When the Italian drug agency approved the sale of the deadly abortion drug RU 486 late Thursday night, senior Vatican officials responded strongly saying that doctors who prescribe it and the women who take it risk excommunication. The Italian Pharmaceuticals Agency (AIFA) said the drug, to be sold under the brand name Mifegyne, would not be sold in pharmacies and only be administered by physicians in hospitals.

Bishop Elio Sgreccia, a bioethics professor, author and former vice-president of the Pontifical Academy for Life (PAV) told Corriere della Sera newspaper, "This is a compound which kills the foetus and one much promoted by the pharmaceutical industry. It is an incitement to abort. It is absolutely unacceptable and leads to automatic excommunication."

He added, "First abortion was legalised to stop it being clandestine, but now doctors are washing their hands of it and transferring the burden of conscience to women." the rest