There was a great editorial in the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/... this morning by Susan Wood, formerly of the FDA. She resigned to protest the continued refusal of FDA commissioners to allow Plan B to become a legal, non-prescription drug. Plan B is popularly known as the Morning After pill. Her editorial is more important that ever since states are lining up to prevent abortions for women (Missouri, Mississippi,South Dakota). Missouri also wants to allow pharmacists to stuff cotton in their ears and allow them to refuse to fill prescriptions for women who want the monring-after pill.
The whole article is excellent, from its title
When Politics Defeats Science to its final plea for sanity.
It's been nearly three years since the first application came in to make Plan B emergency contraception available over the counter, so that women, including rape victims, could have a second chance to prevent an unintended pregnancy and the need for an abortion. How many chances have we missed? I still can't explain what is going on here, and why women 17 and older are still denied this product in a timely way. When did adult access to contraception become controversial? And why have we allowed it to happen?
Plan B fans may remember the maker caved in and agreed the product would be only available to those over 17.
Wood states,
Over 98 percent of adult women have used some form of contraception. So what is the objection?
The objection is that birth control is violating the principals of the Roman Catholic Church. And the same controlling people who don't want anyone to use condems because they prefer you remain abstinant don't want women to have birth control. Fear of pregnancy will keep you chaste. Chaste like nice Republican girls like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson waggling their chaste bootie(s) on MTV.
Perhaps it is that posed by a small but vocal political minority that insists on labeling emergency contraception as abortion, or at least confusing the two. One of the main questions I hear is, "Does this pill cause an abortion?" In fact, the only connection this pill has with abortion is that it has the potential to prevent the need for one. Emergency contraceptive pills work exactly the same way as other birth control pills, and they do not interfere with or harm an existing pregnancy. Emergency contraception is simply a higher dose of daily birth control pills; it is not RU-486, the "abortion pill."
Of course, just as there are those who won't accept evolution for religious reasons, there are those who won't accept science indicating birth control pills don't cause abortions. Prevention Magazine writer Caroline Bollinger has an excellent piece on this topic as well entitled Access Denied. http://www.prevention.com/... reviews this controversy very well.
At the heart of the debate between anti-Pill forces and mainstream medicine lies a profound difference of opinion about when pregnancy and life begin. The long-standing medical definition of pregnancy, held by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, is that it starts not when an egg is fertilized, but when the fertilized egg implants in the uterine lining.
This distinction is practical: A pregnancy test won't show a positive result before implantation. "It can't be an abortion before there is a pregnancy," points out David Grimes, MD, a clinical professor in obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and one of the leading contraception experts in the US.
But anti-Pill doctors and pharmacists say life begins sooner, at fertilization. Sloughing off a fertilized egg, in their view, is a "chemical abortion."
"How many women know that if they become pregnant after breakthrough ovulation, these 'contraceptives' will almost always kill any son or daughter they've conceived?" asks the anti-Pill organization Pro-Life America on the group's Web site, ProLife.com.
Surprisingly, there's no science to back the theory that birth control pills really do discourage implantation. This claim, made by contraceptive manufacturers for decades, has never been proven, Grimes says. Even the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists agrees that it's just speculation.
98% of American women are comfortable using birth control. That is a lot of birth control comfort. That is a lot of uncomfortable women being told they have to play pregnancy roulette.
"Refusing women access to the Pill is a very disturbing trend," says Gloria Feldt, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America. "The war on choice is not just about abortion anymore. It's about our right to birth control."
The Prevention article brings the discussion down to the basic question, which people have been asking around the world about Bush's refusal to fund international family planning programs that discuss abortion or birth control. Bush stripped out a provisions requiring insurance companies participating in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to cover contraceptives.
But at what point does personal belief undermine public health? If more women lose access to hormonal contraceptives, rates of unintended pregnancy and abortions will rise in the US, predicts Beth Jordan, MD, medical director of the Washington, DC-based Feminist Majority Foundation, an advocacy and research group.
As Maryscott O'Connor wrote recently http://www.dailykos.com/... there are many situations where a woman takes oral contraceptives for medical conditions. There are over 20 such conditions. It is insulting and unhealthy to have to discuss the moral basis for your prescription with your pharmacist. Maybe if you want to take oxycontin for your stubbed toe. Perhaps pharmacists should just post a list of their moral values outside the pharmacy so we don't need to visit them and waste our time and money on them.
What should we do? Embrace this issue at the netroots.
We women denied our contraceptives have the right to make this a public issue.
Prevention notes that
After Lacey's story [detailed in the article] appeared in the Dallas Morning News, there was an enormous outpouring of letters from readers appalled by the pharmacist's actions. "This was a huge issue in our area, and we're a conservative community," says Emily Snooks, director of media relations and communications at Planned Parenthood of North Texas. "People here are still talking about it, simply because the vast majority of people in this country believe access to birth control is a basic right."
I say, take this to them on the anti-birth control issue. This is paternalistic, unscientific, poor public health policy and 98% of us think birth control is a good idea at some time in our reproductive lives. I am not suggesting we ignore abortion issues. But if abortion is to become illegal, they will take away birth control very quickly by conflating the two issues in this way.