Feb 05 2010
Basic health care is such an elastic concept
Apparently it now includes easy access to Plan B in military clinics and hospitals.
After recommendations from the Pentagon’s Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee and a successful vote to include the morning after pill on the list of drugs that military facilities should stock, officials announced the Department of Defense will begin making the pill available in its hospital and clinics around the world. It’s the latest step taken by the Obama administration to reverse women’s health policies made during George W. Bush’s administration, and fulfills a request from 2002 by women’s health advocates. “It’s a tragedy that women in uniform have been denied such basic health care,” said Nancy Keenan of NARAL Pro-Choice America. “We applaud the medical experts for standing up for military women.”
Related posts:
- More on The Pill Share For your Pill files, an article about fewer women taking...
- When abortion endangers your health Share Some scary stats on abortion worldwide. NEW YORK –...
- Unclear on the concept Share I usually try to give people the benefit of...
Isn’t plan B a fairly common drug? I’ve got to say, it doesn’t really make sense to me why it would have been restricted in the first place. I mean, there is already an entire arsenal of birth control options out there, what is really the big deal about adding one more?
The issue being that plan B isn’t really contraception, in that it doesn’t prevent conception. It prevents an already conceived life from implanting in her/his mother’s womb. Also, from what I have read it seems that it’s not the world’s safest drug anyway.
This makes sense when considering how often women are sexually assaulted in the military.
@Amanda:
I am truly saddened by the fact that women are ever sexually assaulted, in the military or elsewhere. However, as the morning-after pill/plan B/whatever-you-choose-to-call-it causes an abortion (very, very early in the pregnancy, but still an abortion, and just as much of an abortion as a later one, in that it kills a life just as much as a later abortion kills a life), we have to call into question whether an abortion is a reasonable response to (specifically) a sexual assault, or (more globally) to a culture of sexual assault. I would put forth the argument that it is a band-aid solution, and a poor one at that.
Actually, Heather, it doesn’t appear that plan B is an abortifacient (see http://bioethics.catholicexchange.com/2008/08/08/45/ )
Truth be told, the Pill probably induces more abortions.
Now, I’m no fan of Plan B, and I certainly question the wisdom of letting a pill that has these levels of hormones be available without talking to at least a pharmacist. But I do wonder why a pharmacy on a military base wouldn’t be stocked with approximately the same drugs as a pharmacy in the USA.
I think it’s fair to say that all hormonal contraceptives potentially act as abortifacients as one of their 3 mechanisms. As I understand it, the early Pill was the least likely to act in this way, as it was stronger-dosed than today’s Pill/other contraception, which is more likely to act as an implantation-inhibitor.
[...] ProWomanProLife » Basic health care is such an elastic concept [...]