…before there is an emergency.
On the surface, ‘Be Prepared’ seems like an infallible motto of expecting the unexpected. Championed by organizations like the Red Cross and Scouts, it’s a battle call of readiness. So when the National Health Service promoted access to the morning-after pill today under this banner, the save-the-day heroes of preparedness that marched in my mind came to a screeching halt.
Released just after the airing of the Marie Slopes advertisements on abortion services on UK television, the draft guidance feels like the second blow to an already crumbling attempt in Britain to support the alternatives to abortion.
It recommends that pharmacies should offer the morning-after pill in advance, particularly for those under 25.
They should be “advised that emergency contraception is more effective the sooner it is used” and that an intra-uterine device is more effective in an emergency but can also be used long term, NICE said.
The results of this ‘be prepared’ strategy are yet to be projected, but I’d bet my Girl Scout sash it’s going to be an increase in chemical abortions and unknown physical and emotional toll on the young women who regularly undergo them.
by 
Emergency contraception is just what the name implies — contraception.
It is not a chemical abortion.
Having emergency contraception at hand and using it in an emergency would prevent abortions not cause them. You’d think you people would approve of that.
In many instances the egg has been fertilized, life is inaugurated when the morning after pill is taken. Life, within many Christian and Islamic traditions is a mixture of actuality and potentiality. The living fertalized blastocyst has potentiality. The ending of this living potentiality is considered wrong for many Christians (Catholics, eastern orthodox) and most Muslims. It is a refusal of life, an instrumentalist domination (annihilation) of life in the name of utility.
This said, for some Christian and Muslim philosophers, while wrong, the annihilation of this life is less wrong than the ending of pregnancy (after the fertilized blastocyst is in place) which is itself less wrong then the murder of the baby later on. It may been seen as the lesser of two evils. I don’t see it this way myself but others do.
It’s the same slippery slope with any contraception. Does it force fertilized eggs out by making them unable to implant? We my never know.
The primary issue I have is the ‘ignorance is bliss’ method. That women, unacquainted with the ultrasounds of their unborn, taking morning after pills without knowing if they are in fact pregnant or not, create all of this distance between themselves and the act. A distance propagated by the abortion rights movement, that ultimately keeps women, and in this case teenagers, in the dark rather than educates and empowers them to any real choice.
Never mind that fact that a government agency telling teens to “stockpile Plan B” undermines parental input and allows too much room for the sexual victimization of young girls to go unnoticed.
Fern,
Here are some studies for you to read during your coffee break, that points out that the emergency pill does not significantely reduce unplanned pregnancy.
Why encourage use of a Pill that amounts to a placebo and offers false confidence for the silm possibility of not getting pregnant?
U.S. National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17077230
“CONCLUSION: This intensive strategy to enhance access to emergency contraceptive pills substantially increased use of the method and had no adverse impact on risk of sexually transmitted infections. However, it did not show benefit in decreasing pregnancy rates.”
American Medical Association
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/1/54
“compared with controls, women in the pharmacy access and advance provision groups did not experience a significant reduction in pregnancy rate”
The Cochrane Library
http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD005497/frame.html
“Advance provision of emergency contraception did not reduce pregnancy rates when compared to conventional provision.”
This is where I bang my head against the wall, but I’ll give it a go.
If you won’t countenance even the ‘less wrong’ as you see it way to avoid pregnancy, then the Holy Grail of this sort of conversation — ‘middle ground’ — is impossible.
Pro-choice people usually support many of the things you do — better financial and other support for women who do want to continue their pregnancies, more support for families who want to adopt, better health care for pregnant women — all that good stuff.
But pro-choice people think it is better to avoid pregnancy if one doesn’t want to have a child now or at all. Ergo, there should be better access to contraception and way better sex ed.
Your side is doomed if you won’t move on this. Women will not go back to the dark ages.
I’m not sure, as I read Jennifer, she’s critiquing anything other than the morning after pill. That is, abortive contraception (as it is understood by many millions of Catholics, Muslims and Eastern Orthodox people). For these people, abortion is the ending of life.
Because of this I’m not sure if “The Holy Grail” for speaking about abortion (for these many millions of people) is the “middle ground”. Once abortion is held as wrong, the deliberate ending of a life, then middle ground loses much of the virtue in which it is usually held in secular society.
This is, I think, an easy position to understand. An analogy would be the legislation in Uganda which advocates the death penalty for homosexuality. I think this is wrong. I’m happy to have a conversation with someone about it – but my aim in these conversations is not “the middle ground”! I don’t want to kill some but not others, nor do I want to not kill them but flog them until half dead! I want, rather, to convince the other person that murdering these people for homosexual acts is wrong, simple as that. Once we’re talking about life and death issues, conversation often has, as its holy grail, the saving of lives and not “the middle ground”.
One final point for Fern. If, by “dark ages” we’re speaking about the pre-modern, then we’re all glad to go back to the ‘dark ages’ on some issues. For example, only in the early modern does a person’s worth start to depend on the colour of their skin. We have huge amounts of texts from the pre-modern, and yet none indicate that skin color is the basis of someone’s worth. As J Cameron Carter shows in his recent book (http://www.amazon.com/Race-Theological-J-Kameron-Carter/dp/0195152794) racism is a modern development. We’re all yearning to “go back to the dark ages” in ending racism, the identification of a person’s worth with the color of their skin. We should consider that maybe not all of history is progress and maybe we in the modern secular West don’t have all the answers.
Personally I’d also like to see a context where couples took responsibility for their fertility in ways that didn’t commit to ending life after fertilization. I think this position is worth arguing for and I don’t think that anyone (in this case Jennifer) should be forced to surrender such a position in favor of some supposed “middle ground”.
The evidence does not show that MAP reduces pregnancies. From the pro-choice and world-contraception-guru James Trussells:
Obstet Gynecol. 2007 Jan;109(1):181-8.
Population effect of increased access to emergency contraceptive pills: a
systematic review.
Raymond EG, Trussell J, Polis CB.
Clinical Research Division, Family Health International, Research Triangle Park,
NC 27709, USA. [email protected]
OBJECTIVE: We systematically reviewed data on effects of increased access to
emergency contraceptive pills on pregnancy rates and use of the pills. DATA
SOURCES: We searched MEDLINE, POPLINE, EMBASE, and LILACS, and we consulted with
experts. METHODS OF STUDY SELECTION: We included studies that compared the effect
of different levels of access to emergency contraceptive pills on pregnancy
rates, use of the pills, and other outcomes. TABULATION, INTEGRATION, AND
RESULTS: Of the 717 articles identified, we selected 23 for review. The studies
included randomized trials, cohort studies, and evaluations of community
interventions. The quality of these studies varied. In all but one study,
increased access to emergency contraceptive pills was associated with greater
use. However, no study found an effect on pregnancy or abortion rates.
CONCLUSION: Increased access to emergency contraceptive pills enhances use but
has not been shown to reduce unintended pregnancy rates. Further research is
needed to explain this finding and to define the best ways to use emergency
contraception to produce a public health benefit.
@ Fern Hill
You said, “Emergency contraception is just what the name implies — contraception. It is not a chemical abortion.
Having emergency contraception at hand and using it in an emergency would prevent abortions not cause them. You’d think you people would approve of that.”
Traditionally, the definition of pregnancy had been defined in terms of conception. Now it is the implantation of the blastocyst (according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, 1972).
So you see, one can claim that a drug is not an abortifacient if one defines pregnancy at implantation of the blastocyst. One may claim that it is an an abortifacient if one defines pregnancy at conception.
This is how the pharmaceutical companies make claims that their drug, for example Plan B, is not an abortifacient. It may be of interest what the manufacturer of this product claims on its monograph:
“Emergency contraceptive pills are not effective if a woman is already pregnant. Plan B One-Step is believed to act as an emergency contraceptive principally by preventing ovulation or fertilization (by altering tubal transport of sperm and/or ova). In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium). It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun.”
(http://www.planbonestep.com/pdf/PlanBOneStepFullProductInformation.pdf)
So the manufacturer states, “In addition, it may inhibit implantation (by altering the endometrium)”. In other words, Plan B may cause the death of a newly-conceived embryo because it cannot implant itself in the lining of the womb. This sounds like a chemical abortion. It is for this reason, some South American courts have found the Plan B drug to violate an unborn child’s constitutionally-guaranteed right to life.
Death. Unborn child. We’re talking — at most — a two-celled organism. Around 20% of which are whooshed out without a woman taking any kind of drug.
So. Whatever. Talk amongst yourselves. There is no middle ground. I knew that. And just had it proven again.
Fern,
Putting discussions of two cells organismes aside:
“Having emergency contraception at hand and using it in an emergency would prevent abortions not cause them. You’d think you people would approve of that.”
The studies indicate that having the EC pill at hand DOESN’T decrease pregnancy rates.
Why spend money on something that doesn’t seem to work?
Chantal
*Sigh* There is no “middle ground” when it comes to protecting an unborn baby. So. get. used. to. it.
Regardless of my own feelings towards contraception (in any variant), the purpose of this post was to question the blind faith women and the public tend to have towards it. This is similar to the post I made previously on the pill.
In this specific case, as others have pointed out, emergency contraception hasn’t been shown to reduce pregnancy or abortion rates. So we have to wonder why a government agency is pushing for it to be ‘stockpiled’ rather than promoting the use of more traditional contraceptives.
In my own experience, birth control was something I first discussed with my parents. It seems to me, that getting large quantities of ECs prior to those conversations with parents may lead to those conversations never happening. Conversations I believe are important when women do find themselves pregnant, in order to understand the resources and support they may or may not have at hand.
The common ground is that all women on either side of the abortion debate ultimately want the same thing, and that is for women to never find themselves in crisis pregnancy situations to begin. The irony is that the pro-life movement wants this to be achieved by giving women significant choices and power over their social life, their sex life, their education, and the possibility to have children while doing everything else they wish to achieve. While the pro-choice movement wants this to be achieved medically, conceding that crisis pregnancies will happen anyway, therefor leaving the circumstances that bring women to the crisis pregnancy point largely untouched and unchanged. There is common ground, but the roads we take to get there are very different.
Great news! Canadian teen pregnancy rate is plummeting. Want to know why?
Hint: It’s not abstinence-only sex ed.
@ Jennifer: The pro-choice side wants to reduce unwanted pregnancies by ensuring women have access to the full range of choices — including pharmaceutical and medical.
Darn. Forgot the link. http://scathinglywrongrightwingnutz.blogspot.com/2010/05/plummeting-teen-pregnancy-rate.html
My two cents, late in the game. I am in the fortunate position of having been entirely in favour of contraception earlier in my life and now being entirely against.
The swing occured slowly.
It has to do with world views. It has to do with asking questions about what constitutes healthy sexuality. It has to do with the long game, not the short term. Most things do, the way I see ’em, anyway.
I think our Pill colloquium goes a little ways to discussing this more fully.
https://www.prowomanprolife.org/2009/07/07/the-first-ever-pwpl-colloquium/
Andrea, the colloquium is fantastic! Thanks very much for posting it here. I’m suggesting the colloquium to anyone with questions or concerns about the pill.
Also, just an older article to take into consideration when we’re talking about teens and statistics. There might be less of them around than in previous decades.
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2006/10/26/population-aging.html
Fern,
Check this out:
http://www.beststart.org/events/detail/bsannualconf08/presentations/PC1_1mckay.pdf
Canada’s teen pregnancy rate is plummeting because fewer 18-19 year-olds are getting pregnant. (Slide 3) 18-year olds are ADULTS and are well able to make their own decisions. Including the pregnancy rate of adults and minors together is somewhat misleading and disingenuous.
The 15-17 pregnancy rate also fell, but not to the dramatic extent that the 18-19 pregnancy rate did.
The truth is, that today’s teens are behaving better (and smarter) than they did 20 years ago. More teens are delaying sexual activity (slide 21), and are sleeping with fewer partners (slide 22). More teens are also experimenting with oral sex (slide 24).
I think the question we all have for you though is: why would you recommend Plan B as a contraceptive, when the overwhelming evidence is that it is (at best) marginally effective? If you are going to promote contraception, seems to me that it is best to promote the methods that actually work.
Melissa: I’m not recommending Plan B. I’m saying it should be available along with all the other kinds.
Emergency contraception hasn’t been around that long. Its impact will improve as more and more people learn about it and as it is more widely available.
I was young in the Bad Old Days and if something like Plan B had been around, I would definitely have a dose on hand.
“Emergency contraception hasn’t been around that long. Its impact will improve as more and more people learn about it and as it is more widely available.”
Nope Fern, here you’re just plain wrong.
Did you even read the studies that quiet footprints and rene posted? There is NO evidence that suggests that Plan B reduces the rate of unplanned pregnancy when used as back up contraception. Increased access to Plan B increased its use, sure, but the rate of unintended pregnancy stayed the same.
My concern with this is that young people, knowing they have this “emergency contraception”, will think they don’t need to worry about other types of contraception. If the morning-after pill doesn’t work very well, this will lead to MORE unintended pregnancies, not fewer. Why bother taking a birth-control pill every day or using a condom your boyfriend doesn’t want anyway if you can just pop a pill the next day and think you don’t have to worry about anything? I can so easily see people using this as their primary BC rather than a back-up plan- it just looks easier.
Not to mention that if this is all they’re using, they’re not getting any protection from STDs… Whether or not you believe this causes chemical abortion, I don’t see how this is going to help matters.
As for the link about fewer Canadian teenage pregnancies, I think sex-ed and contraceptives contributing to the decline is wonderful. I don’t see how more Canadian girls getting abortions equals fewer teen pregnancies, though. Fewer babies, yes, but not fewer pregnancies. They were pregnant. There’s still a lot of work to be done.