… that this isn’t going to turn out to be “good for women” after all?
OTTAWA – The emergency contraceptive pill Plan B will now be sold on the front shelves of Canadian pharmacies without any medical consultation after a landmark decision came down Thursday to make the drug more accessible.
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Andrea adds: Oh but Brigitte, clearly you missed the nightly news. It’s 95 per cent effective! says the broadcaster, who clearly did not have time to do anything other than rewrite the pharmaceutical company’s press release.
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Tanya explains: This was a smart move, right? On http://www.drugs.com, on levonorgestrel (AKA Plan B) they give the following directives:
“Use levonorgestrel exactly as directed by your doctor. If you do not understand these directions, ask your pharmacist, nurse, or doctor to explain them to you…
“Talk to your doctor and pharmacist before taking any prescription or over-the-counter medicines, including vitamins, minerals, and herbal products, while using levonorgestrel.”
Now that no one is required to consult either a doctor, pharmacist, or nurse, I’m sure every 15 year old scared stiff of being pregnant will have self-discipline to do so.
My favorite find, on HealthyOntario.com has to be:
“It can be harmful for people to take this medication if their doctor has not prescribed it.”
The big inconvenience here, I suppose, is that HealthyOntario.com will have to update its site to reflect NAPRA’s “landmark decision.”
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Véronique says: You know, this says a lot about the pro-abortion (or anti-children) culture our previous post was touching on. Here, we see that unplanned pregnancy is is to be avoided at such a cost that we are willing to forgo proper medical follow-up to ensure that no unplanned pregnancy goes “unadressed.” This move is so obviously anti-woman it should make feminists want to burn their bras all over again. What this decision tells women is: “we don’t care how sick you get taking Plan B, just as long as you remain sexually available and barren.”
This make me sick. Plan B side-effect sick.
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Rebecca does the math: 95% effective means 1 in 20 of the women who take this – without advice from a doctor or pharmacist, and therefore without any follow-up by a medical professional – will continue to be pregnant after taking Plan B. How many of these women will assume the drug “worked”, or avoid taking another pregnancy test out of sheer denial and wishful thinking, and thereby go without the medical care that they need? What are the effects on the fetus of taking Plan B if it doesn’t work, does anybody know? Are we going to have a wave of women and babies harmed by Plan B and its side-effects a year or two down the road?
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Tanya attempts to answer Rebecca’s question:
Even if the “morning-after pill” fails and a woman becomes pregnant, there is no increased risk to the health of the mother or baby, research suggests…
In studying the newborns… researchers did not find significant differences in the length or weight of these babies… Additionally, there wasn’t any increased risk to the “exposed” babies of having malformations.
The study authors note that since failure of the “morning-after pill” doesn’t appear to negatively affect the fetus, mothers pregnant with exposed babies shouldn’t opt for an abortion because they fear for the baby’s health.
These conclusions based on a study involving 116 women, 36 of whom used “Plan B.” Not exactly exhaustive or very large in scale.