Morning after pill
Previously posted on September 1 at: http://spaces.msn.com/members/evandodds/Blog/cns!1phaOgcvNsBxzvBN9Zpx1vbQ!179.entry
According to this article Susan Wood, women’s health chief at the FDA, has resigned in protest over the handling of the morning-after pill decision. Here’s the summary:
- A decision on whether the pill can be sold without prescription has been delayed
- It’s available today, but only with prescription
- The morning-after pill is NOT the RU-486 “abortion” pill
- The morning after pill is just a high-dose of the birth-control pill many women today take
- The claim is that it can only be sold without prescription to people > 17
- They don’t know how to enforce the prescription for <17 and not prescription for >17
- The scientific advisors at the FDA have said it’s safe and effective
- When taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it can lower the risk of pregnancy by up to 89%
- Commissioner Lester Crawford overruled the scientific advice to issue the ruling
In other news, conservatives who consider the pill tantamount to abortion were pleased with the decision
- “tantamount” means “equivalent in value, significance, or effect”
- “abortion” means “termination of pregnancy”
- The morning-after pill prevents implantation of the egg, just like a regular birth-control pill
- There is never any pregnancy to “abort” in this case
Therefore, it seems that the morning-after pill is not tantamount to abortion and this whole thing is probably derived principally of faulty understanding. I don’t like it when scientific decisions on health and reproductive-rights are decided on political grounds rather than the basis of science.
