Morning after pill Plan B levonorgestrel

¶ … Morning After Pill

In May, 2004, FDA regulator's refused to make the morning-after pill more accessible by okaying it for over-the-counter sales (Gardiner, 2004). In 2005, Susan Wood, who was assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and the director of the Office of Women's Health, resigned her position in protest when commissioner Lester Crawford announced the agency would again delay easier access to the morning-after pill. She said, "I can no longer serve...when scientific and clinical evidence, fully evaluated and recommended for approval by the professional staff here, has been overruled" (Kaufman, 2005, p. 2). Normally, the FDA follows the advisory panel's recommendations. She believes the decision to obstruct easier access to the morning-after pill was the result of political pressure from the conservative right. Sen. Hillary Clinton accused Crawford of "making a political decision that ignored science and public health" (Kaufman, 2005, p. 3).

The FDA advisory panel believes Plan B. prevents pregnancy, but religious conservatives (and some members of Congress) believe its use amounts to an abortion. Clearly, it is unacceptable for public health decisions that affect all women to be made as a result of political and religious pressure. Harris said the agency was concerned about teenagers using emergency contraception without a doctor to supervise. But the FDA's scientific advisers overwhelmingly were in favor of easier access as a safe way to prevent abortions (CBS News, 2004).

Each year in the United States more than 800,000 abortions are performed. It stands to reason that abortion is the result of unwanted pregnancies. Unwanted pregnancies can be prevented by better birth control. If better birth control was available, there would be fewer unwanted pregnancies and not so many abortions. This makes sense; however, it's a fact that the people who are most strongly against abortion are frequently the same people who oppose birth control of any kind. The new availability of emergency birth control, that is, "the morning after pill" has caused the anti-abortion forces to swing into full gear again with cries of "immoral" and "irresponsible." However, for more than 60 million American women of childbearing age, more than half of whom wish to avoid pregnancy, the morning after pill is a product they need and want. In this essay we will explore what the pill is and how it works, answer some of the objections to it, and explain why it should be easily accessible.

Unlike RU-486, which causes an abortion to take place, the morning-after pill prevents conception (Moore, 2005). Doctors discovered back in 1980 that the risk of pregnancy could be reduced if a woman took four high-dose contraceptive pills (in two doses 12 hours apart) within three days of unprotected sex. The morning-after pill is a concentrated dose of progestin and estrogen, the same hormones found in birth control pills, but in a higher dose. If taken within 72 hours after intercourse, morning after pills are 89% effective for preventing pregnancy. Exactly how they work is not proven yet. They delay ovulation and interfere with fertilization and may prevent a fertilized ovum from becoming implanted in the uterine wall. Because of the possibility that the morning after pill prevents implantation of a fertilized ovum, some people think it is a form of abortion. They believe pregnancy starts at the moment of fertilization. This is the reason why anti-abortion groups are protesting its use and availability (The Morning After Sex, 2005). However, if used more widely in the United States, experts estimate that the number of unwanted pregnancies could be cut in half. Already, emergency contraception averted an estimated 51,000 abortions in the year 2000 alone.

Those opposed to the morning after pill say it is just another blow to families. Neff (1997), for example, complains that it was not manufacturers who wanted FDA approval for a morning after pill but "the so-called women's groups -- political advocates of a narcissistic individualism who want to sever sex and its pleasures from reproduction and its responsibilities" (p. 11). If this is so, if it was women themselves who called for emergency contraception, it shows that women want and demand control over their bodies and reproductive capacity. People like Neff would be against anything designed to intervene between unprotected sex and pregnancy. They like to say the woman chose to become pregnant by choosing the behavior that would lead to it (Sarler, 1996). The so-called "moral majority" does not like the idea of a woman "getting away" with "irresponsible sex."

However, not all failures of birth control are due to irresponsibility. A woman whose partner's condom broke during sex should have a second chance (a "Plan B" as the issue has come to be called) to prevent an unwanted pregnancy. Even if the sex is irresponsible and unprotected, young teenagers, for example -- would it really be better to let the girl become pregnant, later to become an abortion statistic or an unwilling, immature, unprepared mother? The opposition hates the idea that a woman can escape the consequences of recreational sex. They have a punitive attitude toward sex and especially they are against sex for fun. Medical, nursing, and family planning organizations are all in favor of emergency contraception (Ferriman, 1996). Why should the moralistic ideas of a few be forced on the rest of us? Nobody says they have to take a morning-after pill. This is supposed to be a free country. Sexual morality, birth control, and abortions are personal and private matters, and, in fact, the Supreme Court has ruled that privacy is a right that women already have -- a right protected by the U.S. Constitution to make their own reproductive decisions.

In the United States alone we could reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies by half with the use of emergency contraception. Moreover, by making it available over the counter, the time between the unprotected sex and taking the emergency contraceptive could be dramatically reduced. The sooner it is taken the better. If the sex happened on a Friday night, for example, the woman would not have to wait until Monday to get a prescription from her doctor. She could go to the pharmacy and buy it. The only people who oppose the morning-after pill are anti-choice groups who oppose all birth control.

Emergency contraception is extremely safe. A combined dose of four 50-microgram pills is only about 1/3 of the estrogen contained in a month's supply of birth control pills. Women in the 1960s, when birth control pills first came out, took 50-micrograms every single day! Other medicines, which were once prescription-only, have become over the counter medicines with no problems -- why not this needed product? Ferriman (1996) reports, "Nine out of ten women who have had abortions say they would have preferred to use emergency contraception if they had known about it." She also states that 70% of abortions could be prevented by emergency contraception.