by Kimberly Blaker

Given that 1.4 million abortions result each year from unintended pregnancies, it’s high time that women have easy access to emergency contraception (EC). And if enough Americans become aware of it and stand up to oppressive religious types, it just might happen.

On April 21, Women’s Capital Corporation, the maker of Plan B®, a prescription EC, applied for over-the-counter status with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Despite the positive move, we can be sure that pro-life activists who consider birth control measures, such as oral contraceptives, to be abortifacients will put up major resistance to FDA approval. Ironically enough, anti-abortionists’ ongoing opposition to EC, and birth control measures in general, does nothing but maintain our nation’s high abortion rate.

Anti-abortionists oppose EC, often arguing that it induces abortion. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The FDA says that EC, which must be taken within 72 hours following intercourse, doesn’t work if a woman is pregnant. Rather, it delays or inhibits ovulation and/or affects the flow of sperm or ova and/or inhibits implantation.

Another typical anti-abortion complaint is the misleading and unsubstantiated argument of EC’s “unknown toxic effects”, as has been argued by activist Celeste McGovern. But EC is merely a concentrated birth control pill that has been safely used by millions of women around the world.

Just how important is access to this emergency birth control measure to reducing unintended pregnancy and, ultimately, abortion rates?

To start, between 1 and 5% of all rape victims become pregnant. Given that 306,000 women were victims of rape or sexual assault in 1996 alone, the number of pregnancies that would result falls between 3,000 and 15,000 each year. Yet, because few women report rape, they’re unlikely to obtain EC.

texas homeowners insurance More devastating, nearly 500,000 teens give birth each year. Besides poor access to contraception, teens often naively believe their likelihood of becoming pregnant is slim. Given this fact, few are willing to risk confessing their sexual activity to their parents, let alone make and keep an emergency doctor visit. One can only guess the number of pregnancies that would be prevented if teens could conveniently and discreetly purchase the EC.

And although a large number of pregnancies stem from failure to use contraception, nearly half of abortions are a result of failed contraceptives. Women are not always aware, but in many cases, a broken condom is discovered or the immediate realization that a birth control pill was missed.

But the issue with prescription EC is not just a matter of inconvenience or failure of girls and women to visit their doctor. EC is more likely to work the sooner it’s taken, within the 72 hour time frame. Yet getting a prescription quickly or even by the latter part of that small window can be difficult or impossible, as doctors are often booked, won’t call in prescriptions without a visit, or aren’t available on weekends or holidays.

The need for over-the-counter EC is something that both the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have recognized by endorsing a proposal for such.

When anti-abortionists begin ranting about over-the-counter EC and actively challenging it, we need to ask ourselves what’s their motivation. It can easily be summed up as a puritanical desire to punish anyone, including married couples of all ideologies, for having sex for any reason other than to procreate. I only hope that in the end, the ruckus they create will lead to greater awareness of its availability thus reducing the number of lives destroyed, particularly children’s, from unplanned and unwanted pregnancy.
 

Kimberly Blaker’s The Wall™ appears weekly. She is editor and coauthor of the The Fundamentals of Extremism: the Christian Right in America. Send your comments to Kimberly Blaker: TheWall@TheWall-OnChurchAndState.com  © 2002, Kimberly Blaker