They claim that it is “emergency contraception” and any death to an embryo is coincidental.

They seem to have a sixth sense about whether conception has taken place.

And, what the “hey” if contraception has taken place, they are only thinking of what is best for…… for…… for……. for…….

Apparently many women long for the mythical “morning after” pill. Such a pill should be effective and have no adverse effects. Mothers can put them in their daughter’s orange juice in the morning, “just in case.” Well, it hasn’t been discovered. Just like the pill that will let you eat anything and lots of it without gaining weight.

I know these things. I take responsibility for my own health, and as I’ve mentioned before, I don’t use hormonal contraception at all. I don’t understand why you switch to lecturing me on obvious side effects, that I have clearly demonstrated knowledge of, when all I said was that I did not have the difficulty you predicted in securing an emergency supply of medication I hope never to use. The hospital near me is a Catholic hospital. I’m comforted by the knowledge that if I were ever raped and could not get to a doctor willing to prescribe the medication, I would still have access to it.

In the meanwhile, when contraception fails (as it sometimes does) there are women demanding “emergency” ……. What is the difference between the pregnancy being possibly averted at the last minute and the abortion pill a day or so later? As I stated before, it is a distinction without a difference.

Well, there are vast financial differences and, as I’ve mentioned before, I’ve never heard of a single case of a woman dying as a result of taking Plan B, which I can’t say for RU-486. The physical effects of medical abortion are more painful than the physical effects of Plan B. And, of course, there’s the obvious, where in one situation a child is not created and in the other a child is created and killed. I guess I don’t see a dead baby to be the same thing as no baby.

I never said there was over-use of Plan B. But in the hands of many women, it would be like taking aspirin.

You got your little stash. Now it is your responsibility entirely if you use it and suffer adverse reactions.

Apparently many women long for the mythical “morning after” pill. Such a pill should be effective and have no adverse effects. Mothers can put them in their daughter’s orange juice in the morning, “just in case.” Well, it hasn’t been discovered. Just like the pill that will let you eat anything and lots of it without gaining weight.

The abortion pill creates very, very harsh adverse reactions in many women. Other forms of abortion are physically and psychologically damaging as well. And yet, all of this is breezily treated as a mere “choice.”

The “choice” occurred when the woman did not abstain during her most fertile days of the month.

In the meanwhile, when contraception fails (as it sometimes does) there are women demanding “emergency” ……. What is the difference between the pregnancy being possibly averted at the last minute and the abortion pill a day or so later? As I stated before, it is a distinction without a difference.

What will the woman who demands and is able to acquire “emergency contraception”, yet turns up pregnant do next? Give up and have the child and be a wonderful parent?

I don’t understand why you can express such concern over the over-use of emergency contraception, yet you throw abortion out there as though it is a safer and easier option than not getting pregnant in the first place. I view hormonal birth control like cigarettes — I won’t touch it — but I view EC like a smoke-filled room in a house on fire: far stronger than a single cigarette, but necessary in hypothetical circumstances that I hope never to find myself in. I don’t like oral contraceptives or emergency contraception, but I like them a lot more than I like a high abortion rate; and I certainly like the idea of getting EC from a doctor in an emergency more than I like the idea of an unwanted pregnancy or, heaven forbid, an abortion.

I suggest you women talk with your physicians about Plan B. I will be shocked and amazed if you are given an “emergency” supply.

I have an emergency supply. I don’t ever plan to use it, but I got a prescription for it in case some situation should ever arise that would make me feel like I need it for some reason.

When you have failed to take responsibility for your own well being, it is not an “emergency.” It is the crisis of consequences.

I agree, but I do not think that every situation in which a woman would want emergency contraception results from a failure to take responsibility for herself. Many do, and those women bother me, but there’s not much I can do about them without preventing women who ‘deserve’ the medication from getting it.

Lets agree to disagree, you don’t have to answer my last post

“When you have failed to take responsibility for your own well being, it is not an “emergency.” It is the crisis of consequence

This is true. But then why is it the job of a dr to reign judgement down on who receives what drugs based on how they go their condition? Should a person who does extreme sports or participates in dangerous activies that may cause bodily harm, not be allowed pain medication or Emergency room treatment if he or were to injure themselves? Of if someone is riding a speed bike with no helmet and crashed receiving severe head trauma, should they not be given emergency services because they knew what could happen if they are on a speed bike with no helmet? Is an obese person who refuses to lose weight then developed diabetes to be denied insulin. Should a smoker who doesn’t quit or take any steps to quit be denied any medical care to treat ailments that has been caused by his or her smoking. Should someone who gets drunk not be treated if they give themselves alchohol poisoning? Should a pregnant woman not be given an epidural (pain medications) because she knew the consequences of child bearing(that it might hurt)?

Men should take responsibility to the max for their “wild oats.” But, biologically, women are the ones who pay the most for the fling. If that makes a woman angry, perhaps she should seriously consider having herself made barren.

This is true

However you make the assumption that not wanting a child now = not wanting a child ever in life. It took birth control because I wanted to have sex with my husband and we weren’t ready for chidren. Should I have been blocked from taking birth control(which by the way is essentially a lesser form of the hormones in Plan-B) perhaps because I know the consequenses of sex is pregnancy so I shouldn’t do anything to prevent that? Now should I refuse sex to my husband in a case like that? Or should I have made myself barren and thus never having the ability to have biological children again soley based on a short time period in the span of my marriage?

Every medication out there has the potential to do great harm when abused and not take properly. Meth is made out of innocent cough syrup.

EC should be regulated and not over the counter. A hookers or ‘loose’ woman who gets pregnant is going to have an abortion anyway. And they usually have multiple abortions which reck havoc on them hormonally and physically and is the cause of death of many a fetus.

Just as any drug that has the potential for abuse it is a Drs job to determine if abuse is taking place after administration of the drug ( I mean if she is coming in every week for a prescription then that should raise a red flag), not if the patient should be administered the medication in the first place based on something like whether she is married.

Women are blessed with the ability and responsibility of continuing the human race. If they choose not to risk pregnancy, they must take careful precautions. If a woman keeps rough track of her fertility times, she can abstain from coitus for a few days, which is the best form of contraception.

If the woman takes a risk on the viability of other forms of contraception during her peak fertility times, she also takes the responsibility of accepting the consequences.

I am opposed to most forms of abortion; particularly when it is used as nothing more than birth control. The abortion pill is therefore anathema to me. However, it exists and for the Little Mary Sunshines out there who want to get rid of the “parasite” it is a viable solution.

I suggest you women talk with your physicians about Plan B. I will be shocked and amazed if you are given an “emergency” supply.

When you have failed to take responsibility for your own well being, it is not an “emergency.” It is the crisis of consequences.

I suspect that many feminists do not like clear and precise language, because it harms their crusade.

Men should take responsibility to the max for their “wild oats.” But, biologically, women are the ones who pay the most for the fling. If that makes a woman angry, perhaps she should seriously consider having herself made barren.

Zakia, your non sequitur about pain killers is disturbing. Pain killers are addictive and cause nasty problems. Hormone abuse is in a league of its own. You should study it a bit on the net, Start with cancer.

I do not like abortion. But that is beside the point here. It won’t take Little Mary Sunshine very long to discover whether her romp in the hay has resulted in pregnancy. At that point, the FDA has made drugs available to her to “dump the hump.”

So you rather those women get pregnant and have abortions? And if you were a pharmecist would you dispense the abortion pill to a pregnant woman? Or as a Doctor would you prescribe it? Would you rather prescribe RU-486 than Plan-B?

I think understand your position in that you think if someone has sex they should pay for the concequences and it is the duty of the those that would provided EC to make sure these women do pay for the concequences, or rather they are not obligated to help her elude the consequences because of potential abuses?

I mean prescription pain killers, used like m&ms, have caused physical harm,has caused people to commit manslaughter, created a new drug trade, and addiction issues. Would you say the medical community should not supply pain medications to people anymore based on the above?

Yes, but accidents do happen. Hence the term ‘emergency.’ That you do not sympathize with a woman in an emergency situation does not mean that the situation doesn’t ever exist.

At that point, the FDA has made drugs available to her to “dump the hump.”

So you can understand why women would be cautious about taking a high dose of progestin, but not why they would want to avoid RU-486? Medical abortion is expensive, painful in multiple ways, and carries clear risks. Plan B makes many women nauseous, and carries risks as well, but to my knowledge the risks aren’t as severe. I have yet to hear of any woman dying from taking Plan B, although I admit I haven’t researched this thoroughly.

Not to mention, even if emergency contraception reduces the number of abortions by preventing ovulation, you don’t see that as a worthy goal? Why bother taking every step possible to prevent a pregnancy that, if it occurs, will be aborted anyway? I don’t like abortion either — that’s why I’m all for access to emergency contraception: I see it as distinctly different than abortion. The only similarity between the two things is that both prevent a baby being born; however, one depends on the creation of the baby while the other prevents its creation. I see a world of difference there.

As prejudiced as it may sound, “emergency contraception” is a selfish, meaningless, distraction when compared with the true ethical conundrums that confront the medical world.

Yes, how horrible that doctors are asked to prescribe medication that isn’t absolutely vital to the immediate survival of their patients. It will be nowhere near as large a distraction once it’s available OTC, so I guess that’s one thing you should be happy about with regards to this issue.

Plan B, if used like M&M’s by loose women and hookers will do them great harm. Are physicians or pharmacists expected to buy into that program?

This is why I do not wholeheartedly support the medication becoming OTC. Almost every single medication on the market today has the potential to do ‘great harm,’ and it’s the job of doctors and pharmacists to educate their patients about the risks of over-using medication. Their job is to tell so-called “loose women” what the risks of over-use are, but you seem to think that’s too meaningless a distraction when it’s the same courtesy given to any other consumer of any other medication on the market.

For those who want to end the pregnancy, what is the issue about catching it immediately before mitosis?

Do you have any evidence that Plan B ends a pregnancy? As I said, I have not seen any hard evidence that it prevents implantation.

Just how do you propose to use Plan B? Abuse of progestin is a ticket to a medical horror show.

No woman is “held hostage” by lack of access to Plan B. As you seem to know, Plan B is useful only during the height of the fertility cycle. If a woman is being so cautious as to know when that time is, she can certainly manage her coital affairs affairs accordingly.

Just because a woman presents herself as being at that sensitive time of fertility does not mean that she is not mistaken or dissembling.

Doctors, pharmacists and emergency rooms are all legally liable for prescribing or administering drugs without the necessary tests to back up their decision.

Plan B is there primarily for the incest or rape victim.

The time differential between coitus and the abortion pill is very short. Plan B is wedged into that short time span.

For those who want to end the pregnancy, what is the issue about catching it immediately before mitosis? I swear this all sounds like some kind of hang up over being free to have sloppy sex, but trying to escape having it fall into the realm of abortion. To me, it is a distinction without a difference.

I sit as a medical ethics officer in a medium/large hospital. We encounter all manner serious challenges that keep me in counsel with my counterparts throughout the country. Frankly, I would not give Plan B much time at all as the FDA has made it largely a side show since the approval of the abortion pill.

My issue here is with the concept of “emergency contraception.” It is a farce. Contraception fails. That is a fact. A broken condom is lousy contraception, but unless the fertility gods are at work, it is just a broken condom.

If Little Mary Sunshine is out there having “protected” sex at the drop of a hat and the protection goes awry, I do not favor having her run to the pharmacopeia to overwhelm the possible results. I see that as no different from douching with kerosene and arum root. If Little Mary Sunshine runs to the medical community to try to try to put Humpty Dumpty back together, she is only engaging in trying to suck an honorable community of healers into her travails.

I do not like abortion. But that is beside the point here. It won’t take Little Mary Sunshine very long to discover whether her romp in the hay has resulted in pregnancy. At that point, the FDA has made drugs available to her to “dump the hump.”

I meet with “sex ed” specialists more often than I would like. Sex is really very simple and has been accomplished for milleniums without any special instruction. However, there are those who wish to engage in blameless sex. Their out is that if their wombs get encumbered, society at large has some sort of responsibility to clear up the problem.

As prejudiced as it may sound, “emergency contraception” is a selfish, meaningless, distraction when compared with the true ethical conundrums that confront the medical world.

Plan B, if used like M&M’s by loose women and hookers will do them great harm. Are physicians or pharmacists expected to buy into that program?

In fact, if the female is suddenly anxious to prevent pregnancy immediately after coitus, she has to have a ready physician at hand to get her the Plan B progestin ASAP. That is not contraception by traditional terms. That is an extraordinary intervention to prevent/end mitosis.

But the function of the medication is not to prevent mitosis, rather to prevent ovulation. That’s why the failure rate of Plan B is so much higher than safer forms of contraception — if taken after ovulation, there’s not a whole lot it can do. It’s a gamble, but in an emergency situation, a gamble may sound like a decent last resort for some women.

I don’t necessarily think that Plan B should be over-the-counter, because I think that there’s a lot of room for abuse. But I think that, if making it OTC is the only way to make it readily available to women and not ‘held hostage’ by pharmacists or simply unavailable due to lack of access to medical resources, then that’s the lesser of two evils.

My battle with “emergency contraception” is that it turns the concept of contraception upside down.

Contraception is a contraction of two age old word forms: “conception” and the “contradiction” of conception.

Those who use traditional contraception are engaging in sex with the expectation of a very low failure rate. They should be well aware of the consequences of failure and also be psychologically and physically prepared for the consequences of contraception failure.

There is no emergency involved. “Emergency contraception” is a last minute, last ditch effort to prevent pregnancy.

Emergency contraception refers to that little span of time between coitus and fertilization. This is not an emergency at all. The abortion pill is now available, if the female is willing to court its risks. Beyond that, the abortionist is readily available in many places.

Many in our society have relied on abortion for ending the pregnancy. That is not a service that most physicians or any emergency rooms offer. Therefore, those using that last ditch method of birth control must go to abortionists.

In fact, if the female is suddenly anxious to prevent pregnancy immediately after coitus, she has to have a ready physician at hand to get her the Plan B progestin ASAP. That is not contraception by traditional terms. That is an extraordinary intervention to prevent/end mitosis.

Shall we have school nurses provide this service for girls who just got laid in the back of the auditorium?

What is the big push to bally-hoo “emergency contraception”? I suspect it is a pressure move to popularize another bullet in the “choice” arsenal.

It does put the emergency room concept under stress. I imagine feminists expect Med-Quick, Inova, etc. to offer this as an on demand service. Well, even if these services legally could offer the treatment, most women would conceive sitting in the waiting room! (Besides which, the failure rate of the treatment is far greater than nearly all forms of contraception.)

Can you identify one study that shows that EC works primarily — or even at all — by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg? I have never seen a single one. Every study I’ve seen observed no effect on uterine lining. It is most likely listed as a possible side effect on the medication primarily because, as you note, many things can prevent the implantation of a fertilized egg, and it’s safer to list it as a possibility for legal purposes.

I like Serge’s series on this whole issue: http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/2006/08/plan-b-emergency-contraception-review.html

You keep saying that emergency contraception is, in fact, emergency pregnancy prevention, but isn’t that the same thing? Contraception is a catch-all term for the various methods of pregnancy prevention. Thus, emergency pregnancy prevention could logically be called emergency contraception.