Plan B or not to be, that is the question
Religious and Republican forces alike are hijacking government decision-making. Is it possible that the totalitarian Bush regime is also responsible for putting pressure on the Food and Drug Administration to keep Plan B, or the “Morning After Pill,” from being sold over-the-counter? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is still in the process of discussing over-the-counter status with Barr Pharmaceuticals, the maker of Plan B emergency contraception (ECP). According to the Planned Parenthood web site this issue is now more than 550 days old, and in that time women could have prevented an estimated 2.25 million unintended pregnancies and 1.2 million abortions if ECP were available over the counter. Millions of women have used Plan B as an emergency contraceptive because of many different reasons, such as a lack of preparedness or rape. No matter what the situation, Plan B should be available to any woman who needs it. For the most part, Plan B works by stopping ovulation so a pregnancy cannot occur. In some cases, if a woman was ovulating on the day she had unprotected sex, and an egg was fertilized, Plan B might prevent the egg from implanting in the uterus. Plan B is used to prevent an egg from being fertilized or from attaching itself to the wall of the uterus. In this way, it is not the same as the “abortion pill,” which is taken in the early weeks of pregnancy to end it. Emergency contraception cannot end a pregnancy once a fertilized egg has attached itself to the uterine wall. Plan B works in two doses. The sooner a woman takes it, the more likely it is to work, and it must be taken within 120 hours of having unprotected sex. Not as effective as other contraceptive paths, Plan B reduces the risk of pregnancy by about 75 to 89 percent when taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex. Women should also be aware of another form of emergency contraception. The IUD (Intrauterine Device) is 99.9 percent effective when inserted within seven days of unprotected sex. Underage girls should have access to the drug in the same respect as any other woman who goes to the supermarket to pick up a bottle of shampoo. Do we really want to keep any form of birth control away from these people? Sexually active underage girls should be provided with as many options as possible. Another argument in the newspapers recently seems to be the message that Plan B is sending. Some believe that message to be that they can now have unprotected sex whenever they want because the drug is available without a prescription. First of all, there are hardly more than a few people out there who really pay attention these so-called messages. And, those girls who will have unprotected sex simply because they can acquire Plan B are the very same girls who need to be kept from motherhood. There seems to be a renewed debate over whether pharmacists can refuse prescriptions on moral, ethical or religious grounds. On one hand, it’s easy to understand the plight of a pharmacist, faced with a moral dilemma. Sometimes it’s important to make a stand. However, when their moral, ethical or religious beliefs are causing them to act in a way that affects someone else’s likelihood of conceiving an unwanted child, their rights fly right out the moral window. Pushing personal beliefs on someone else is just plain wrong. This rings especially true when a woman comes to a pharmacy for a prescription that can’t wait for a pharmacist with an open mind to fill it. At some point, people need to stop trying to control others based on personal beliefs.
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